June 14, 2025
Pinedale - Strawberry Shelter
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We left Pinedale rested, fed, stocked up and clean.
Our first planned stop was a cafe - "The Place"- at about 40 km. Karo arrived to quiet and the news that they had a function on so no food options available. Within minutes the place was heaving with very loud bikes and swaggering bikers. The Boulder Roll had landed!
I arrived in the midst of the chaos and we saw the queue for the taco bar - $10 for 2 tacos - and joined in as though we had arrived on the other type of bike, even though not dressed quite the same. We chatted to a couple of the riders about their charity ride for Veterans, fended off an invite to join them for a beer, and discussed their day's ride vs our plan. I was relieved to discover they were not headed for Union Pass as we were.
Eventually they all roared off and we continued toward the end of the pavement and the climb to Union Pass.
The end of the pavement dumped us onto a really badly rutted, stoney, washboarded road and we both began to reset our thinking as to the distance we would make for the day. Fortunately the surface improved after the start of the climb
We saw a few cars heading away from the Pass and one stopped to say he'd seen a bear on the road 2 miles back, and we should get our bear spray out. My heart rate immediately spiked and I transferred the spray to my back pocket.
As we pushed our bikes up the steepest roughest parts, our eyes were everywhere for bear signs. A dude towing a very rattly trailer ground his way past us, and that dealt with any potential bear sightings.
A few ATV's passed us, most coated us in dust, and a couple offered us beer. One group told me of a warmup shelter about 20 km beyond our planned Mosquito Lake CG. With our worries about camping in bear country, we quickly up graded our plan.
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The mosquitos were voracious and huge, drilling through clothing, so we were very happy the shelter has insect screens so we could open the windows. We didn't light the fire.
Today's ride: 93 km (58 miles)
Total: 2,590 km (1,608 miles)
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