Day 2:

We woke up on day 2 to an absolutely beautiful sunny morning. Since we had a long day in front of us & still didn’t have much water, we decided to skip making the freeze-dried meals and had some snacks instead. We then made some coffee and packed up camp. Haley had a stroke of genius and decided that if anyone looked like they were leaving, she’d ask if they could spare any water. BOOM. The first car driving by was a couple of fellow bikepackers and they had two gallon jugs of water for us. We filled our bladders and bottles and started the day in high spirits. We ride! Shortly down the road were the pit toilets for the Hamburger Rock campground. Upon using said facilities we found a flyer on the door that said the Access Fund was giving out free coffee and snacks a little ways down the road. Wahoo! We popped out of Hamburger Rock, onto pavement, and enjoyed some smooth asphalt for the first time in what felt like forever. This was when I realized I had about 10 watts in my legs. Stomach felt good, legs felt good, head was in a good place, spirits were high, just couldn’t put any power through the cranks. The group left me a couple of times. Even in the back I just couldn’t hang on and got spit out. Such a strange and deflating feeling. I started hammering snacks and water, took a salt pill, and hoped that would pay dividends. We arrived at the Access Fund tent and enjoyed some delicious coffee and some Gu Waffles. Forever thankful for those folks being there. After our java oasis we carried on pedaling down the highway. Eventually we started following Indian Creek and things got pretty lush. Riding through an incredibly beautiful river valley was a treat after being in the blazing sun earlier. We came upon Newspaper Rock which had some really neat petroglyphs. Definitely worth the stop as it’s about 10’ from the road. Michael actually pulled into the parking lot, thought he had to hike to them, and immediately exited and returned to riding. Don’t be like Michael. Check ‘em out. At this point I was finally able to put some power to the ground. Just in time for this grind out of the valley. Whew.

The big item on the docket for the day was making it to the La Sal General Store before they closed. Unfortunately, during our research we couldn’t find reliable business hours so we were flying kind of blind. One resource I found said they closed as early as 5PM, which seems kind of insane for the only store in town. Haley and I were riding together when she expressed her desire to push through and make no alterations to the route for getting to the store earlier. The reality is that she has the legs for it, and would likely beat us to the store even if we cut some miles out of the day. Off she goes. The rest of us did a group huddle and decided we’d likely cut out about 10mi of gravel roads in favor of taking a more direct and paved route to La Sal. Eventually we got a sliver of service and were able to call the store. They close at 10PM! Or maybe it’s 9PM. They weren’t really sure. Turns out they share of a phone with the store in Nucla, CO and I was talking to the dude in Nucla. He assured me that they didn’t close before 8PM at the very earliest. Okay, that helps. Kinda. We still had a long ways to pedal and you never know what the terrain is like. We pushed on and eventually came to our dirt road turnoff. Honestly this section was one of the nicest of the whole route - a little sandy but mostly smooth and fast with some beautiful views of the La Sals in the distance. We eventually came to some barbed wire rancher fences we had to open and close behind us. They acted as a tumbleweed catch and Nick quickly learned how prickly those damn things are. Ouch! We eventually made our way across Hwy 191 and began our paved pilgrimage to La Sal. Nick & Michael stopped for lunch shortly after crossing the highway and so we regrouped. Nick was looking at topo lines on his phone and piped up “I don’t want to be too optimistic, but it looks like it’s a pretty big net negative all the way into La Sal with a small climb into town.” Great. Taylor and I didn’t have much for lunch outside of our regular ride snacks so we decided we’d just push on and see them at the store. We descended for a little bit and then came around a corner to a block headwind and a climb. At this point I thought to myself “I bet Nick was reading that backwards. We must climb up to La Sal.” And climb we did. Never super steep, but never relenting. Up and up and up into a seriously strong headwind. To pass the miles Taylor and I were hollerin’ at all the cows grazing on the side of the road and talking about what we were going to get at the store. I was really dead set on an ice cream Snickers. After what felt like 100 years, we could see town. The final push! After a number of hours without radio communication I tried Haley when we got to the top of the hill. We had contact! So good to hear her voice and know she was in good spirits. We descended into town (this was the climb Nick read backwards...) and finally arrived at our first and only resupply on the whole route.