Hello, World

Today I left the mountains behind well and truly, as I rode through the Colorado Piedmont, which makes up the Colorado side of the Great Plains.

I left Pueblo on a US highway and split off onto Colorado state highway 96, which I followed for the rest of the day. This is a little used thoroughfare, the traffic sticks to the US highways that parallel the state highway, and traffic was sparse all day, for long periods no cars or trucks went past me at all. The highway parallels a train track the entire way also.

At the start of the highway the Arkansas River is nearby and there were many irrigated fields, or maybe they just benefited from being close to the river. It wasn’t until mid morning that the partitioned farmland gave way to wide open grassland.

For long stretches there was no point of reference as I cycled. The highway goes through a string of small towns, some barely towns at all, and most had tall white, what I presume were grain stands. You could generally see them come out of the haze about 7 miles away, and for the next half hour or more they gradually became more distinct.

My day kind of felt like I was in the Michel Gondry music video Star Guitar, the plains were constant, the railway track was constant, powerlines generally strung up beside the road, and the features recurred, signal boxes, bridges, perpendicular country roads, grazing cattle, grain towers, a couple of nodding donkeys.

The thing that stuck me most is just how vast the plains are, it really does feel like you’re right in the middle of nowhere with no way out. It also makes me wonder what it looked like in its natural state, with roaming herds of buffalo, and presumably the wolf packs that hunted the buffalo.

Tonight I’m staying at a church with a number of west bounders, I also met some west bounders on the road too. I’m only 14 miles from the Kansas state line after making a big push today, so tomorrow I’ll also leave Mountain Time and enter a new state.

Today I took an easier day and cycled the relatively short distance to Pueblo, the last major town I’m going through in Colorado, and the end of section 6. The weather was forecast as overcast with chance of thunderstorms and rain most of the day, but the good thing was that this kept the temperature way down so it made for very pleasant riding conditions. I took advantage of this and left mid morning.

The ride loosely followed the headwaters of the Arkansas River, which flows through Pueblo, and which I think I’ll be following out of Colorado. The scenery was turning back into a high desert, but the rocks were totally different, they are thin layers of ancient seabed, limestone, ancient lava flows, etc. The rocks erode where the water flows making for all these shallow canyons with many many layers of rocks making up the walls, it was really neat.

Instead of taking the TransAmerica route, which follows a state highway all the way, I took a slightly more direct route that took me through a state park and onto a dedicated bike trail, the Arkansas River Trail. The highway I took lead me past a huge concrete plant, down a highway with almost no cars on it, undulating through the canyons.

I could see the mountains in the distance on three sides, and they seemed to be shrouded in the clouds receiving most of the precipitation. It wasn’t until I got to the state park that a shower came, and the timing couldn’t have been better, I got to a campground that had covered benches, literally as the rain started I ducked under a bench and ate lunch while it fell all around me. As I finished lunch the shower had passed.

The reset of the day was following the river trail into Pueblo. The surface was warm and most of the moisture had evaporated by the time I started cycling again, but there were puddles here and there where the water pooled. The town of Pueblo is like many of the towns I’ve been through, a mix of old and new. The center is laid out with large old buildings in a grand style, and on the outskirts of town are the new highly commerical wearhouse like buildings with 100 foot high signs vying to be visible from the interstate. It’s all very American.

With the end of section 6 I’ve now travelled 2,043 miles on the TransAmerica trail, although my trail has taken me at least a few hundred in addition to that. I’m halfway through the mapset, and 150 miles shy of halfway through the distance. I’ve finished the American west with its mountains and deserts and the Pacific coast. From here I’ll be dropping through eastern Colorado and into the American Midwest, Kansas and Missouri.

After North Park and Middle Park comes South Park. This morning was frigid again, and nothing had dried out overnight. The first part of the ride was on dedicated bike lanes, before joining back to the highway for the climb up to Hoosier Pass, the highest pass on the route. At 11,500 feet it’s still 1,000 feet below the pass I did through Trail Ridge Road, and roughly the same elevation as Rollins Pass. The road twisted up and over, and I descended into South Park. This was my last trip over the Continental Divide.

