over the rockies to boulder
written on the evening of august 13th
boulder pretty much rocks. lots of outdoorsy hippie types. there’s tons of bike paths and a wild creek running through the city and a big pedestrian-only area downtown and lots of delicious food. right now i am sitting in a grassy park listening to a band cover led zeppelin at a free concert (seriously, there is wifi EVERYWHERE). a. is joking that i will never leave. he leaves tomorrow to fly home to portland, load his stuff in a van, and drive to his new home in berkeley to start his phd program. i leave at some point to conquer some fears and pedal headlong into my future, whatever it might be. in the meantime, here’s some catching up and photos…
walden to hot sulphur springs–over willow creek pass–
(this guy got himself stuck to my tire)
(in i-can’t-honestly-remember-what-tiny-town, someone had peeled up all the center lines from this newly-repaved road and made them into greetings)
(blurry photo of our eighth continental divide crossing. in colorado they specify which side is which!)
(is this weird geology or is it man-made? in the middle of nowhere?)
we camped for free in hot sulphur springs about half a mile down a dirt road in some kind of city park. ran around doing laundry and so on, chatted with a woman at a burger-and-shakes stand about bike touring and the santiago de compostela pilgrimage, and then headed to the hot springs (of course!). they were nice–24(!) different pools with various temperatures and mineral concentrations, some indoor and some outside–but pricey! $17.50 per person for a day pass. in the hottest pool, we met a guy named ted from denver who bike toured when he was younger and who offered us a place to stay in denver if we need it. there’s really nothing like traveling this way to convince you that people are fundamental generous and good. that’s the truth. fear is the biggest hurdle between us and the amazing world we could live in.
in the morning we ate breakfast at this place:
yeah, seriously. but the service was super-friendly and the food was pretty good. my french toast was more-or-less deep-fried. yum. we also met a young couple from england who were westbound on the transam. we recommended enthusiastically that they stop at the hot springs in saratoga.
(rocks from the hot springs in saratoga; ring tarnished from hot sulphur springs)
hot sulphur springs to grand lake–a pretty short riding day–
in grand lake we completely spoiled ourselves in preemptory celebration of our climb up trail ridge road–bought delicious crepes and huge glasses of sangria at a wine bar, after which, tipsy, we played 18 holes of mini golf down the street (i won).
needless to say we failed to wake up as early as planned the next morning. which was just as well ’cause it was c-c-c-cold! frost on our tent and bikes. but for the climb itself, oh boy did we get lucky with the weather–it was perfect! first sunny storm-free day in weeks, apparently.
(hell yeah–here we go!)
(the colorado river!)
(living sod roof on an ice cellar at an old homestead site in the park!)
(the red/purple color of many of the trees, by the way–and this has been true for several states now–is due to bark beetle infestation. the trees are weak, often because of decades of fire suppression that have allowed them to get much older than they otherwise would, and the beetles flourish. but since they only infest weak trees, it’s more or less a natural ecological process, etc, just unnaturally widespread due to suppression of natural fires.)
(the wind is so harsh that branches can only grow on the leeward side of trees)
(estes park in the distance!)
the first people we met in estes park:
1. a man who rode the transamerica in 1976, the first year, when it was the bikecentennial route
2. a couple from kansas city who dug out their road atlas to give me route ideas and then offered me a place to stay should i pass through kansas city
!!
estes park is a beautiful town, with mountains surrounding it on all sides. we spent the morning in a coffeeshop writing postcards and so on and then hanging out in by the river that runs through town. then we headed off towards boulder–a few miles up out of the valley and then down, down, down all the way to lyons. so much fun!
(a. waves goodbye to the rockies)
we stopped:
1. for black cherry cider at the colorado cherry company (or something like that)
2. at a winery tasting room on the lovely grounds of an inn of some sort, for yummy wine and a bottle for later
yum.
we ate some lunch in lyons (bread, cheese, and fruit mmm), a town about 16 miles from boulder with a good vibe.
(wind sculpture)
heading south towards boulder, the mountains were to our right and to our left the plains began, stretching out so flat to the east that i kept glancing that way and believing for a moment that i was looking at the ocean.
