Up up and away!

August 10th

Left camp, which was just outside Cuba, NM, about 8:30 and started climbing up through the mountains on a very wash boarded road which made for a very annoying ride.  A road that is wash boarded is when very small ruts develop from heavy log trucks starting and stopping and when on a cycle it shakes and vibrates everything including the driver.  We wound in and around the mountain range till eventually the road rose above 10,000 ft which was cool at the time. (we didn't know what was coming)  Bumped into a herd of Elk, several cows and a couple decent sized bulls.  Came to a small hill which was totally covered in rocks, normally we would have been ecstatic about a road like this, but with 50 lbs gear on the back the road presented a challenge.  But we made it through with no problems.  Kept pushing on through some of the most beautiful country one can imagine still at high elevation.  Eventually we crossed the New Mexico boarder into Colorado still high in the Rockies.  What we rode through next is really hard to describe with words!  It was awesome!!!  Winding around a dirt road up above 10,000 ft looking out into huge gorges, valleys, and up to the high peaks stretching into the sky.  Riding along totally enjoying ourselves we came upon a high mountain roundtop with a weather station tower on top.  Seeing a road winding up, we couldn't resist!  So up we went bouncing over rocks trying not to fall off the edge because it was a looong way down.  Burr!! It was getting cold and very windy way up here.  As we pulled up onto the top 1.8 miles of uphill later the gps read 12,660 ft!!!

We were pretty excited to make it up that high and it was very easy to tell the air was thin because walking around the top a bunch had us breathing heavy.  We headed down the round top and kept going down, down, around, and down and bashed into the feed store in downtown Del Norte, CO.  After asking around about camping we found out the liquor store in town let bikers camp in the lot beside the store so that is were we set up camp for the night since the next closest place was a good 45 min away.