Descending into South Park I followed another dedicated bike lane, although as I jolted over every fracture in the asphalt I looked longingly as the comparatively smooth surface of the shoulderless road. The lane took me to the mountain town of Fairplay, with the snow capped Rockies as the backdrop, and the South Fork of the Platte River winding through the wide grass plain.

I followed the Platte for about 20 miles, as the snowy mountains got more and more distant in my rearview. The trail started climbing up again, through green landscape, surrounded by low, rounded, and forested mountain tops. I passed through a relatively low pass and left South Park, beginning a long descent for the rest of the day.

The Rockies continued to make their own weather, the clouds formed, thundered, and I got sprinkled on again. As I was descending in the afternoon I looked up at one of the hillsides and thought that it looked like snow under the trees, but assumed it was an optical trick as I was lower and the temperature was warm, but as I cycled lower there were small snow patches on the road sides, I think the thunderstorms dropped snow here. The wind also picked up at this point, and started gusting 20-30 mph, I had a reasonably strong headwind the rest of the day. Not fun.

I had to do a longer day today, there’s not really anything between South Park and the Royal Gorge area where I am tonight. As I descended I rode through green valleys (not green compared to England, but not sagebrush desert that I have been riding through), the temperature rose considerably (the thunderstorms dropped the temperature a lot higher up), and the wind continued to gust in the wrong direction.

As I got nearer to Cañon City, where I am staying tonight, the valleys abruptly ended and were replaced with rock gorges and canyons. The official route follows the highway all the way into town but Komoot really wanted me to take Skyline Drive, it added an extra 160ish feet of climbing, at the end of a very long day I was skeptical, but I relented after seeing the highway stretch to 4 lanes, and I was really glad I did, the one way scenic drive follows a knife edge ridge of a rock out cropping that juts out into the wide valley that Cañon City is located in, the rock is really neat and the views were amazing.

I’m close to the end of section 6 in Pueblo now, but still around 200 miles from the Kansas state line. From here the trail stops going south and starts going eastwards to the Atlantic.

Today I started In the cool mountain air at 9,000 feet and had to descend to the Colorado River at Hot Sulphur Springs to rejoin the route. It was frigid going downhill on my bike before the sun came up. I followed a series of bike trails and a dirt road to get back to the TransAmerica.

From Hot Sulphur Springs the trail follows the Colorado River through a tight canyon, again with a railway line, and then it opens up into a wide valley. We’re actually going west here, the wrong way! At a town called Kremmling we leave the Colorado River and follow a tributary, the Blue River, upstream due south, and I kept following it for the remainder of the day, until I got to Dillon Reservoir where I’m camping tonight.

The Blue River goes through the Green Mountains (I guess they liked naming things after colors, the mountains are in the White River National Forest). True to their name the mountains are green. Further beyond there’s a jagged mountain peaks with snow patches that you associate with the Rockies, but they always lie at a distance. The mountains are hard to capture in photos as dramatically as the appear in person.

As soon as I set up camp the winds picked up and the dark clouds that were hanging over the mountains blew over and opened up, ripping with thunder. I took shelter in my tent, and mostly stayed dry, popping out to cook dinner. The reservoir is surrounded on almost every side by mountain peaks off in the distance.

Tomorrow I’ll pass over the highest pass on the TransAmerica, although I already have that beat with my side trip through Rocky Mountain National Park, but it will still be fun to go over a high mountain pass.

To get back to the west side of the Rockies from Boulder, and rejoin the TransAmerica, I took Rollins Pass, an unpaved mountain pass that’s only accessible to bikes and on foot.

From Boulder I followed the bicycle trail out of town and up Boulder Canyon, and then joined up to a series of dirt roads that took me to Rollinsville. The grade got pretty steep in sections, I had a lot of elevation to gain.

From Rollinsville there’s a 7 mile road that runs adjacent to the railway line and the river, and as the road ends it turns into a very rocky road up to Rollins Pass.