(suicidal grasshoppers are abundant along shoulders in colorado as well… and apparently they eat their dead, which might help explain why they keep coming onto the road even though they die there)
and we made it!
end of the road for a.
—
now: a. is back in portland; i am outside of loveland. as always, more later…
we’re, like, so high
hello from estes park! yes, we made it over trail ridge road! actually, we totally rocked it. the mountains were freakin’ beautiful, the people we awesome, and we didn’t have to walk at all! (except on lovely little trails off of the road, of course.) we are so strong and fit, we’ve decided we’ve graduated from “team slow and unsteady” to “team slow and steady.” we’re okay with being slow–it gives us more time to look at the scenery! and when you’re still biking into the evening light, oh my gosh, it is exquisite.
our highest point, on one of the little foot trails across the tundra off the road, was over 12,300 feet above sea level. on the downhill bits, when we could spare the breath, we sang “we are the champions.”
best day of the trip?
(our ninth crossing of the continental divide)
(they sold these t-shirts to tourists who DROVE trail ridge road… what?? congratulations, you didn’t drive off the road. i bought one–my purple t-shirt is getting some holes anyway–and wore it all the way down to make ‘em all feel lazy)
(as it got colder and windier, we got pretty ridiculous with our layering. this is bike tourist style!)
bonus pika–
approximately 36,000 gorgeous photos (if i may say so myself) of mountains coming soon (and all those wildflowers and stuff that i promised you).
lots o’ love,
stacia
windy wyoming to colorful colorado
yesterday we made up a team chant:
me:
i am slow and he’s unsteady!
a.:
she’s unsteady, and i’m slow!
tutti:
together we’re team slow and unsteady
for mountain passes, we’re sure not ready
most of the time, we’d rather go to beddy
but look out! ’cause team slow and unsteady
will make it someday…
and eventually we did make it over willow creek pass, which actually was not too bad at all and took us through our first forest since grand teton national park… very nice to be back in the trees!
but i’m getting ahead of myself. we’re in colorado! which has a great big satisfying welcome sign at the border:
before all that, though, we rode south from lander. TWO storms our first day out–we sat out the first one at a little rv park with a nice inside area with a couch they let us hang out on, and the second one didn’t hit until we’d made it to our campsite. we fought the wind all day. anyway, you wouldn’t know it from these photos:
we spent the night in sweetwater station, which is not much of anything, but is home to a historic mormon handcart site, complete with camping and a little missionary establishment. definitely takes the cake for most bizarre place we’ve camped so far. they get mormon kids to come out in the summer and camp and actually pull handcarts on, i guess, part of the historic mormon trail. plus, all the kids wear pioneer clothes, sort of. it was great; i shared the women’s restroom with teenage girls with braces wearing flannel pj pants underneath their long skirts and aprons. everyone was very nice and they mostly left us to ourselves.
(home sweet tent)
the next day was a long one (85+ miles) to rawlins.
jeffrey city is about 20 miles past sweetwater station. we’d been hearing for weeks about jeffrey city… mostly, “avoid it.” it used to be a booming uranium mining town, but when that boom went bust in the early 80’s, it went from being a town of 4000 people to a town of not very many at all. everyone told us the owner of the cafe (the only game in town) was pretty hostile. we mostly just rode on through, but it was interesting to see a different kind of ghost town.
then…
(split rock)
somewhere in here when we stopped for a snack near muddy gap, we met westbound cyclists stephen and erica, who, like (i swear) at least half the young westbounders we’ve met, are moving to portland (from virginia in this case).
another continental divide crossing–
in lamont, home of not much other than “grandma’s cafe” (we got a milkshake), we met rita, badass solo female cyclist who left yorktown, virginia, on july freakin’ 7th. impressive! and check out her homemade rear panniers…
yet another continental divide crossing–
in rawlins, we met a few other bike tourists, including a guy who is biking to palo alto with, apparently, all his earthly possessions (he had four panniers and a huge trailer). also aidan and amanda. aidan is from ireland and is on an epic around-the-world journey; he’s been all kinds of amazing places. his blog is at acousticmotorbike.com (i love it)… check out his photo of the storm that hovered near our campground at sunset (scroll down on that page).
the next day we went to saratoga. we had to ride on the interstate for about thirteen miles from a little outside of rawlins, but it wasn’t too bad–big, wide shoulders with rumble strips between us and the huge trucks that rushed past at 80 mph. a lot of getting over fears seems to be desensitization. a couple more thunderstorms and i’ll be totally over ‘em.
