Day 100, October 14th, 80km and 860m climb, Hartsel cyclists only camping behind pub to Hayduke's Hideaway cyclists only camping, Salida
Today was a long day! We took advantage of the tail wind that stuck with us most of the day but it was still hard yakka! The route was predominantly uphill for most of the day and the first 20km were horrible washboard corrugations. I did think briefly about doing a photo essay on the different types, depths and nature of said corrugations but decided noone but me would be interested!
So we trucked on through the desert-like surroundings enjoying the scenery and the sunshine. It was surprisingly warm in the sun as we climbed back up to the 3000m mark. The last climb put us back in the trees which was nice. We had tentatively thought about free camping at the top where there was an informal campsite but about 300m from the top, mama bear and two cubs wandered across the road in front of us so we decided perhaps we wouldn't camp! No photos of the bears as they scarpered across pretty quickly and were about 100m ahead of us. Gordon is happy now that he has seen a bear (3 in fact)!
After we reached the top of the climb there was a stunning 20km downhill into Salida. Views and a gorge to enjoy all the way down. On arrival in town we made a couple of calls to try find somewhere to stay and have ended up at a neat wee place called Haydukes Hideaway which caters for through cyclists and hikers on the Divide. We will take a day off tomorrow as we need to pick up another prescription for Gordon in town and after 8 days on the trot we are ready for a wee break.
Sorry about the poor quality photos today, we were riding into the sun most of the day and I was practicing riding and taking photos at the same time with average results as you can see!
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Happy day 100 👍 You two are such an inspiration. We are proud of you and so glad to have met you in Montana