Goodbye Aspens, Hello Wasteland

Hey all,

We're in Rawlins, Wyoming now. Since we left Steamboat, we've seen a lot of really neat stuff. First off, I love Aspen trees. They are always around to provide shade on the big mountain climbs we've been doing and their white bark contrasts the deep green foliage behind them. On some of the dirt roads, we've been riding through "tunnels" of these trees providing nice cool shade while cutting the wind into a nice cool breeze. I was disappointed to see the aspens go when we left the Medicine Bow National Forest and enter the hot, blazing and super dry desert leading into Rawlins. No worries though, we'll be back in aspens in a couple days.

The first night out of Steamboat, we climbed up to nearly 10k and camped out on the top of this pass with incredible views of a barren 11k peak on the next range. While on the top we met the leader of the Great Divide Race*, Jay, who was completely crazy. The guy acted like he was on some extreme sugar high, quickly chuged a big bottle of soda and then took off on the steep rocky road that we had just pedaled/hiked up. You could hear the guy screaming for several minutes afterwards. That guy was nuts.

The next day we decended fromt he top, through tunnels of aspens, through high meadows covered in little yellow flowers and eventually ended up in a steep sloped and dry valley. The road was cut into the side and had several ups and downs. During this time, we met Matt Lee, the second place rider in the GDR. Matt is from NC and he's the guy I'm pulling for. He won the race last year and he was doing fine when we saw him. What is so incredible about these racers is that they are self supported (like us) but they are carrying almost nothing and pulling 130-150 mile days vs our 45. We eventually hit bottom in the valley and started climbing back up toward the medicine bow national forest. It was a long climb and the sun was blazing. Half way up, we ran out of water and Jamie bonked pretty hard. A guy in a truck told us there was a stream about a mile down this other road and we went. Man! It was an incredible, clear mountain stream, in a field, sorrounded by aspens. A perfect place to camp and we saw an incredible sunset through the trees. Sometimes, the worst of times and transform into the best of times. Had we not run out of water, we would have never of experienced that.

The next morning, we awoke to the sound of sheep. Sheep?!? We got out of the tent to witness a sheep drive right through the area we were camping. There were thousands of the animals all being herded down the road by dogs and guys on horses. Turns out, the road we camped on is also a stock driving road. When the sheep moved on, they left lots of little "presents" that encouraged us to pack up and get moving. We finished our climb, met Pete (3rd in the GDR) at the top. Pete had been sick the past couple days and was just starting to recover. He's a tough guy. We then decended/climbed/decended again throughout the Medincine Bow being shaded by our favorite trees until we finally left and moved on into the desert. The desert to Rawlins was a series of several steep rollers all completely exposed with severe wind and even more severe sun. We kept the water stocked today and by the end we have consumed 3 gallons each!! We finally rolled into to Rawlins after pulling a hard 64 mile day. We picked up some tires here in Rawlins shipped to us by my hero, Andrew Gilchrist (THANKS!!!). Another big thanks to Outback bikes back home that helped Andrew get our package together. We have the Great Divide Basin to look forward to tomorrow. Its a 120 mile desert that everyone loaths. In order to minimize the sun exposure, we will leave out at 4am tomorrow and hopefully be able to pitch the tent by noon, siesta in the shade and then repeat, getting most of miles in at night. Either way, we'll be loaded with about 40 lbs of water just to be sure.

Lee

*The great divide race is a race alogn the divide from north to south in which the riders must be completely self supported. The record is about 16 days. There is a link to the website on our webpage, its really worth checking out. Those guys are insane! It is the mountain bike equivilent of the race across america. This year, Scott Hodge attempted it from Atlanta, Georgia. Unfortuneately for Scott, he ripped his achilles tendon early on and had to quit.

In other trival news, to give you an idea how steep some of this stuff is, I hit 39.6 mph on a gravel decent yesterday WHILE RIDING MY BRAKES! It was pretty sketchy with the trailer and the wind. Speaking of the wind, we had a cross wind so severe, that the bike was being steered and angled toward the wind while tracking straight. How often can you say you've crabbed a bicycle? The wind would just slide you across the gravel and you had to manhandle the bike to keep it generally straight.

Also, I've updated the Journey Stats page for those that need to know all the numbers.
That's all, y'all have a good day. We're having fun out here.