(instead of “next 5 miles,” it should say “throughout wyoming”)
saratoga was wonderful, as mentioned. sorry no photos of the hot springs. you’ll have to take my word for it that they are WONDERFUL. did i mention that they are totally free and open 24 hours a day?
ahem. wyoming, where even the grocery stores are full of taxidermy:
it really was a perfectly ordinary grocery store otherwise.
in the morning we pedaled off towards the border. in riverside, wyoming, we met another eastbounder(!) who seemed to have very little interest in chatting with us. our first unfriendly transam-er! oh well. he passed us not too far out of town and we haven’t seen him since.
unfortunately the wind did not cease abruptly at the state line, but the scenery did change pretty quickly…
and the mountains!!
met another epic bike adventurer, ben, not too far from walden, where we camped in the city park for the night. his blog: ben voyage… like bon voyage, get it? i love puns. actually, there have been some pretty great puns on this trip. they don’t shy away from them in small towns. one of my favorites: wildflour bakery, in lander.
walden has seen better days but manages to support not one but two thriving liquor stores. and, of course, a cafe with an antler chandelier:
i’m gonna leave it at that for now ’cause we ought to head on to grand lake pretty soon. here’s what you have to look forward to in the next installment of our big bike adventure: wildflowers galore, our eighth crossing of the continental divide, hot sulphur springs (oh la la), a cafe called the glory hole, and a chain of convenience stores called kum-and-go (you can’t make this stuff up).
we’re off route today and for the rest of a.’s trip–we’re riding up to grand lake today and then tomorrow we’re taking trail ridge road through rocky mountain national park, over a pass that’s over 12,000 feet (highest paved pass in north america, or so we hear). we have been psyching ourselves up for it for weeks, since we got the idea to bike to boulder (rather than put a. on a bus to denver in some tiny town somewhere). we’ll stop either in estes park or lyons tomorrow night and go to boulder the next day. we’ll hang out there until a. goes home, and then i’m going to bike up to loveland to visit my friend k. on the farm where she lives and works. from there, i’m not sure how i’m getting back to the transamerica trail… i’ll figure it out. seems like forever from now! but we’re almost to boulder, really. dang.
springs
we weren’t going to stop here in saratoga, wyoming–we were going to go all the way to riverside today–but once we turned south the wind was just awful and my knees have been bothering me besides. so we stopped in saratoga and treated ourselves to a motel room (the campground is way on the edge of town), watched pulp fiction on tv, and walked the couple blocks to the saratoga hot springs. it’s got two concrete pools: one warm, one hot hot HOT with an even hotter little pool at one end, defined by rocks around it, that’s theoretically 120 degrees or so… we didn’t even dip our toes in that bit. and then there’s hot water running right into the river that runs right by the pools, and they’ve got rocks and sandbags creating little pools right there in the river that are Perfect, and the sun set while we soaked and chatted with a contingent of kids and adults from a taekwondo camp down the road, milo from laramie, and rosemary and joe from boulder (who offered us a place to stay when we get there). so glad we stopped!
more later (it’s always “more later”)… ’cause we took a short day yesterday, we’ve got a long-ish day today, to walden, colorado, and we’re trying to leave early to beat the wind.
oh, wanted to say thanks to liz, mom, grampa and bami, and alice for the general delivery goodies and postcards in lander. much appreciated! if by chance you sent something and you’re not on that list, let me know; someone told me i can get things forwarded to another post office for free.
also, i remembered this:
I returned to stalking the wild universe.
Final question, if you please. How do I stop being afraid?
‘Know that there is no safety anywhere. There never was and there never will be. Stop looking for it. Live with a fierce intent to waste nothing of yourself or life.’