For 10 miles I bumped over the incredibly uneven road surface. In the morning the sky was clear, but as has happened every day I’ve been in Colorado, clouds formed, the wind picked up, thunder rang from the sky, and raindrops fell. I got showered on a little as I got near to the top.

Rollins pass was graded for a railway so it was an incredibly even 4% grade the entire way up, I did’t really notice the climbing over all the bumping. Once it got near the pass it went through a short tunnel, but the tunnel is closed as it’s unsafe, which is why cars are unable to cross. For bicycles there’s a singletrack trail that goes up and over. This part was very steep and I struggled to push my bike up and over. But I got there.

The views from the pass were pretty amazing, the rocky mountains with patches of snow, very green with water flowing, and haze in many directions as the precipitation fell. The road on the west side was quite a bit better than the east, there are multiple trailheads on the west so I guess they must grade it, it was still rocky in places but overall much better.

So tonight I’m sleeping back on the west of the Rockies, and tomorrow I will rejoin the TransAmerica and continue heading south.

Day 29, I’ve been on the road for 4 weeks and today is the first day of week 5. The ride from Estes Park down to Boulder was fairly quick and easy.

I got to Boulder by mid morning and used the time to run a few errands in town. I visited the Google office in Boulder where I grabbed some lunch with a great view of the flatirons. Photos has a very small presence in the Boulder office and I met the colleague I work with, and he shared some route advice with me for tomorrow. Boulder is cute with amazing bike infrastructure and a tonne of outdoor shops. I can see why people like living here.

Over the next day or two I’ll make my way back over the Rockies and join up with the TransAmerica trail to continue on.

No miles on the bike today, other than pottering around Estes Park on a bike with no bags on it.

Two highlights of the day; I took the Estes Ariel Tram up Prospect Mountain, a small prominent peak in the middle of Estes Park, this morning and did a short hike to the west summit, the view from the top, almost 360 degree of Estes Park, was worth it, great way to start the day. The other highlight was doing absolutely nothing, watching Netflix and letting my body store calories instead of burning them.

I plotted a route back to the TransAmerica trail. Tomorrow I’ll head down to Boulder, the largest town I’ll go through since Missoula, and just like Missoula it’s a quirky, liberal city nestled at the base of a mountain range.

Today I headed into Rocky Mountain National Park for a side trip from the TransAmerica trail. I camped a few miles outside of the west entrance to the park and set out early for Trail Ridge Road, a road that climbs up and over the Rocky Mountains, at the highest point it is just shy of 12,200 feet, it’s the highest continuously paved road in the US.

The road starts out relatively flat travelling up the side of a long valley, and once it gets near to the back it starts its over 3,000 foot ascent. At first I switchback up the side of the mountain at the back of the meadow, through trees I catch interrupted views of the meadow, and the mountain range above. After almost 2,000 feet of climbing, and passing 2 miles above sea level, I cross the Continental Divide again, back onto the Atlantic side.

From here the road keeps climbing, this time up the side of a valley flowing eastwards. The trees start to miniaturize before disappearing altogether and I enter tundra. The Alpine Visitor Center has almost 360 degree views down 3 drainages. Far away a large herd of elk is grazing in one of the meadows, and a glacial cirque sits adjacent to the center.

From the visitor center it’s a short climb to the highest point on the pass, the air is getting thinner and my legs are getting tired and I spin in a lower gear to reach the top. The views are expansive across the mountains ranges. The wind is picking up and clouds are starting to turn grey. Every day in the Rockies there’s a chance of thunderstorms in the afternoon, which seems to mean someone is going to get rained on. Again today that meant me.

I just finished up lunch and a couple of spots of rain fall on me, I decide to head down the other side and see if the clouds are just building up on the ridge, and not more than a minute after pushing off huge drops of rain start pounding me, so large it feels like hail. I was getting wet quickly, and as I have a 20 mile descent I stop and put on my rain gear so that I don’t chill on the way down.

Tonight I’m staying in Estes Park just on the east side of Rocky Mountain National Park. It continued to shower the rest of the day, and only now in the evening are the clouds brightening a little. I’m going to take a day off the bike tomorrow and let my body rest, after almost a full month of intense daily activity it will feel good to take it easy. From here I need to plan a route back across the Rockies to join back to the TransAmerica.

