Walsenburg, CO to Fort Garland, CO
Rocky Mountain morning - cool and dry. Awoke with altitude headache. Not moving too fast and the thought of heart-pumping, head-pounding climb over La Veta Pass (9,413 ft) doesn’t make me feel too psyched. Breakfast and some phone calls and I start to come around. Load up on Gatorade and food for the 48 miles to the next town of Fort Garland. So today I have 48 miles of no services plus a pass to get over. Let’s Go - Bring It On!
I start the ride with Colorado 160 West splitting the Spanish Peaks Mountains to my south and the Greenhorn Mountains to the north. Beyond the Greenhorns is Mt. Mestas which the road will wind up and around to the south. Beyond the Spanish Peaks are the snow-capped Sangre de Cristo (Blood of Christ) Mountains. Fantastic scenery but I’m more concerned about the climb. I’m thinking about how close I am to the Spanish Peaks and Greenhorns and how far away they seemed yesterday. Up close and sharp now, faint and muted purple outline, almost silhouetted yesterday.
A sign comes up that says La Veta Summit 15 miles. I zero my secondary trip odometer and pedal on. 7 miles from the top, I stop for lunch. A quart of Gatorade and bologna on corn tortillas. Rode the next 7 miles without stopping. Made it to the summit!!! and let out a big whoop!
Took a couple of pictures and was so excited. Photo 1Photo 2Photo 3 I wanted to call someone. I got Peg’s voicemail, so I called Claire. When she answered I shouted "I’m King of the World!" All downhill the next 20 miles! Bad reception so it was a pretty disjointed conversation. For me this was a success because I was dreading the climb and how difficult it would be. As it was, it took 2 1/2 hours to go 15 miles. The grade was long but gradual so it wasn’t as hard as the Appalachians or Ozarks. I did have a good deal of headwinds off and on and the worst aspect of the climb was the putrid odor of overheated brakes of vehicles coming down the other way.
I felt like I conquered something today. I had been told by others that the Rockies aren’t that bad and now I have to agree. While I took a rest at the summit, I thought of Sir Edmund Hilary and how he conquered Mt. Everest in 1953, the same year I was born. OK, so there’s an extra 19,000 feet of elevation I haven’t done, but today I feel connected to him. I originally, thought we shared the same birthday but I had confused him with another explorer of the same era, named Thor Heyerdahl who was indeed born on my birthday, October 6. He too had a somewhat barebones trek from east to west, covering 4300 miles on a balsa raft as he floated across the Pacific from Peru to Polynesia. I wonder if the internet had existed back then, if he would have called his site "floatinacross."
The ride down the other side into Fort Garland was pretty quick, but not as quick as I thought. Headwinds slowed me to 16 mph with full pedal power going downhill. I should have been coasting at 30 mph!
Stopped at Jackie Rose’s Cafe and had some well deserved food and drink. Will stay here in town tonight. The owner, Matty, Amanda, and Ben, who work here, are my company. Amanda is Matty’s daughter and they’re both from Long Island. Amanda’s driving back to NY tomorrow. Ben grew up here and filled me in on the local scene. The food was fantastic! At one point Matty got out a map of the USA and this may sound strange, but it was my first look at a map other than a state or 30 mile stretch at a time. To see the whole country on a map at once, showed me how far I’d come and at the same time every point on the map of places I’d already been, immediately caused memories to spring forth. I will never look at the map or this country the same way again!
Was about to leave and a big storm seemed to be abrewing, so I stayed on and drank iced tea all night. Talked to Bobby Smith. What a laugh this guy had - deep and emphazemic. Completely contagious. He would make a joke and follow it with a laugh and his laugh made the joke 10 times funnier. Doesn’t believe in UFOs or aliens unless they were to tap him on the shoulder. But he does believe in ghosts. He told me his girlfriend had a granddaughter who died at 2 months and was buried in an unmarked grave. This was 10 years ago, but a few days ago the baby’s ghost told him she wanted a “rock” (tombstone).
Bobby, a 57 year-old cowboy through and through - hat, dungaree jacket, etc. Sun baked skin makes him seem older than he was. His take on alien activity in the Great Sand Dunes/Alamosa Area was very different than Ben’s. Ben described seeing a multitude of things in the local sky - dancing lights, hovering lights that would then zoom off at outrageous speeds... He was very matter of fact about his descriptions. Sounded cool to me. I swear they’re out there! Reminded me of some folks we met once from Roswell, NM. But that’s another story...
Totals for the day: 53.19 miles, 5 hrs. 34 min., 2406.8 total miles
I also hung out with Ryan Rhoads. He came over to ask me about the route and the advantages and disadvantages of different passes into New Mexico. He’s a 37 year old “jack-of-all-trades” We talked about the differences between city life and rural life and why he prefers living out here. He offered to let me help him bale hay and go horseback riding with him, if I wasn’t pressed for time. He gave me his phone number for when I come back... and I will come back. He related a story to me that paralleled my experiences on this trip. He was working in Silver City, NM and was sitting and minding his business in a restaurant and a stranger struck up a conversation with him and that conversation turned into the best 4 days of his life. He became “family” with the local folks and had a blast at a weekend Texas-Style Barbecue Blast. He met the guy Thursday night, was gonna go home on Friday, and ended up staying the entire weekend.
He told me some more about the local towns including the fact that so many of them are spaced exactly 7 miles apart. Why? Because when they built the railroad, they would lay 7 miles of track a week and would set up camps 7 miles apart and towns sprung up where the camps were.
There was this really cute little white poodle who roamed the bar. Took a picture of him and Matty. If you look, you can see Bobby and Ryan in the background. I wish I had a laugh-track of this Bobby dude.
A bit about Matty from Long Island and how she ended up in Colorado. She and her husband had a construction business and a store. After 9/11 they went broke. Fell from making $6,000 a week to zero. Had bought 100 acres out in Colorado and decided to just move. Even though Fort Garland is in one of the poorest counties in Colorado, her pioneer spirit has helped her carve out a life out here. The food in this place was really good and had a New York style to it. The locals were even raving about it. Kind of a twist - we in the east, like to go for southwestern cuisine once in a while and here they find New York style cooking appealing.
Camped in town. 40° with wind blowing out of the east to make it a chilly night, but I was toasty warm in the tent.