Day 22 & 23

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Day 22:

One way street systems are not conducive to good navigating. However after circling one end of the town trying to work out how to get on the route we eventually crossed the elusive Colorado river which were trying to find yesterday. We then linked with our our self plotted route. Feeling fresh after an interesting rest day where we had, on the first night an entertaining Tepenyaki restaurant experience with a well trained cooking tool rattling & flipping chef (actually a Vietnamese Eurasian with an American serviceman father who he can't find). Then on our actual day off a visit to Main Street for the farmers market (dinner in a Nepalese restaurant with accompanying live music from a street band), together with a visit to a shopping mall we didn't really want to go to but had been told it was close to the river (bum steer). Never mind a nice restful day where we sheltered from the heat in the afternoon watching replays of the Andy Griffiths show on the motel TV.

On the day 22 route it was more rocks, dust, soft sand & generally challenging riding. Up to 2600m elevation where the temperature was more comfortable & the vistas, including drop offs of 100s of metres into ravines, were spectacular. Silver Birch forests again interspersed with pines (half of which were dead) along with some amazing views, kept our attention until we eventually gassed up & lunched in the small but pretty town of Norwood. Continuing for the last 90kms we were on fast wide gravel roads all the way to our destination of Montrose. 310kms today.

Day 23:

Due to scarcity of accommodation & the area we were in containing a couple of days riding, we had booked for 2 nights in Montrose. Out at a leisurely 8am we highwayed 50kms to Ouray which is a ski resort, outdoor activity town much like Queenstown or Wanaka. After a coffee & getting sandwiches for lunch we headed for the hills on Corkscrew pass which transpired to be the hardest ride of the day. Damp steep clay with many water filled pot holes & plenty of motorcycle & side by side traffic to contend with plus some frighteningly steep tight switch backs. At around 3500m Ian's bike ran out of grunt due to the elevation not allowing decent air flow. The only way to continue was to remove the cover over the air filter to lean the mixture off. A few hundred metres later & my bike did the same. Same solution kept me climbing until we reached the summit of California Mountain at around 12,800 feet or in our money close to 4000m. We descended on Hurricane Pass passing 100 year mining buildings which had partially collapsed due to the weight of the snow over many winters.

The skies were threatening & we were soon experiencing thunder, the occasional shower & the temperature dropped to 8 degrees C. All of the way we were meeting runners coming from the other direction who doing a 50km loop with the event starting in Silverton. These people are ironmen (persons) as this is one steep climb with a tough surface. Many were walking (stumbling) & given the weather change would be candidates for hypothermia.

Into Lake City after passing mining (silver & copper) remnants & some incredibly deep narrow ravines with a fast flowing river 100m down. Today we saw more rocks which were coloured a bright green. We had been seeing this over the last few days & according to google it evidences iron, chromium & sometimes Manganese. A few laps of Lake City to look at the old restored buildings dating back to the 1800s mining era unlike the current population of around 500.

Fast gravel roads took us to the highway & back to our digs in Montrose. 265kms today.

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