We woke to a cold crisp morning... much to my surprise, my panniers and frame bag were covered in frost! It was hard to get warmed up and I kept all my layers on, including hat and gloves, for as long as possible. We amused ourselves during breakfast by attempting to compose songs about poop set to the tune of popular music. Not going to win any awards with our compositions, but after nearly a week on the road together, things had gotten silly.
I started the day with my arm warmers on despite the fact we were going to be climbing. The cool air quickly gave way to the sun and we warmed up quickly. We also made it to the summit in good time because we ended up taking the road. Ryan claimed it was because we missed the turnoff, but he also wasn't super motivated to go back and find it. I was fine because it was too early for traffic and I do like descending on pavement for the sheer speed sometimes.
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| Frost! Glad to have my hat and gloves. |
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| Obligatory summit headstand. |
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| Photogenic flowers and views of the road below us. |
We went screaming down the other side so fast that I had to stop and put my arm warmers back on because the wind was so cold! This is one of the descents that you can hit pretty fast speeds on a fully loaded touring bike because of the extra weight. I relished the wind in my hair and easy rolling that only pavement can provide. Even though I love dirt, I can appreciate this about road touring.
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| Pavement isn't too bad when its this empty and with this view. |
After a while, the road was wearing on me mentally. I tend to zone out on pavement and the miles blur by. On dirt, my brain has to stay engaged because I have to stay aware of sand traps and ruts. The miles go by more slowly which allows me to enjoy the scenery. The road is more quiet so wildlife is more abundant. Ryan owed me a favor for the pavement miles so we flipped back to the dirt road for a couple hours before getting into the town of Stanley. This last section of dirt before Stanley was some of my favorite because it felt like cross country mountain biking on easy singletrack, with lots up quick up and downs and winding around a ridge until the trail dumped us at the Salmon river.
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| Once we got back on the dirt road, we saw countless herds of pronghorns. |
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| We saw a bunch of fisherman out here... one guy was bringing his days' haul of salmon in and we admired his fish. |
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| Parked outside the saloon in Stanley... time for happy hour until its bearable to ride again. Our bartender had a lucky day winning $600 in the video slot machine game. |
We took our time eating a late lunch and getting more provisions. We also had a decision to make... would we try to do the entire loop or would we cut the trip short? We were pretty much on our target of 42 miles a day average because of the time we had made up on the road, but Ryan was getting travel weary with the heat, climbs, and dirt. Although I really wanted to do the full loop, this was already an amazing bike tour, and I didn't want Ryan to get to the end of it hating life. So I told him we would go with his gut instinct for what he wanted to the rest of the tour to be. We settled on taking the Lohman cutoff (more pavement...sigh... but at least downhill-ish) back to Crouch, but then biking the dirt roads back up to Crouch where my car was parked, so we could end on a high note for me.
Since it was Friday night and a big concert was going to happen in Stanley on Saturday, we knew we had to get a bit away from town before we would find decent camping. We ended up biking about 15 miles before we got to the small but picturesque Thatcher Creek campground. For the first time on this trip, the mosquitos were pretty bad, but we amused ourselves by making a game of killing them, drinking some whiskey we had picked up in Stanley, and waxing philosophic about life. Ryan had the best dinner of whiskey, sunflower seeds, kale, and dried cranberries... I think he is ready for his new life in Los Angeles.
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| Fun skeeter killin' times as the sun sets. |
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| A lil bit o' Black Velvet helps make the mosquitos more bearable... right? |
A few travel notes for bike tourists:
The first 3 or 4 campsites on the way out of town were chock full of RVs. Also note that not all campgrounds have water pumps or water sources, so we researched which ones did have water while we had some cell phone service in Stanley. Thatcher Creek campground is just far enough out there that we had good luck getting a spot. It is a tiny campground with 5 sites and a water pump. There was one RV here and a dad and his two kiddos pulled in after us.
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