Sunday, September 5th
Del Norte is a small one road town in a valley with a few banks, gas stations, sundry shops, one liquor store and a couple of cafes - the typical farm town of Colorado. It is also the start of a very long climb for the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route, about 24 miles of straight climbing to the the top of Indiana Pass (11,984 feet) and a total of almost 4,000 vertical feet of climbing. There is a picture via the link below that shows a house in the country flying the American flag high. I took this picture because we have passed hundreds of homes just like this out in the country flying flags high and proud. Sure wish other less devout Americans could see the love the people have for this country.
Starting at 8:30am it took us until 2pm to reach the pass, it was slow going with a lot of dust, wind and sweat. Right before reaching the top we saw the largest flock of sheep (and a few goats) that I have ever seen, must have been 400 or 500 of them on a steep slope over 12,000 feet in elevation. Heading down the other side of Indiana Pass did not give us the rewards for our long climb up, a short ride then climbing again but by now the wind was really whipping around us. Made it to Summitville a mostly ghost town of old mining buildings but with a huge stripping mining operation in full swing. The water was polluted from the mining and we didn't spend much time looking at the massive gouge taken from the mountain top.
The traffic the entire day was easily five times what we experienced the last several weeks, guess the Labor Day weekend had everyone out. Sure wish they would slow down when passing, I must have eaten a pound of dust yesterday. While I am complaining might as well through in the ATVs, they were everywhere and some must have thought there was a Indy 500 style race going on! The ATVs have an advantage of being able to zoom across rough terrain better than the bigger trucks or Jeeps and the drivers usually make use of it.
The objective was to stay in Platoro out of the wind and cold. Getting there took all day even though we only did 47 miles of the route, we climbed right at 6,000 feet of vertical. On the last climb coming into town we ran across a guy changing a flat, it was his second one on that road that day and told us of another driver that had three on the same road earlier in the day. The closest place to get a tire is about 30 miles away at a Walmart. Luckily we made it up and then down without any flats. Platoro is a unconnected community (no cell service or Internet) of almost all log cabins wedged into a very narrow valley. We checked into our half-of-a trailer cabin, showered, walked to dinner, and then hit the sack. Oh yea, tried to get a beer with dinner, closest place is 23 miles away. Finally this is the conclusion of the 4th map section, we are starting the 5th map tomorrow and will be leaving Colorado tomorrow and entering our 5th and final state, New Mexico. There is only 734 miles of the 2,493 mile trip left (71% of the trip is behind us).
