Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the Earth – Lou Gehring

I will be keeping the next three posts somewhat short. They cover the days of September 5^th through the 7^th.  I also apologize to anyone whose comment, I didn’t respond to. I try to get to al of them on FB or the Blog, but I sometimes I lose track.

Ride to Lava Mountain, Wyoming

This ride covered 69 miles and almost 5000 feet of climbing with about 75% of the riding on paved roads. We rode past one of the most beautiful and iconic scenes in America, the Grand Tetons and Jackson Lake. Unfortunately, the mountains were totally obscured by hazy smoke, so we did not get to experience it – sad.

We did do quite a bit of climbing off road and I came out on the highway at Togwotee Mountain Lodge. I stayed there several times and the elevation is about 10,000 feet. There is a mountain next to it that has trails up to about 12000 feet. When I was there in the 90’s and still running, I asked about the trails and they told me it was a 2.5-hour horseback ride to the top. I ran it in 52 minutes (up). I recall being at the bar there in the 90’s and watching the NBA championship game with the Bulls playing the Phoenix Suns. I was the only one at the bar rooting for the Bulls. I must have been nuts as there were some tough hombres in there!

The rest of the ride was on the highway and there were some tough climbs there as well. I had to walk part on the highway because of the steepness and the elevation.

It got cold at Lava Mountain and we had an early start the next day by an hour because it was over 100 miles with a lot of difficult terrain. It is no fun getting dressed to cycle at 5:30 with frost on your tent and in your shorts.

Ride to Boulder, Wyoming

We had two possible routes that covered 75% of the same ride but one avoided some of the more technical aspects with lots of loose boulders. Rob used moral suasion to suggest that I take the alternate which covered 104 miles with 6200 feet of climbing and about 50% on paved roads.

The ride could basically be divided into three segments. The first part was two very steep climbs. I Had to walk quite a bit of the second climb. While it was short in distance, it took quite a bit of the cycling time. We had lunch at the top of the second climb. The second part was a lot of rolling terrain, some of it difficult (I walked) but most of it, I could maintain a good clip. I saw a herd of Pronghorn several times. Then we had about 40 miles on the pavement. I hammered it and came in early. It was one of my better days.

Did I mention that we have wine at dinner every evening? I had a couple of glasses. As Pinedale id the theoretical last habitat of the grizzly bear, I left my bear spray on a bench at the campground for a hunter or whomever might be traveling in the other direction. A couple of riders had their spray accidentally discharge from all the jostling on the bike and I figured mine might blow anytime.

Ride to Atlantic City, Wyoming

This was a memorable day in that I really would like to forget it. We traveled through some desolate areas and we are in what I would call, the high desert. Not many trees and it gets hot latter in the day. This ride covered 79 miles with 4600 feet of climbing and about 31% of the roads paved. However, in all fairness, most of the dirt roads were as good as paved except for perhaps the last 5 miles.

The last 5 miles covered some monster climbs on gravel roads. It Was painful and I walked quite a few of the hills and I took the descents slow. Then we come to Atlantic City which is small but interesting. I follow the line on my Garmin and think, it ends in Atlantic City, right? No, it keeps going on another monster 2 miles climb to a park campground. No showers and a couple of out houses. To make matters worse, I am on crew that night. I don’t mind, but I had a bad ride and was tired.

One good aspect was that it wasn’t as cold at night but we had an hour early start again. I didn’t sleep well. Maybe I t was the schnitzel for dinner or the two beers that I had.

Thanks for reading!

Tailwinds

Chuck Hardesty – Riding for The Backstoppers.org