Day 37 – Telluride to Dolores

So, technically we’re in the San Juan mountains, not the Rockies. That’s a technicality lost on a yankee. Regardless of what range we’re in, the climbs are much longer, and so are the descents. Wow.

After the shenanigans yesterday on our climb and the fact we spent last night at 9.5k’, we decided to get a ride to the top of Lizard Head Pass.

10k’ is pretty high up… at least for us. We saw a number of cyclists coming over the peak, and I was seriously jealous of their ability to breathe… and stay conscious.

What you don’t see in the above photo is the other signs nearby pointing to the peaks on both sides of the pass… one at 11k’ and the other at 13k’. I had no appreciation of how high the mountains here are. It’s really unbelievable.

At the top of this mountain pass is a lake. Trout Lake, to be exact… apparently named for the aquatic life forms that inhabit it.

… or that once inhabited it. The lake was closed, presumably because its so low. It’s impressive how many lakes we’ve passed by on this trip that are WAY low due to the drought here in the west. I hope the rain shows up soon before some of these bodies of water actually disappear.

Heidi has been on a quest to photograph wildlife on this trip. Unfortunately we haven’t seen much in the way of wildlife. Up until this point, she’s claimed that all the chipmunks we’ve seen don’t rate a photo. Today, after once again getting skunked on finding big game, she caved in. Here’s a chipmunk.

And a prairie dog. Not “big game” but bigger than a chipmunk.

The ride today was 50 miles. Almost every inch of it was downhill. Coming off the top of the pass was steep… Like, I don’t think I actually turned a pedal for the first 10 miles. After 15 miles I checked my bike computer and it said I had climbed _2_ feet. 2. I’ve never in my life had a ride that long that had single digit vertical feet. Even leaving my neighborhood on my normal training rides is like 23′.

Towards the bottom things flattened out a bit. About 10 miles out I stopped to use the facilities in the MCC while JP pushed on toward Dolores. Normally I catch him after a few miles when I stop like that. Today, JP (as he put it) went in to beast mode. I could tell, as I finally caught a glimpse of him in the distance about 1 mile out from the hotel.. and I was flying. It was a very fast day, especially when you throw in the fact JP and I were basically sprinting for the last 10 miles. I averaged well over 18mph, and that was with some heavy braking on sections of freshly tarred/chipped downhills.

Lest you think I’m slacking completely on this trip, here’s an action shot of me taking a work phone call. Pay no attention to the rushing river in the background or the beautiful sunlight… this was work, dammit.

I took the boys fishing in river next to our motel/cabin this evening. Once again, Heidi had an opportunity for a wildlife shot.

We’re pretty sick of eating in restaurants. So tonight we changed things up a bit and had ourselves a little outdoor BBQ. We picked up corn on the cob, dogs, and some steaks and grilled it all up. It was yummy, tho we didn’t have steak knives so we may have burned more calories than we ate just sawing through meat.

Art and JP are in the motel here in Dolores… we’re in a cabin at the same facility. The moose cabin no less.

People in this part of Colorado don’t seem to believe in air conditioning, so we’ve got the windows wide open hoping to cool the place off. Hopefully we can get some sleep. Wish us luck.