The Life's Too Short Tour

Starting May 20, 2009, I rode a bicycle from New York to Los Angeles, as a memorial to my late cousin, pedaling 3,600 miles in 105 days. I kept this journal along the way:
  • Days 70 and 71: New Elevations









































































































    Salida, Colorado.
    Today I pushed high and deep into the Rocky Mountains. Tomorrow I climb to Monarch Pass, at nearly 12,000 ft to cross the Sawatch Range and the continental divide. Tonight I am at 7,000 feet, high enough to feel shortness of breath, here in a motel in Salida, Colorado, resting from a 60-mile ride through red-rock canyons along Route 50 from Canyon City.

    The ride provided spectacular scenery which went on for miles. Jagged and rocky hills, sheer cliffs of striated rock face, the whole scene dotted sparsely with scrub pine and cactus, and all converged around the rushing white water of the Arkansas River which wanders through it. Otherworldly, arid, nearly barren, the rocky scenes were strangely evocative.

    Exotic except for the traffic on Route 50, as cars and trucks buzzed me all day in a never-ending stream every bit as constant as the river. The beautiful landscape is like a museum, where awed before these ancient natural forms we can only ask "what was this like when it was still wild?" In the river were dozens of rafts rushing over the white water. Rafters were clad in life vests and helmets. Guides steered with a paddle at the rear of the craft, while the excited tourists made sounds not unlike those heard on an amusement park ride. There were whole trains of the rafts at times floating in between rocky banks no wider than a city street. The Arkansas River and its gentle fluent is the gem of this dry landscape, a gleaming anomoly and paradox in a land of sun-baked thirst. In the parched air nearly devoid of scent, save for wafts of heated pine pitch, I could smell the water in the same way one catches the scent of a swimming pool on a summer day.

    I kept looking along the cliffs for bighorn sheep but never saw any. In fact, I didn't see any wildlife the entire day. Instead my mind swam off in tangents of association the desert scenes evoked. There were gulches and cactus scenes where Clint Eastwood or John Wayne would have sneaked around or had shootouts or had campfires to cook up beans and bacon.

    There were some long descents. I coasted downhill once for several miles. These long downhill rides are not as easy as they would seem. A hard grip on the brakes has to be maintained to avoid reaching dangerously high speeds. The hands get sorely fatigued during a big descent while gripping the brake levers. Braking also must be done strategically. As the brake pad clenches the rim it heats up, causing the aluminum rims to potentially weaken and fail. An ugly crash could ensue should a rim fall apart during a high-speed descent. Braking on each wheel must therefore be alternated, front to back, to allow each rim to cool.

    On the roadsides were RV campgrounds, gift shops, fishing supply stores, small motels, rock and crystal shops, and state park picnic and fishing areas. Signs along the way sang out Rafting, Mountain Climbing, Gems, Gold Panning, Motel, Cabins, Bunkhouse, Bait and Tackle, and one for a tour of the suspension bridge that spans the 50-feet-wide, 1,250-feet-deep Royal Gorge which said Goodbye Earth, Hello Sky. There was also much commercial traffic on Route 50, tractor trailers, which rumbled along the narrow-shouldered road unceasingly, making me focus on balance and position on the road instead of loosely gawking at the scenes. I rode from Canyon City through place names of Buckskin Joe, Royal Gorge, Echo, Texas Creek, Cotopaxi, Coaldale, Vallie, Howard, and Wellsville. From people along the way I garnered various exclamations about the distance I have traveled. At Texas Creek I took lunch at a small cafe in a canyon, where several people asked about my trek. When I told them I came from New York City one man said "holy!" At Cotopaxi a motorist at a store said "that's amazing!" At a general store in Howard a woman said "that's insane!" At the motel I took tonight the receptionist said "wow!"

    Throughout the day the route climbed nearly 3,000 feet, so gradual as to be imperceptible. To climb 3,000 feet in the Appalachains would have been epic, monumental, but here the huge climb was merely an easy step enroute to the 14,000 foot heights the rocky giants reach. Still, the climb was felt by the end of the day. I had to push on hard at the end, into a headwind which had me in low gear even on downhill grades. After two months of bicycling I am honing the long-haul day, and to pump out 60 miles is all in a day's work.

    The weather here changes on a dime. Yesterday on the push from Pueblo to Canyon City I rode headlong into an approaching rain storm. I tried to outrace it, but when bristles of lightning began to hit nearby I stopped and hitchhiked for a ride. A man in a truck, named Mike, picked me up and took me the final miles to town as a torrent of rain and thunder exploded.

    So far I have not seen the snow-capped peaks. These giants of 10,000 feet don't seem as impressive when I myself am viewing them from 7,000 feet. Here on their shoulders the rocky peaks appear as if no larger than the Blue Ridges of Virginia. But the extremeness of the environment is apparent, undeniable, and I do struggle with some shortness of breath in the rarified air. The subtle lack of oxygen which followed me through the arid canyons today felt like extra weight was being hauled.
    .

    until later...

    more

Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)

Scenes from the Road:

Followers