After a wonderful breakfast of oatmeal with peanut butter and crushed up granola bars (our typical start to the day), we left the town of Cold Springs and headed toward Austin a little more than 60 miles away. The ride awaiting us held in store some of the largest climbs yet. The predicted weather was a few inches of snow in the higher elevations and maybe some more storms heading in overnight. Thankfully, we only saw a few showers throughout the day.
The terrain was quite flat for the majority of the miles with 4 passes and summits thrown into the mix. On the first pass we gained about 2000 feet over a few miles (a relatively gentle grade but still quite challenging for us). We powered to the top of that pass as well as the next one a few miles away.
By the end of the day, approaching Austin, we were really feeling our legs and despite our best efforts, we couldn't quite make it all the way into town so we walked the last little bit (oh well). To make ourselves feel better, we tell ourselves that if we didn't have lots of gear with us we would be able to make these climbs much more easily (and it's probably true). 50 to 70 extra pounds on a bike really makes a big difference. I can see why people have chase cars to carry all the gear. When we made it into Austin we talked a bit with a sheriff who said that he had been following our progress. He passed by us a few times on our ride in the past couple days and said he was really impressed until he spotted us near the top of Austin from afar. He peeked through his binoculars and was watching us right at the point where we dismounted the bike. It's kind of creepy to we watched from a distance but we didn't really mind.
We are starting to be recognised by some of the other locals here. We have seen the same UPS guy pass by 4 times and each time he passes he honks and waves.
In Austin we got some coffee and a soft serve cone and then inquired about the incoming weather. The sheriff advised us to stop for the night in town and wait for the weather to blow over because a pretty big storm was expected. It was snowing pretty hard but the sky seemed to be brightening so we decided to keep going over the next to passes in order to stay ahead of the storm and not get stalled out for a whole day.
The road out of Austin was steep and winding so we ended up walking a good part of the way up. We got to the top where there was a nice looking campground but wanted to head down to a lower elevation on the other side of these mountains.
We descended a long way down, climbed through one more pass and then descended the rest of the way toward our end destination of spencer hot springs. We had heard about this spot from various people along the way and really wanted to check it out. The hot springs were 5 miles out of the way down an unmarked, bumpy dirt road but they were worth every peddle. We arrived with enough daylight to check out the area and set up the tent right as a little snow/hail squall arrived.
After we set up camp, we brought our food over to the tub, which the hot springs emptied into, and soaked our tired muscles in some wonderful 110 degree water. It was just what the doctor ordered.
After a long night's sleep we took another dip in the spring and ate breakfast.
The mountains, which we had just crossed through the previous night, looked like they got a lot of snow so we were quite happy with our decision to press onward.
We headed back out the dirt road toward highway 50 again with some strong winds in our face and foreboding weather all around us. Right as we got back onto the paved road, it started snowing quite hard and the wind picked up. We hunkered down and waited for the squall to pass. After a couple minutes we headed out with the wind at our back but unfortunately that didn't last for long. The wind shifted so that for most of the day we had a strong cross wind slowing us down to a crawl (but a crosswind is still much better than a headwind :)
Storm after storm blew by throughout the day and we crossed the incredibly straight stretches of highway toward Eureka. It was an exhausting day (both mentally because of the 20 mile stretches of highway without even the slightest kink and physically because of the wind). We were incredibly happy and tired when we got toward Eureka.
We arrived in town originally intending to camp but the weather was not looking promising and there were no campsites very close by so we decided to stay in an inexpensive motel with a store right across the street to fulfil all of our needs. Some heavy snow arrived right as we checked in but thankfully not much of it stuck to the road.
We had a wonderful dinner of stuffing, bread dipped in pasta sauce and mac and cheese with tuna with a cold beer on the side and then we were ready to sleep!
Today looks light the storms have passed and sunny skies with warmer temperatures are in the forecast. We plan to have a shorter day today (about 40 miles) to go halfway between Eureka and Ely, the last main town on the highway 50 stretch. The ride through Nevada has certainly been a memorable experience but we will be welcoming some change of scenery and a change in the highway number with our entrance into Utah. But before that happens, we still have some tough days ahead of us with some high mountain passes awaiting us.
We're not sure when we will get wifi next but hopefully it won't be as long as this past stretch.
Until next time,
-Josh and Chantale
No comments:
Post a Comment