There was one final message.
‘Turn fear around. Its other face is excitement.’
(from PiHKAL)
repeat as needed.
yup, i am pretty excited, too.
lander, wyoming (and Fear)
dubois to lander–
(crowheart butte)
(mean ol’ thundercloud)
we met two solo cyclists this day. the first had taken his sweet time–he left from virginia in early may and was having the time of his life. the second had managed to get here in 40-some days but was not having so much fun and was actually trying to figure out a shortcut to the coast (skipping montana). “i’m not really much of a cyclist,” he said. i guess he was lonely.
there were also hundreds of grasshoppers on the road. when we cycled down the shoulder it was like parting the red sea as they jumped to escape our wheels. some of them seemed pretty determined to jump into our spokes, though, and i’d say that at least 70% of the ones we saw were dead.
and, of course, the storms… you guys, thunderstorms are really scary! especially when there’s nothing but distant hills and you’re the tallest thing around, rolling along on a piece of metal. according to the folks we met in grand teton, someone on the transam trail was killed by a lightening strike earlier this summer. um, not sure how to corroborate that, but it sure gives me the shivers. seems like there’s been a thunderstorm daily since we’ve been in wyoming, though at least they’ve often been in the evening when we’re in or near shelter. i fear(!) that my fears will be downright paralyzing when i’m on my own. aren’t there, like, tornadoes in kansas? this is my biggest struggle right now. ALL the fears. what is rational and what is not?
i get my horoscope from rob brezsny in my email every week; regardless of what you may think about astrology, he’s an entertaining writer and he always gives good advice. yesterday i got this from him:
CANCER (June 21-July 22): August is Banish Your Superstitions Month,
Cancerian. To celebrate this auspicious festival, purge yourself of every
irrational belief and unfounded fear you can stand to live without. But also
keep in mind that you may have to keep a crazy delusion or two, at least
for a while. You’ve become so used to your chronic anxiety that it might
be risky to get rid of it all at once. So proceed deliberately, casting off
one false belief today and another quaint fallacy tomorrow and a third
rotten figment of your imagination next week. By September 1, you may
be surprised to see how high you’ve ratcheted up your level of
fearlessness.
yes, this is an obvious and immediately applicable thing for me to work on. but really guys, these thunderstorms are nuts. i don’t wanna be electrified. except in a metaphorical sense. and bears, oh wow. and so on and so forth…
when i get done with this trip, i want to take a wilderness first responder (wilderness medicine) course. i had a dream a week or so ago about it–well, i dreamt i was acting as a medic with only my expired lifeguard certification to help me–and that plus the fact that i was actually sort of wanting to take one this spring but decided against spending the money it costs suggests to me that i should. plus i feel like it might help me get a handle on my fears, and since i have all kinds of travel ideas and dreams and wilderness-y ventures swimming around in my head at the moment… well i don’t want to be afraid, and i think it would help to learn some worst-case scenario coping mechanisms, so instead of thinking “i’m going to die,” i can think, “i’m going to elevate this limb and apply pressure…” or whatever. right?
in the meantime, though, i sleep with my bear spray and my cell phone.
friends and readers, how do YOU deal with fears of the rational and irrational varieties that threaten to keep you from doing something you really want to do?
anyway. we’ve been in lander since sunday evening, staying with a couchsurfing host, juan, at his “junkyard museum and home for retired bums.” we spent monday hanging around lander at the city park and at a coffeeshop that serves stumptown coffee and plays indie rock music… a little bit of home in the middle of wyoming!
lander is also the home of nols (national outdoor leadership school). we visited their headquarters and picked up a copy of their trip catalog and now my daydreams are full of patagonian backpacking expeditions and rocky mountain horsepacking(!) and so on… (see what i mean? i just wanna get past my fears and into the life of my dreams.)
turns out there’s no tourist-y horseback riding or river rafting to be found (it’s not enough of a tourist town. maybe we can find something in colorado), but everyone kept telling us we should go visit sinks canyon, eight miles outside of town, so yesterday we did.
