We’re ready to go. We’re doing it!
Today we fly to South America. And oh yes we are excited!!
This is really happening
Category Archives: preparations
Gear test: a three-day ride up Cuchara Pass
For our fall break we started in Walsenburg and rode three days up to Cuchara Pass and another day back down. Besides testing our gear, there were three things we wanted to go up against for practice: a strong headwind, a mountain pass, and gravel roads. All three of these will meet us in Tierra del Fuego. Luckily for us we got to try all three – at once! After the first day we weren’t sure we could do it, but by the end of the third day we were much more confident.
Day 1, Lathrop State Park to La Veta (15 miles, 900′ climbing, dirt): We camped overnight at Lathrop State Park and left our car there at the visitor’s center. We got on the bikes and headed out after a breakfast of chocolate chip pancakes. The first day’s ride took us across gravel roads to La Veta. We enjoyed the low-traffic road as it wound past deer, prairie dogs, pronghorn, cattle, and even a herd of horses that galloped across the road in front of us.
However, we had to work hard the whole time to fight the headwind. It was 20-30 mph! Tierra del Fuego is also known for very strong headwinds. How fitting!
As we came into town we checked the weather. The overnight forecast was 30-40 mph winds with 75(+) mph gusts. We abandoned our plans to camp (at the for sale Sammie’s Campground) and got a room in the La Veta Inn instead.
Day 2, La Veta to Cuchara (12 miles, 1400′ climbing, pavement): Whoa was it windy! We waited until after 10 AM to get on the road so the winds would die down. Today we travelled on pavement, but the headwinds continued. It was up, up, up the whole way. We passed several different rock formations. There are hundreds of rock walls that radiate away from the Spanish Peaks. The yellow aspens added some unexpected color to our late October ride.
Cuchara is a cute “town” that is simply a block-long collection of stores for tourists. We stayed in a B&B and the kids had a blast playing in the attic-like second bedroom. There was a playground in town, but very few kids.
Day 3, Chuchara to the pass and back to La Veta (6 miles and 1500′ up, 18 miles back down): The B&B’s breakfast was great – we all ate a lot. I (Jason) had an extra (third) muffin on the way out the door and that really powered me up the pass. It was 6 more miles to the top of the paved road. The headwind was not so strong, and the road got steeper. At the top we took our obligatory photo with the pass sign, then continued up a little further (above 10,000′!) on a dirt road to a wildflower overlook.
We decided to head back down to prepare our lunch in the park in Cuchara while A and H played on the playground. Needless to say, it was a lot faster to go down than up! After a family conference we decided to go back to the La Veta Inn to spend the night in our “favorite room.” We realized that we were carrying our full set of gear on the bikes – including tent and pads and bags – but didn’t camp at all.
Day 4, La Veta to Lathrop State Park (15 miles mostly down on dirt): We took the same gravel road back down to the park. Somehow the wind shifted so we could have a little bit more headwind before our trip was complete. Our car was waiting for us and we ate lunch at the picnic tables in the park. We packed up and drove west to enjoy our first visit to the Great Sand Dunes National Park. Gear check = Success!
Who knew the final packing would be this difficult?!
It took us SEVEN hours to do the final preparations to get on the plane. No kidding. Just doing the bikes took four hours, mainly because Freeze Thaw put Loctite on every single bolt and taking them off for shipping was next to impossible. We broke two bolts and bent some others, so had to send Jason’s dad to the hardware store for emergency replacements. Thanks Mike! Normally, we love the guys at Freeze Thaw, but during the bike packing process I was ready to call them up and demand they drive to Maryland to help us!
Eventually, however, we prevailed.
All packed up and at the airport in Baltimore.
Daisy begins her dissertation. Notice the Alaska guide book at her side for inspiration.
We got to the airport very early for our flight, nearly 3 hours, because I (Daisy) was afraid it would be hard to get the bikes on. Somehow, it was no problem. The only hiccup (and it was an expensive one) was an overpacked bag that weighed 54 pounds and cost an extra $. YIKES!! We couldn’t take anything out because we had secured two boxes together with about 150 feet of duck tape. Hee hee.
Luckily, all that extra time at the airport meant that Daisy got to start her PhD dissertation! Watch out Statistics Department, the next Dr. Philtron is on her way.
The flight itself went off without a hitch. As we were nearing Anchorage we got impressive views of the coastal mountains. It was amazing to see the glaciers and sharp mountain peaks.
Glaciers and Mountains here we come!
After pulling into the gate, we were looking out the airplane window at the baggage folks, and were VERY excited to see the bike boxes come off the plane, and in one piece! Success! It took us a couple hours to put the bikes together and get everything packed back up, but then we were on our way.
