Saturday August 21st
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Had the longest ride of the trip so far, 88 miles from Pinedale to Atlantic City and for what the map says is a relatively flat day we had the most vertical climbing 4,640 feet for the day. I have gotten to really dislike rolling hills at 8,000 feet, sounds great in a magazine article or advertisement but really gets old when riding a bike. We saw a lot of prong horns or antelope, a fairly stupid animal that goes under a fence instead of over it despite having the legs to do so. For about a mile in sage brush country they ran in parallel with me as I was riding on the gravel road, stopping every hundred yards to see where I was. The area we biked was part of the Oregon Trail and many historical signs detailing the trail along the way. Remember on car trips how it was so easy to pass those roadside signs or painful when your mom or dad wanted stop and read them? We stop at every one of them. They are interesting but an impromptu butt break too.
The ride took us over 3 Continental Divide crossings and even rode in parallel with the Divide for several miles on the crest. The wind was incredible and damn near blew me off when the gusts came in around 40 mph. Coupling that with a sandy road and a lot washboard and things got dicey a few times. The vistas from the top of road into the Great Basin were really beautiful. We gutted it out to Atlantic City ate a steak dinner and found a litle cove of trees to camp. Now we are off to cross the very arid southern section of Wyoming where there is no water for about 135 miles.
We finally met up with folks that we heard about way back in Lincoln, MT and they are crazier than we are! David and Becky are hiking the entire 2,800 miles of the Continental Divide. We had heard of them being about a month ahead of us from the owner of the Three Bears Motel in Lincoln, MT. We met them in South Pass City, WY, at least 700 miles further south. They are expecting to finish the Divide down in New Mexico before the snow gets too bad to get through. Good luck David and Becky and see their picture on the picasa.google.com website.