on the way out of town–
the canyon–
sinks canyon is so called because the popo agie river at one point in it disappears into underground fissures (the “sinks”) and reappears a quarter-mile downstream several hours later (the “rise”). the pool of water at the rise is full of very happy trout–fishing is not allowed, and tourists like to throw food to them off the observation deck (there’s even a little fish food vending machine).
the sinks–
(uh, dang. check out my calves)
heading back into town–
tetons, togwotee, thunderstorms, oh my!
curled up in my tent while the storm moves in. a.’s at a lecture at the local history museum, but i ran home when the wind whipped up ’cause i’d left some laundry draped on a picnic table. we spent the day in dubois, wyoming–been here since yesterday evening. we’re ahead of schedule (due to a route change–we’re gonna ride to boulder and possibly denver, via rocky mountain national park and trail ridge road, over the highest paved pass in north america, or something like that) so we’re taking it really easy… we’re actually planning to spend two(!) days in lander after we get there tomorrow evening. i want to maybe go horseback riding and/or river rafting. depending on the weather, i guess. the storms seem to only come in at night.
all right–grand teton national park–
there’s a spur on our route to jackson, wyoming, for those who want to see more of the park and check out jackson. we planned on taking it, and then i lost our park pass (whoops), so we would’ve had trouble getting back in without paying again once we went out to jackson. then we planned on going partway down the spur, to moose or jenny lake (both still in the park). then we stopped to buy some food and make some lunch at colter bay, less than 40 miles from grant village, where we’d spent the previous night, and met some awesome westbounders, nick and mac. we ended up sharing a campground with them and their loose group of fellow travelers. mac is also carrying a ukulele! but as she put it to someone else who asked her, “after a long day of riding you mostly just want to make dinner and go to bed.” may or may not send our uke home with a. when he leaves. it might be nice company when i’m solo.
anyway, had a fun evening hanging out with them and their friends, and set off in the morning for dubois, skipping the spur entirely. obviously in retrospect we had plenty of time to ride some of it, but it’s nice to be taking it easy, too. when we got to west yellowstone, i was so very very tired–an easier week or so = awesome. we saw some gorgeous views of the tetons anyway.
(a., nick, mac, rich)
(mac)
there was a badly-organized indian arts museum in colter bay, with a little bit of noble savage stuff goin’ on in the descriptive blurbs. i have a lot of thinkings saved up about imperialism and stuff that i might write about after a. leaves and i have all kinds of time alone with my thoughts and my netbook. they did also have a little craft demonstration area, with indian artisans working on pieces and offering them for sale. there was a woman there who was weaving. i really enjoyed watching her work.
(thistle)
finally we left the tetons behind us and began the climb up to togwotee pass. first we stopped at a ranger station to fill our water bottles, and two rangers there were chatting about the grizzly attack in yellowstone. a. asked, “does that kind of thing happen often?” and the ranger said no, but proceeded to nonchalantly scare the shit out of us anyway with various tales of attacks and maulings. off we headed into the woods.
this was our longest climb since mckenzie pass, but it wasn’t too steep. after we got to the top, we ran into construction, and we actually had to ride in the back of a pilot truck down a few miles. totally unfair! nick and mac had told us about the construction–they’d gotten a ride UP the mountain, and got to coast on their bikes down! it was kind of fun anyway to bounce along in the back of a pick-up truck (brought back fond memories of puna).
we still got to ride fast all the way into dubois.
ate an entire 16″ pizza (really yummy! at a place called paya), played with the puppy staying at the campsite next to ours, did laundry, went to bed. did not set an alarm! woke up early anyway. darn it.
today we visited the “FREE JACKALOPE EXHIBIT” at a local gas station/general store,
(note the taxidermied jackalope droppings as well)
(take home your very own jackalope trophy!)
the dubois museum,
(that is a needlepoint diagram of layers of rock formation in the dubois area!)
and the national bighorn sheep interpretive center. also wandered around town:
(coolest drinking fountain ever?)
(hopefully the closest i come to getting mauled by a bear)
that’s all she wrote (tonight). see you in lander!