Leaving the airport in Alaska
Our Warmshowers host, Sage, met us at the airport on her bicycle and we rode the bike paths to her house. It was beautiful how the path weaved along the mud flats and a stream. We slept and had nice warm showers in the morning.
Sage convinced us to head east on the Glenn Highway instead of going north to Fairbanks. Now, we’ll be bicycling along the beautiful glaciers we saw from the plane. It will be a few days shorter, so we’ll have time to sight-see and go off route later on in Canada. (We’ll just have to come back and do Denali biking and/or backpacking another time).
The weather is great in Anchorage – 60s, sunny, and not a cloud to be seen. We are having a wonderful start!
Sunset over the mud flats of Anchorage.
Made it to Maryland: next stop Alaska
Success! We made it to Maryland, and are still wrestling with our stuff and getting the bikes ready for shipping. Now, I will write a little bit about the past three days riding. We encountered a perfect day, a stormy day, and a hot day, but here we are!
The most wonderful sight of our second day right: cows, ponies, and a boat.
Last time we checked in, we were at Standing Stone Coffee Company, our favorite coffee roaster / laundromat in Huntingdon. I (Daisy) also got the unfortunate news that I will have to defend my PhD dissertation in September, instead of in February as I had planned. This means that I have to write my dissertation during the next three months, on tour, so if Jason does most of the updates… you’ll know why!
Making dinner on our second day. All smiles until we realized the forgotten salt.
The ride from Huntingdon south was so pleasant and peaceful that it was almost boring. We stopped for lunch in the shade of a tree and had a kind man offer us water, and the climb to the campground we stayed in was winding and not too steep. We stayed the night in Cowan’s Gap State Park campground, nestled in a high valley between two mountain ridges. It is a lovely spot, and we reaped the rewards of a Tuesday in May: No campers whatsoever. The only hiccup – once dinner was made we realized we had forgotten salt! Noooo!
We got up earlier on Wednesday, and had a better time packing up. The first-day panic was behind us! We were on the road by 8:30, and proudly, until we realized we had taken a wrong turn out of the campground and climbed uphill for half a mile before we realized it. Once we turned around, it was a beautiful descent into the next valley. Pennsylvania is full of ridges and valleys, and we enjoyed seeing spring blooms and new leaves on our descent.
A lovely restored farm building
From here, the hills became much more rolling, and we traveled through farmlands for most of the day. Jason decided to start counting the number of roadkill we saw next to the road. It was determined that the creature had to be at least palm-sized to count (i.e. no earthworms or tiny frogs). He got to twenty over the course of the day! I had no idea the backroads of PA were so deadly.
Hiding from the rain in a rifle range pavilion.
Around 11 a thunderstorm rolled in over us. We threw on our rain gear and rode until finding the first covered area for lunch. It turned out to be a pretty abandoned picnic pavilion adjacent to a rifle range, but it was perfect for us. The temperature dropped, and we bundled up over lunch. The rain got harder, so we put on the full rain kit – booties, pants, coat, and handcovers I made out of shower curtains. Just as we rolled out of the tent… the clouds lifted and the rain practically stopped. Ha!
We arrived in Gettysburg around 4, where a friend of ours from Harrisburg met us. We got a (pricey) tent site, bought salt and pepper (!), ate a snack, and set up the tent. Our friend had brought his bicycle, and we set out to ride the ‘auto tour’ through the battlefield. It was peaceful and quiet, with stone monuments everywhere.
That night, there was a giant college group in the tenting area next to us, at least 40, and some of them also had big vehicles with loud sound systems, so you can imagine how the evening went. We had imagined earlier in the day that the tents next to us belonged to some wonderful church group who would quietly cook dinner and offer us corn on the cob. In the end, though, the earplugs went in and we were quickly asleep.
Maryland boy comes home!
Today we wiggled through Pennsylvania for a few miles, following Google map directions, and rode past a ‘road closed’ sign. We have learned to mostly ignore these signs, and this time was no different. A small crew was digging a culvert of some sort, which we easily rode around through an innocent bystander’s yard. Just past this, we reached the Maryland line.
In Maryland we hit a few dirt roads. Every time we hit dirt we yell “Alaska!” because we are so excited about Denali Park road, and the Top of the World highway. Our favorite part of the day was on Sam’s Creek Rd, which meandered through peaceful farms. It eventually entered a tiny, hidden valley and turned to dirt (Alaska!), before spitting us out on a busy highway. The highways were big and busy for the last 10 miles, but we made it despite the heat. It got up to 84 degrees today!
Now, we are at Jason’s parent’s house. We will rest for a day here packing up the bikes and doing a final reckoning with our gear. We already decided to ditch some of the seven pounds of rice we were carrying… oops. Next time we have a real update on this blog we will be in Alaska. Yippee!!