June 13, 2016
Our first serious navigational disagreement of the tour
Day Thirteen: Grants, New Mexico to a BLM Wildlife Exclosure
I was a little anxious this morning. I always feel a mix of anticipation and anxiety before getting back on the road after a day off, and this time I’d had two full days to enjoy running water, air conditioning, cold drinks, ice, and the internet.
We were loaded and ready to go before the hotel breakfast was fully in effect, and as we waited for the bacon to appear we met Ron, who was racing the Tour Divide, South-to-North. The race had started on the 10th, so this was only his third day. His bike was incredibly light, in part because he was carrying only one set of clothes — the bike shorts and jersey he was wearing. I believe that riding, sleeping, and doing everything else in one set of tight, uncomfortable bike clothes for three weeks is almost as impressive as the 150+ mile days he is doing.
After riding out of the hotel parking lot we quickly received two thumbs up from a truck driver (always encouraging), and then immediately took the wrong road out of town, which proved to be a happy accident since it allowed us to avoid some heavier traffic.
Then it was on to the big climb of the day, the first portion of which was on a paved, but lightly traveled road. Early on in the long climb out of Grants we passed the state prison, and I stopped and took a few pictures from outside the razor wire, which was surprisingly close to the road. No prisoners were in the exercise yard, so I didn’t get to hear their opinions of my shiny yellow bicycle, matching yellow panniers, and fancy bicyclist clothes, as I took a picture of a sign just outside the prison gates that read, oddly enough, “Hospitality Center.”
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Not long after that, as we took a break by the side of the road, a bee kept buzzing around me. Joy said “He thinks you are a big yellow flower. A big, sweet-smelling yellow flower.”
Right.
We continued climbing, slowly. I pulled into a campground and talked to a guy who had driven his truck all the from Pittsburgh to, in his words, “clear his head.” I spent longer than I intended in the campground, and Joy got ahead of me. It took me a surprisingly long time to catch her, even though she was only going at most 4.0 mph.
At 10:00 Joy announced that we’d climbed 2,000 feet. As the pavement ended we stopped for pepperoni and cheese sandwiches, and watched as a Forest Service truck passed by. Except for a few dual-sport motorcycles that we saw slowly descending the gravel road an hour or so later, and a couple of ranch workers in pickups after that, we wouldn’t see any other humans until tomorrow afternoon.
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Eventually we climbed far enough to reach a nice pine forest. This was Joy’s favorite section of the entire trip — it was cool, shady, flat, and the wind blowing through the pines is one of her favorite sounds.
We had lunch at a little spring at 9,000 feet, and then after one more short, steep climb we made a long, long descent down the mountain and back to where it was much warmer and browner.
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We rode four miles of smooth pavement, which our maps warned might contain truck traffic. But we didn’t see a single car or truck. I was proud of my maximum speed on the trip so far — 36 mph — until I learned that Joy had bested me on the smooth downhill with 37 mph.
After that it was back on dirt. So far on this tour we’ve spent much of the time riding through public lands of various sorts — national forests, national monuments, conservation areas, etc. This has made for very quiet, pleasant riding, because these definitely are NOT the famous national parks that attract hordes of tourists. We’ve ridden for hours at at time without seeing a single vehicle on the mostly unpaved roads through these areas. Today we’d spent much of the time in the Cibola National Forest, but now our maps told use we’d be riding for 20 miles in something called the Felipe Tafoya Grant, where trespassing and camping were prohibited (in contrast to public lands, where camping, walking around, and most any other non-destructive activity is allowed.) In another first for us, our maps informed us that we were required to open, ride through, and re-close several gates in this section.
Soon after entering the Felipe Tafoya Grant, we had our first serious navigational disagreement of the tour. At one of the first turns, the Adventure Cycling maps for the route (which I carry) did not seem to agree with the GPS device that Joy carries. We were surrounded by dry, empty range land as far as we could see. There was only one notable feature of the landscape, and it was notable indeed: Cerro Alesna, an enormous “volcanic plug” that loomed over everything. Eventually that landmark helped us decide in favor of the GPS.
I’ve traveled by bicycle all over the western USA, and have seen lots of empty landscapes, but this one was striking in its loneliness. The rolling, curvy, narrow strip of dirt road was almost indistinguishable at times from the surrounding dry dirt pastures upon which a few cattle grazed. We passed a dead calf lying on the road, and it appeared to have been there for weeks — maybe a few months. How often does someone actually enter this vast area and check on the cattle? I’m guessing not very often; a few mountain bike tracks, obviously created by Great Divide riders in the last few days, were more prominent than tracks created by motor vehicles.
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It had been sunny early in the day, but now, in the afternoon, clouds gathered, and we felt a few drops of rain occasionally. I was a little worried because the road would have become impassable if it became wet enough, and we were the tallest things in sight; there were no trees, just scrubby bushes and us on our steel bikes if it started lightning. Joy, however, seemed confident that the cloud that took up half the sky was not the kind that produced substantial rain.
We sped along with a tailwind. After leaving the Felipe Tafoya Grant, we reentered public lands, and the scenery became amazing, with incredible rock formations and arroyos. We wondered: How many people see this in a year? Maybe 300 at most?
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In the early evening we started looking for a place to camp. Our map mentioned something called an “exclosure”, which, we found, was just a small area with a tiny marsh, fenced-in to prevent the open range cattle from disturbing the wildlife within. After Joy did some impromptu herding of cattle to get them away from the exclosure entrance, we opened the gate, rode through, noted the tracks of several cyclists who had camped there previously, and set up our tent on the dusty ground, as I avoided stepping on the small cacti (mostly successfully.)
A great day.
Today's ride: 60 miles (97 km)
Total: 447 miles (719 km)
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