September 27, 2016
to Blue Bridge Camp: wind and rain
When the sun set last night it was only just above freezing. Sometime during the night the wind picks up and it actually warms up a bit to 4 degrees C, but the wind makes it feel a lot colder once we leave our tent.
The spot we camped at was not actually at the highest point of this hill; we need to go another kilometer to achieve the summit at about 2510 meters. Then it is downhill into a large valley. The downhill is pretty tough; the road surface is sandy and too soft for our narrow tires and the load we carry. We have to walk several sections.
At the bottom of the descent the road makes a hard left, headed east up another valley. This climb is particularly sandy and we have to push almost all of the two hundred vertical meters we gain to about 2200 meters. From a distance, we see trees on the top of the ridges, when we reach the summit, there is an ooVoo and we are near the trees. As we descend we start seeing larch trees with fall golden yellow leaves.
The wind has been helping us mostly, but it has also blown in some dark clouds. The sun is no longer warming us and rain is threatening. The downhill leads to what is shown on google maps as an impressive reservoir. In reality it is a small river that is still flowing. There is no bridge so the keens and waterproof socks are needed to cross. The road gets even sandier, we struggle to make progress.
There is very little traffic, early in the day a yellow dump truck passes and stops; if we had wanted we could have had a ride. Later in the afternoon a 4x4 Russian built van also stops and it seems like we could have hopped on board if we had wanted. For now we will try to get to Uliastai on our own steam.
There is a town shown on the map where the road turns east again, but it is on the other side of the river with no apparent bridge, although we do see traffic on that side of the river. Even a yellow dump truck pulling another trailer, we wonder if that is the one from this morning returning.
The rain that has been threatening all afternoon starts falling, first softly but cold rain, then stronger. We make it to the bridge that crosses the river at the foot of the last pass to Uliastai, elevation about 1900 meters. The wooden bridge has freshly painted blue railings, therefore the name of our camp. On the other side is an area with granite rocks and grass, we find a nice spot among them. It is now raining seriously so we pitch our rainfly, throw gear in and crawl under to install the rest of our "house". The temperature keeps dropping and before too long we are on our thermarests and under the sleeping bag staying warm and dry. It will be a cold dinner if this rain does not stop soon.
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Today's ride: 48 km (30 miles)
Total: 23,030 km (14,302 miles)
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