Take a look at the picture at right that's a close up of Dave's jacket. He found some Star Wars patches that he had sewed on to his jacket that are of the rank of Captain, his actual rank in the Army. Of course the Star Wars is pretty geeky and he was really hoping that someone would notice, but it's kind of subtle. But here at Cumberland Pass he found some stickers on the sign that certainly goes with his jacket.
After that we went over Wuanita Pass and then crossed US 50 ("The Lonliest Highway In The USA") around 1:45pm. Shortly after crossing 50, we followed the route up a road that says on the map to avoid when wet. Well, it wasn't wet, but we had an adventure anyways as we missed a turn and went up a nasty rocky road. None of us noticed we missed the turn until we got up there a bit and had to turn around. Tim got fouled up and dropped his bike and Dave helped him. I was already headed down and couldn't stop so I waited for them at the turn we missed. We were grumbling a bit at that point for having done that. Once we got going there was a big puddle that earlier in the year is probably a water crossing, but we could just ride around it. A little later, Tim dropped a bag and Dave stopped to pick it up. At that point Dave had Tim's kickstand and bag of rain gear.
We had another minor water crossing, the made it back down to the road and that's where we realized we could have just skipped that part. We vowed to be a bit more aware as we continued on. The rest of the day was long and uneventful. We rode over Los Pinos Pass, then Slumgullion Pass and eventually found ourselves in Lake City and the end of today's section by about 5:30pm. We were pretty worn out and didn't really feel like camping, so we rode around until we found a place to stay. That ended up being the Town Square Cabins. They were a bit on the rustic side, but warm and had showers.
But first on the order of business was food! We changed clothes and walked over to the Packer Saloon which was recommended by some people we chatted with. It was busy on a Friday night so we had to wait a bit to get in. While waiting, three guys on KTMs rode up and we had a nice chat with them. They're riding the BDR south to north so we asked them about the passes for tomorrow. They told us that Ophir Pass, which is the last one from our perspective, was nothing but loose shale and steep heading downhill. Between that and another conversation we had had earlier with another guy, we made the decision to skip that Pass. It's not really a big deal because we were going to ride into Telluride anyways.
Dinner was awesome and we had this nice little waitress from Hungary (I think) that served us that we had a nice conversation with. She was over here on a work visa and not at all being mistreated, which I had read can happen sometimes (employers taking advantage of students). We walked back to the cabin, had showers and hit the sack. Some bar was playing live music pretty loudly, but it didn't seem to stop us from sleeping. We rode 143 miles today.
Saturday, September 25, 2021
Today is the day of the big passes. Four of them: Cinnamon, California, Hurricane, and Corkscrew. Today would test our abilities and patience. We filled up the bikes and hit the road about 8am.
Tom Clark
I'm a Senior Software Engineer at Intellitect, living in Spokane, Washington. I also do a little development work on the side. And I love riding motorcycles all over the country with my friends.
