Rabbit Ears motel was old school in that they kept their reservations/schedule on a paper poster. I asked them what they recommended for breakfast at 6:30 and they said āThe Shackā but they looked up the phone number in the phone book.
We re-supplied at Safeway and bought some stuff at Ski Haus but unfortunately they sold out of bear spray (another thing they donāt allow on planes. We finally got on the road and it feels good. Lots of friendly Sunday morning cyclists wished us well and we chatted with few fans of racers racing in the āTour Divideā which is an annual endurance race from Canada to Mexico. If timing is lucky we might get passed by Dan but you never can tell. He rides approximately 180 miles per day and only sleeps on average 4 hours per day.
After about 10 miles of pavement we finally got to the dirt road. Dodging the puddles were fun at first but we soon came along a big one that took the whole road. I went for it to see how deep it was ā¦about 1ft deep. I got lucky and was able to pedal thru it. Bob wasnāt so luckyā¦he tipped over and tested the waterproofness of his new Ortlieb panniers. They passed the test. Near the Stagecoach Reservoir we got passed by the fastest woman in the race (i think 7th place so far). Lael is her name. Amazing accomplishment in a field of 200 racers from around the world.
We met a fellow 4 pannier tourist biking north from Mexico to Canada. Nyko was her name. Sheās Dutch.
Stephen spotted a bald eagle in the distance ā it was quite a sight. We havenāt seen any bears yet but this Lynx Pass campground has warning signs so we took precautions storing all food far away in this case the bathroom.
No cell signal here in the campground so Iāll have to wait until later today to publish this post.
Thanks for the pictures of the group. Trail sections look clean….so far. Do you have mileage, climbing, altitude, and temperature estimates? I think the climbing would be easier if you just used that SkiHaus track vehicle!