Day 29: Welcome to New Mexico!
Friday July 17
Horca, CO to Hopewell Lake Campground, NM
64.9 miles, 7207 ft climbed, 1910.5 cumulative miles
We both hit snooze when the 5:30 am alarm buzzed and didn’t move. Sarah said “it’s too cold to get up”. It took a few more minutes before we started moving and the process to get ready for the day, take down the tent and pack up camp began.
Paved road out of Horca and we were immediately greeted by the first climb of the day but it went fairly quickly. By 9 am, we got our last summit in Colorado and were getting excited about our last state line in a few miles. When we turned onto a dirt road we realized that we were probably not going to get a state line sign so ‘Carson National Forest New Mexico’ had to do.
We stopped by an elderly couple setting up their tripod and camera next to the train tracks and when Irena inquired what they were up to, the lady said: Boys play with toy trains and men play with real trains and we are here to take pictures. We watched the antique-looking old train go by and also took pictures.
The climb up to Brazos Ridge went slowly. It was beautiful to pedal through the Brazos Meadow but the rocky, rutted road full of mud and puddles was good foreshadowing for what was ahead. And we thought this was bad!
Thunder around noon is becoming a routine to warn us that we are about to get wet. The first storm got us wet, rain gear went on, but the sun came out again for us to enjoy the views on Brazos Ridge and rain gear was off again. We maneuvered around puddles that took up most of the road. The tires were coated with mud which then flicked off on us. We briefly ducked under a tree when the rain got intense.
The fist sized rocks in the road became the size of two fists and the road was unrideable. We hiked a mile or two of a highly unpleasant road pushing our bikes. The second time we stood under a tree was for the shade when the sun came out between the rain storms.
We must have spent several hours at over 10,000 feet, slowly losing elevation. More thunder, lightning, and rain and we ducked under a tree for the third time and took the opportunity to layer up a bit more. When it looked like the rain was easing off, we got back on our bikes. Within seconds, the rain turned to a torrential downpour with hail mixed in and sideways wind and puddles formed in our shoes. We continued riding and the rain continued to soak us for some time. There were no trees to duck under now and nowhere to hide so we pedaled. The heavy rain bounced off the road. The ditches next to the road filled up with brown water which ran over the road and each time we rode through in, we hoped that it wasn’t too deep and there weren’t going to be any surprises. We kept moving to keep warm hoping that this downpour would at least ease off to “normal” rain. We skidded around in mud and avoided deep streams of water flowing down the road and attempted to lean into the sideways wind. We couldn’t eat or drink and just focused on looking straight ahead and riding. The bike and chain creaked as the mud and grit coated everything. Each pedal stroke was slow through this wide open prairie and the road took us over several rollers. There was a twenty degree temperature swing between the storms.
As we rode on, the road was all of a sudden dry and hasn’t seen rain probably for couple days. It was deeply rutted though and we carefully picked our path. We spotted a small wildfire, likely sparked by the lightning we’d been pedaling to escape.
The final 15 mile slog to the campground was rough. This day has been long and was our biggest day in terms of feet climbed per mile traveled - on some horrible roads with quite the weather.
Somewhere around 7:30 pm we pulled into the campground and when Irena went to inquire about water (since we’d seen signs saying the water was shut off), the wonderful camp host, Dawn, not only offered us to fill up from the jugs behind her camper, but she also generously shared with us a large container full of rice, beans, beef, veggies, and cheese mashup with some tortillas that she had just cooked up for herself for dinner.
Welcome to NM!
Published July 18, 2021