This morning I got up and rode the last few miles of Wyoming to the Colorado border. Welcome to colorful Colorado. Unlike Wyoming, which generally had fantastic shoulders (they got a bit skimpy when there was a passing lane, but, well, there was a passing lane), Colorado doesn’t seem to believe in shoulders, they disappeared immediately at the state border. Luckily today I was generally riding on very low traffic back state roads.

The morning ride took me across North Park. Apparently where Wyoming and Montana use the “hole” suffix, Colorado uses “park”, North Park is a high plain surrounded by mountains. As I went south I gradually gained elevation and the sagebrush started to become accompanied by green grasses and in some places wildflowers by the side of the road.

By lunch I was getting into the base of the Rabbit Ears Range which is the southern border of North Park; I was starting to enter forest and had trees again! I plopped myself under a tree to have lunch.

The weather forecast for today was scattered thunderstorms, and by lunch time the clouds were starting to look less white and fluffy. I had a shortish climb up and over a pass over the Rabbit Ears Range, and as I was climbing the sky started to grumble. It looked like the worst of it was further east over the taller mountains, but it did start to lightly rain on me before I got to the top. It was only a short shower and I sheltered for a few minutes before just riding through the tail end of it.

Back again over the Continental Divide, I am losing track of which ocean the water is flowing into, but the sign at the pass helpfully told me I am back in the Pacific watershed, feels like I’m home! The descent on the other side of the pass took me through miles of burned forest. Unlike in the Sierra where there is a variety of tree species and ages, and many trees are evolved to survive fire, in the Rockies the trees are all the same species and age and fire decimates the landscape. It’s natural and the way the forest has evolved.

At the bottom of the descent I arrived to the town of Granby, which sits on the Colorado River. If the sign hadn’t told me this should have been a major clue, the Colorado is one of the major rivers that drains into the Pacific. I left behind the Columbia watershed in Wyoming. Here the Colorado is a small river, presumably near to its headwaters. Tonight I’m staying at a campsite beside a reservoir that captures water from the Colorado, with a great view of the Rocky Mountains. Tomorrow I plan to do another side trip off of the TransAmerica and ride through Rocky Mountain National Park.

Today’s ride started with a short connection to Sinclair, which is a very small town just down the road from Rawlins, and a large oil refinery. From Sinclair the route hops onto I-80, the only short section of the route that rides on an interstate. It was about 13 miles and there was a great shoulder, most of the traffic on a Saturday morning was trucks, and most of the trucks moved over to the second lane when they could. It only took about an hour and I was off and back onto state roads.

I was more focused on the road while riding the interstate and not really looking around, but half way through I crossed North Platte River which I would continue to loosely follow the rest of the day. The interstate and the first 20 miles of the next county road continued through desert plains with nothing much but sagebrush. As I got to Saratoga, the next town over, I started to enter foothills with green ribbons that followed the rivers.

From Saratoga the road follows the Platte Valley upstream, I wasn’t particularly close to the river but following and crossing small tributaries to the river. The rolling hills were still mostly covered by sagebrush, but the rivers and streams introduced greenery back into the landscape.

It was still hot today, although not as hot as yesterday, and for most of the day the roads still provided no shade opportunities. The end of the ride followed rolling hills of sagebrush, I saw some more pronghorn, tracking me nervously, and the campsite I’m staying at is a stone’s throw from the Platte River, which this section is protected by the Platte River Wilderness.

As a change from all the open sagebrush plains my campsite is nestled among an aspen grove, and it’s pleasant as I sit here listening to the leaves rustling in the wind, and dappled sun still radiating slightly more heat that I’d like. I’m sure it’ll cool down tonight, I climbed up a bit more elevation since last night. The campsite is about 6 miles from the Wyoming/Colorado border I think, so tonight will be my last night in Wyoming, tomorrow I’ll enter Colorado. Wyoming has been sagebrush plains to the end, although today I got glimpses of taller mountains with snow patched peaks, and the rolling foothills suggest the taller mountains to come.