Day 22 – Into Colorado, then back to New Mexico!

I awoke sometime in the dead middle of the night, enough to rouse to full consciousness. Above me was the deepest and darkest sky I can ever remember seeing. I recalled there are no major cities for hundreds of miles. No light pollution. No clouds. I could see the swirl of the Milky Way intermixed with thousands of clear and bright stars. I saw one small blue one and thought of what could be there in some distant solar system.

It’s one thing to imagine the vastness of the universe, another to be surrounded by it, from horizon to horizon.

I might have woken up because I was cold. The night was on the chilly side, but completely dry since we were up above the river valley.

We awoke to a huge forest view. We watched several elk moving slowly up the valley, grazing and pausing as they did.

I happened to walk to the rim’s edge right as Maine, Vermont, Sailor and Pasta Alfredo walked by on the trail below. “Hallo and good morning! We’ll see you down the trail.” They are the early bird crew, on the trail by 6 or so.

I couldn’t have designed a better start to a day of bikepacking (on tired legs) if I had tried. Gradual climb on good trail, along the rim’s edge. Just enough to generate warmth, but easy pedaling. 20 minutes of climbing led to 5 minutes of super enjoyable and challenging downhill. And then, there was was a picturesque creek to add a few bottles to our supplies. Perfection.

We ran into a big crew of thru-hikers at the Lagunitas informal campground, and also our divide buddy Rick! We figured he might be camping there, and were stoked to see him one last time.

From the Lagunitas we climbed singletrack into what is probably one of the finest pieces of CDT singletrack in the whole state: Brazos Ridge.

Oh yeah.

Hovering around 11,000′ and yet clear of snow, this trail was built to high standard, and was oh-so-fun to ride.

We passed a number of thru-hikers, some of which were now becoming very curious about bikepacking and what we were up to. It’s fun to field some of their questions about a sport that is still so unknown and misunderstood (especially on the divide). It wasn’t until some of them actually saw us riding the singletrack that it really hit home as to what we are doing. They all thought it was very cool, and I could see some gears turning in their heads.

Overall the day had a feeling of great gratitude and of savoring every last bit of high altitude goodness we could. We were so lucky to be up there, to be wrapping up the state of New Mexico, some 900 miles of CDT riding. Everything has gone so smoothly thus far, right up to the very moment, when we sat in a meadow using up the last of our stove’s fuel to make midday hot cocoa.

Part of the gratitude and savoring came from the fact that we are looking at a layover, off the trail. There’s too much snow in Colorado, and we have all summer to ride the trail. There’s no hurry. So we plan to spend some time in Chama and Durango while things melt.

We rode a last few miles of CDT singletrack that it seemed most hikers that day were skipping. But even we skipped off the trail ~7 miles before Cumbres pass, seeing how deep the snow was in the trees. So it was the divide route into Colorado, then a short climb to Cumbres Pass to watch the train toot over and descend (with wicked head wind!) back into New Mexico, where Chama lies.

We were quickly whisked away by local hero Dave Burdette. We’d been in touch a little on the way north since he is the expert on the CDT in this area, even going so far as to cut trees out himself and put on a free NMES endurance bike race on the trail. He’s carved out quite the life here in the Chama area, and invited us to stay in his camper behind his idyllic cabin up in the forest.

We’re not sure what our next move is quite yet, but that’s part of the excitement of an unplanned life! A summer on tour…