King of the Mountain

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Geo: 39.0818, -106.383

This had been one of our least restful nights' sleep, as Dejo's claustrophobia barged in, in the middle of the night. It was still more restful than my night in Telluride, as I wasn't worried about finding a spot. The morning was cold, but pretty, as we did in fact share some oatmeal with the photographers. We got cleaned up as the crowds started arriving by bus, around 8 am.

The south peak was calling our names, so we hiked up to get a view from there. Just crazy-beautiful.

By 11 am, the last busload of people had been dropped off, and the crowds were starting to have fun. We walked a ways down the dirt road, to spray a little message for Jens Voigt ("Ja Jensie"😉. Our spray chalk barely lasted long enough to get that done, so that was all we could do.

If you can get the right vantage point, you can see a fair way down the valley, and see the peloton and the entourage making their way up the hill. For us, that vantage point was up the ridge of the north mountain. Windy & chilly, but if I held my phone up as a sacrifice to the race gods in the sky, I was occasionally rewarded with a bar of cell service, and a text update on the race. We may have gotten into a sweeping helicopter scenery shot, with our Colorado & Canada flags flying -- but not sure.

Once we saw the guys coming up the road, we descended, and took our places at the barriers. The crowds swarmed around the cyclists as they came up the dirt roads, and even the barriers didn't keep everyone out of the way at the KOM line.

After the bikes & entourage had passed, and most of the crowds had dissipated, we went back down the east side of things. It felt like forever before we got cell coverage again, so we could hear the race coverage again. But we did, though we decided to stop in a park in Buena Vista, so we could hear the finish.

A quick stop in the grocery provided dinner for the night (empenadas) and a little cheesecake for dessert. Then there was the question: would we find a campground with any room left, near Twin Lakes? Or would we have to settle for a roadside pullout, or (worse?) a spot in an RV park?
We wanted to be somewhere that we could get to the feed zone the next morning.

As it turned out, we found a spot in our first choice of campgrounds (White Star), and made ourselves at home. We set up the "tent", but then checked the weather forecast (3 or 4 bars of service!!!), and decided that the "tent" wasn't really our best bet if it rained, which it was likely to do.

So, another night in the Durango, and off to Bedfordshire we went.....

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Photos

Paul Bunyan can do the splitz?
Western State College had hoped to have Paul (their mascot) greet the riders, but the wind proved too much for him.

Hello, helo
I think this was the Flight for Life chopper, but the camera helo flew over us as well

Francisco Colorado - KOM!
The Colombian rider took the KOM points at Cottonwood