—
p.s. my friend lauren in puna let me know today that pele (via kilauea) has swallowed up fox’s landing, the little beach where i spent a magical, healing day two years ago. i’m grateful to pele for letting me take what i needed from that sacred place before she took it back. it seems fitting (if sad) that i will never go back again. to the island, though–yes!
previously on big bike adventure
we left our adventurers (that’s us!) in jackson, montana, where they soaked in a hot pool and mingled with locals. in the morning they headed out again–destination: twin bridges!
we stopped in dillon for lunch.
(the university of montana western)
(we’ve seen this kind of anti-meth mural all over towns since eastern oregon. the usual tagline is “meth: not even once.” often accompanied by before-and-after paintings of emaciated bodies and so on)
and onward:
(sculptures at a little roadside display about wildlife and lewis & clark and so on, in front of beaverhead rock)
twin bridges, it turns out, cares about bicyclists!
enough that they’ve created twin bridges bike camp in the city park, with a little indoor space and a shower and a bathroom and even a repair stand!
it was the biggest weekend of the year in town, with some kind of festival going on and all kinds of graduates from the high school home for a reunion. we arrived too late for most of the festivities, but everyone was happy and friendly and the town was really lively. in the morning we got breakfast at a great little outdoor coffeeshop called jumping rainbow, and then set off again.
nevada & virginia cities–
nevada city used to be a mining town, i think, but is not much of a town anymore at all. sometime in the 60s, a couple began collecting old buildings from around the state and putting them in nevada city, so now it’s a sort of sprawling history museum. they’ve even hired some folks to dress up in period clothes and hang out in the buildings. three dudes got to sit in the saloon playing cards while tourists posed at their table… not a bad gig!
(this building was not actually part of the museum-type-thing, and appeared to maybe be a private residence)
(another thing i’ve learned about on this trip–there were lots of chinese living in most of these little mining towns! in eastern oregon at least, they mostly all returned to china. even remains were dug up and sent to china)
the coolest building in nevada city was definitely the music hall, which was full of old music machines in various states of repair and disrepair. many of them worked and accepted quarters.
(a. conducts a mechanical orchestra)
(this machine played the violin… sort of)
between nevada & virginia cities (about a mile of road)–
virginia city is the old capital of montana territory. now it’s a sort of kitschy tourist town, where you can take a stagecoach or horseback ride, buy souvenirs at “trading posts,” and so on. we had a nice lunch and wandered around for several hours, waiting out the heat. i had double chocolate orange ice cream–yum!
(and WHISKEY BY THE BARREL!)
also, any ideas what this window is all about? the juxtaposition of the words with the photos of indians below them seems painfully ironic (also hey i am reading bury my heart at wounded knee right now), and it didn’t seem intentional… the same store was hung with army, navy, marines flags and so on. jeez.
it was pretty late in the afternoon by the time we started climbing up the pass between virginia city and eniss. we’d planned originally to go further than eniss, but the heat beat us.
(a. beat me to the top)
outside of town we passed this herd of pronghorn antelope. all the females bolted a few meters away when we passed, and the male turned and stared at us until we moved on.
the sun was setting by the time we got to town.
we settled in for the night, made dinner, and the next morning headed off to west yellowstone. the day was mostly cool and overcast, but it never rained. perfect weather for a 70-mile slightly-uphill day!
(”say cheese!”)
(”cheeeese!”)
(one of my favorite roadside signs yet, just for the last sentence. but if bridger was the one who knew where the pass was, why did they name it after raynolds?)
in 1959 there was an enormous earthquake that caused a huge landslide, killed a couple dozen campers, created a new lake (the aptly named earthquake lake), shook up and changed a lot of yellowstone’s geothermal features, and generally wreaked havoc. a year after the quake, the madison river earthquake area was created to commemorate it, and they built a visitor center overlooking earthquake lake and so on (complete with hourly showings of a really sensationalistic little video, with minor key accompaniment for the ominous bits). but when you’re riding in and you pass this sign, it’s a little inexplicable–
though there apparently are enormous numbers of tiny earthquakes occuring all the time in yellowstone.
(earthquake lake)
(a., with the slide behind him)
(trees that were drowned when the lake was created)
and, finally, in west yellowstone–
