Thursday and Friday August 19th and 20th
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Stayed overnight at the Lava Mountain Inn, got off at the usual 8am start time with a good ride downhill for 10 miles. Saw a set of cell towers so pulled off the highway to call Robert to wish him a happy 26th birthday and to send the previous blog, an hour later there was no connection. Had a big climb ahead of us to get over Union Pass, a 9,265 footer with a roughly 9 mile climb, which was complicated by graders and dump trucks working on the road. The last 3 miles were steep. The view from the top was magnificent, big meadows with blue, purple and white flowers along with snow-capped peaks in the distance. Also there were more signs warning to beware of bears. In talking with the locals there are a lot more bear attacks than makes the news, a day later we were told there was one malling several weeks ago right where we were. The grizzly population is growing about 7% per year and now numbers somewhere close to 60,000+ in North America. Hey isn't it about time to give it a rest on the hunting ban?
Our ride down was long and pretty flat, only dropped 200 feet over ten miles after the summit. Never seem to get the downhill rewards from the uphill climb. After a pretty rocky descent we ended up camping when the sun was out and with no mosquitos, not the usual. The campsite did have a water pump so we didn't have to go the Green River and do the laborious job of using my hand pump to get good water. Ate the Mountain House dinners early and hit the sack to read and get some rest.
On Friday woke up very early, was freezing, guess my weight saving move of buying a sleeping bag down to only 45 degrees and a cheap, small tent wasn't really working for me. Checked the temp gauge on my bike computer around 6am and it was 30 degrees! After wrestling with the stove to get it started had a tea, the usual oatmeal and some hot chocolate - still didn't warm me up. What the hell, might as well get on the bike and start riding. That worked after about 10 minutes. Headed to Pinedale to resupply, catch up with folks and get a hotel room. It was only 35 miles away and we were there before lunch. Saw our first coyote, which ran the right direction after seeing us. We are now down in the sage brush country with the Wind River Range in the distance, they sure are sharply jutting mountains, Wind River Peak is over 13,000 feet. The ranchers are busy bailing hay for the winter, never seen so many large, round bales. Pinedale is a bustling one road town with a lot hotels, hardware stores, and some industry going on. There were several hotels full of oil tool trucks. There is a lot drilling going on in his area of WY and we were warned that hotel space is tight in the smaller towns because of the oil activity. We are striking out early to reach Atlantic City, our longest ride to date of roughly 90 miles, want to be positioned to go across southern Wyoming for one overnight where water is scarce.
