Day 14: Into The Great Basin: 122 mi: 5945’ climbing: Sat 7/2

Didn’t sleep well last night.  I think my body had enough of its rest day and just wanted to jump to it.  Alarms set and everything staged for a quick escape, I got up at 4 am, ate as much as I could (yogurt, instant pancake bowl thing, cold press coffee, and two fruit danishes), packed the last bits and pieces onto the bike, and was cycling southeast out of Pinedale at 4:30.  

To the northeast the sky was just barely starting to light up, Venus by far the brightest thing in the sky at that time, floating right above the barely visible sawtooth horizon of the Wind River Range.  My SON dynamo powered the bright light of the Sinewave Beacon as I rolled down the  wide shoulder of the quiet highway towards the small intersection town of Boulder.  Time passed quickly and soon I had turned east at Boulder, heading into the foothills of the Winds, which became more and more pronounced as the suns rays lit the sky.

I enjoyed the cool temps and quiet air of the morning.  And the pavement.  It made for relatively fast travel.  The morning was absolutely beautiful, and the first intense rays of the sun didn’t hit me until 6:15.  Stopping to stretch my achy knees I was instantly swarmed with mosquitos.  Giving up on stretching, I hopped on my bike and escaped as fast as I could.  Every ditch along the road, every creek and stream, and every low spot in the cow pastures was flooded.  Water was everywhere here, which probably explains the mosquitos madness.  

At 7, with 30 miles already behind me the pavement turned to gravel.  But good, hard packed, not washboarded gravel, and my pace continued.  The road turned rolly as it wove its way deeper into the foothills of the Winds, slowly working its way along the southwestern edge of the range.  Sometimes steep.  Sometimes I walked.  Sometimes there were cows in the road- I’ve gotten much braver with just going right through them now.  And disappointingly, my bowel movement mastery didn’t pan out today… had to take a wilderness poo.  But I found this cool skull mid-push!

I caught up with Brent around 8:30, who had also no slept well and just gave up on sleeping, hitting the road unbeknownst to me at 4:10.  He passed me when I stopped for first lunch at 9, because I’d already been riding for 4.5 hours and the Cheeze-it’s (Bold Cheddar!) and bag of crumbled chocolate chip cookies were calling my name.  And by now a good wind has formed,  keeping the misquitos at bay as I sat in the side of the gravel road and ate and stretched.  Tue views- stretching for ever- were amazing.

We made good time, connecting with the state highway around noon and escaping for a bit from the suns rays in one of those concrete picnic shelters.  While the temps were great, the sun was intense.  The last 13 miles to Atlantic City, through the tiny South Pass City hidden deep in a valley that was fun to descend into and horrible to climb out of, was hot and windy. Finally dropping into Atlantic City (which really is not a city) and finding the restaurant (Grubsteak is it?) a little after 1 pm, 85 miles done, felt really good.  And that stuffed burger tasted really good.  Brent rolled in about 45 min later, having a slow time with some newfound back pain.  

Well watered, bathroomed, fed, new sunscreen applied, and kinda a little rested, I rolled out around 2:45ish, I think.  To be welcomed with a horribly steep climb, aka hike-a-bike, out of the river valley that contains Atlantic City.  Barf.

The first part of today was super enjoyable.  Good gravel, winds not too much of a pain, decent temps, and great scenery Ty.  After Atlantic City is when you really enter the Great Basin.  The gravel slowly turns to poo.  The winds of the afternoon start picking up, seeming to change direction constantly, and the sun is at its most intense.  But I kinda lucked out with some decent cloud cover, and the winds were helpful about half the time.  The terrain was rolling- nothing flat, either up or down.  And the world opened up before you, your line of sight seeming to stretch forever.

But the going was slow.  I made it to Diagnus Well, 18 miles past Atlantic City, at 4 and topped up my bladder.  This 4L I had now would have to hold me over through the night and morning  until the I could get to the A&M reservoir 42 miles further.  I’m not worried about it though, given these relatively cool temps.  

Continuing on, the winds picked up their intensity, the sky started to fill itself with pockets of cascading rain, and I suddenly found myself following the route with no signs of any cars, ATVs, or bicycles.  The rains had erased them.  For the first time, looking around at the grand views surrounding me, that I really felt like I was out in the middle of nowhere all alone.

Lighting.  It’s not cool to see when you are riding high on a ridge line and see it strike the next ridge over.  Watching the movement of this energetic afternoon squall, it was easy to see that we were on a collision course.  I looked at my elevation profile for the next few miles and saw that I would descend soon, so I picked up the lace and tried to get low, off this high ridge, asap. 

We collided- just a bit.  The rain got heavy enough that it stopped feeling refreshing, so I stopped on the side of the road and just waited for the storm to move forward.  Luckily, I felt like I’d gotten low enough relative to the other geographic features to not worry much about the lightning anymore.  With the sun beating on my back from the West and the storm passing in front of me to the East, the perfect arrangement for a rainbow, double!, was set.  It was kinda crazy seeing all the colors in the sky- the rainbows, the dark ominous storm clouds, and the bright blue sky and white puffy clouds behind me.  It made the desolate land feel very alive.  

At this point, watching the rainbows, I’d gone about 118 miles and it was already pas my 5pm.  I’d been going for over 12 hours, and I could feel it.  With the storm far enough away, I continued pedaling, now in the hunt for a place to call camp for the night.  I was hoping to find a valley to tuck down in, hopefully blocking the suns intense rays earlier than later and allowing me to not able to death, but the landscape did not agree.  Passing some wild horses, I found a relatively level, non-sagebrush covered, free of cow dung spot to call it quits, at mile 122, near the Oil Camp on the ACA app map.  

Stripping down, I just stood there buck naked for awhile, letting everything air out in the hot sun.  Seriously, how often do you get to do that and not get arrested for it?
I got my stove rocking and then set my tent fly up to act as a sun shade, as the suns rays were super intense now, many of the clouds having disappeared.  Tonight I are pork flavored ramen with a packet of Buffalo Chicken meat mixed in. Not bad!  But seriously I think if I took a bite of my arm it’d taste like steak right now.
Today was good.  I’m not destroyed, despite the high mileage, rough gravel for the last 35 miles, and lots of climbing.  Tomorrow the winds are projected to be strong, over 20 mph starting around noon, and I’m not confident they will be in the direction I want them to be.  So, I am going to do a 3am wake up and try to get as many miles behind me before the sun kicks those winds into action.  There’s a lot of climbing and about 95 miles left to get to Rawlins tomorrow, but I know it’ll all be good.
The sun is slowly losing its intensity.  It’s time to prep for bed, pack the bike as much as possible, and try to fall asleep while the sun still lights this land up for a few more hours.