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Tuesday, July 22, 2008, Sunshine Campground, past Lizard Head Pass, Colorado
We got a fairly early start, 7:20 and headed out under clear skies up the 50 mile climb to the 10, 222 ft. summit – Lizard Head Pass. It would be the third highest summit of the trip but probably the longest continual climb. According to the profile map, there was supposed to be a fairly steep grade immediately leaving Dolores. I kept waiting for it – 3 miles, 5 miles, 8 miles – no steep climb. Could it be this way the whole way to Rico, past the halfway point? Yes!! What a great discovery. The grade followed a river and was so gradual that it took little effort to climb, and the scenery was beautiful – green hills, trees, ranch houses nestled in the meadows. Chris met us about 15 miles up the road. We took his picture and interviewed him on the video and gave him a cool drink. On the way, we saw a dead black bear alongside the road which stunk to high heaven. I held my breath and videoed it a short time before I needed air. When we got to Rico, it began to rain so we left to try to beat the worst of it over the summit 13 miles away. After getting wet, we donned our rain gear, [all except Willie who must have thought it was a sign of weakness to need protection against the elements and, thus, unfitting for a teenage boy eager to enter manhood] but got drenched anyway. Five miles from the summit, it became very cold, the sky darkened and it began to pour. We didn’t take any more breaks because we would have only gotten colder, so we pressed on. Actually the cold helped motivate us; it made me appreciate the hard climbs because more effort = more warmth. The rain began to subside a little when we reached the pass, but it was still cold and going downhill through the wind with wet bodies was going to be a torturing test of cold endurance. In addition, the wet brakes wouldn’t work as well, so we had to keep our speed down, prolonging the agony. My arms were shivering uncontrollably, so I had to concentrate on steadying the bike more. Fortunately, the traffic was careful and traveled by us slowly and gave us space. We passed by the pristine Trout Lake, nestled amidst majestic mountains. It reminded me of Switzerland, so beautiful. Finally we saw the sign, “Sunshine Campground” and pulled over to check it out. We were only 8 miles from Telluride, the famous tourist resort, so we waited to decide until we could compare the two. The Telluride campground was all full so we set up at Sunshine. We decided to stay there two days so that we could spend an extra day in Telluride tomorrow. Next week, I plan to be in Pueblo to pick up my mail. Mama said she was going to send me a birthday card (July 30) there. I’ll put my next General Delivery address in the blog once we get to Pueblo. 56 miles.