Salida - Hartsel - Hey Bear! - Counting Wildlife on GDMBR

June 1, 2025

Salida - Hartsel

We left Salida fully re-charged, both from good food and also from meeting some great people. Audrey, owner of Salida Inn, is a superb host and keeps a very clean hostel. We loved our 2 nights in her house.

A proper backyard picnic with REAL food!

Re-packing the bikes for the new day's adventure

We also met Dave, who was moving out to go on his own summer bike packing adventure. He has ridden Tour Divide 4 times, 3 times on a bike and once on a motorbike. He says the motorbike was the hardest trip.

Dave escourted us along the river trail and back to GDMBR

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As fore warned by Dave, we had a long steady climb out of Salida and then into open grazing land and rolling hills.

Once again, the trail twisted and turned, and the wind kept to the same turns - always on the nose!

We had a brief flurry of rain/hailstones/snow but it was not particularly cold.

Dramatic clouds in an otherwise hard to photograph huge landscape

Hartsel is a wee crossroads town with a pizza place and a cafe, so spoiled for choice! We ate a late lunch / early dinner then rolled (downwind this time) to Hartsel Lodge.

Lodge patio, lovely at sunset, and perfect for my second dinner. (The pizza box is not ours!)

Today's ride: 78 km (48 miles)
Total: 1,587 km (986 miles)

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George (Buddy) HallThe Hartsel Lodge is the 2nd place you have stayed where I have also - I stayed there on my Transam tour in 2015. I'm glad to see it is still in business, it was for sale in 2015 and there was considerable doubt that it would continue to exist as a tourist lodge.
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