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Day 1: From Telluride to “A Night At The Y”

July 10, 2006 on 11:06 pm | In Bicycling, Uncategorized |

(Note: photos of the entire trip can be viewed here.)

This morning broke with a crystal-clear blue sky: my prayers for good weather had been finally answered, or so I thought. I dropped off the rental car in Durango and rode to the rendezvous in back of Mountain Bike Specialists on Main Street to meet the Western Spirit truck, the guides, and the other folks with whom I’d be riding the next 5 days. Our guides were Rachel, Scott and Jason; Rachel and Scott were a married couple looking to be in their 40s and were veteran guides for Western Spirit, while Jason was in his 20s and guiding the route for the first time.

My extremely agreeable companions on this trip appeared to be:

• Patrick, 22, from northwest Connecticut.
• Chris, 30ish, from Austin, Texas.
• Frank, 50+, from the Santa Fe area.
• Jeff, 50+, also from Santa Fe, and a friend of Frank’s.

Notably absent was a man named Frank that we temporarily called “Frank 2″, who had missed a plane connection or something in Calgary and was unable to make it to the rendezvous (he eventually hooked up with us on Tuesday evening out in the mountains).

We got our stuff together quickly, throwing our gear into dry bags, and most of us piled into a shuttle van that was to take us to Telluride, with Scott and Jason driving the Western Spirit truck behind us with all the bikes and gear loaded. This 4WD truck, our support vehicle for the entire trip, was quite a sight with its custom steel rack and bikes sticking out all over. It was very thoughtfully designed with lots of clever compartments for everything necessary.

As we snaked up the claustrophobic Dolores Valley to Telluride, the sky got gloomier. As we climbed up and over Lizard Head Pass, the vista of the Ilium Valley opened up, and coming down from the pass we could see a tiny trail below etched into the side of a steep slope. This was part of the Galloping Goose trail that we’d be spending the day climbing. The trail was exciting to see, but it was worrisome to also note the dark, black clouds blowing in from the west.

We arrived in Telluride at the same time as a full-bore mountain thunderstorm. The famous view from Telluride was rapidly appearing and disappearing as moving rain clouds blanked out entire quadrants of the landscape, and thunder reverberated deafeningly off the valley walls. We huddled in the van and talked while the guides pulled stuff off the support truck. Everyone was thinking pretty much the same thing, and some were saying it out loud: “Are we going to ride in this? That’s INSANE!” But it wasn’t insane. It was what we had to do. Scott arrived in our truck after a few minutes and said, politely but firmly, “Well, guys, it’s time to rally. This is just the nature of the beast.” And so we pulled on our rain gear and got going, with no small amount of trepidation. The storm did in fact begin to lift at that exact moment, but this was only the first of several successive waves of bad weather to hit us that day.

In fact, we got a few minutes to bounce around Telluride before leaving. It has an awesome view of towering 14ers surrounding it and many beautiful vintage Old West buildings, but the feeling is that a tidal wave of movie-star money has wiped out the authentic atmosphere that once existed here. It seems like a place to see, to be seen, and to buy ultra-expensive unnecessary gear.

Then our ride began with a gondola ride up and over the mountain to Telluride Mountain Village, a sort of residential outpost of Telluride. From there, a dizzying descent on muddy singletrack winding through the woods. It was fast, furious, and the grip of our tires was none too sure. We dove downwards for about 30 minutes until we reached a paved road. A mile down that road we found the support truck awaiting us with sandwich fixings under a rain awning, which was more than welcome because it began to pour again at that very moment.

After lunch, we began the day’s real work: a 20-mile climb at 3% grade, punctuated by shorter but much steeper climbs. This was the Galloping Goose, a converted rail trail that starts near Telluride and grinds its way back up to the same Lizard Head Pass that we’d driven through earlier, hugging a steep slope for the first half and then winding around an alpine lake as it draws closer to the pass. “Grind” was indeed the operative word: there was no letup in the uphill, except for the occasional punishing segments where a former trestle across a side creek had washed out and the trail descended and then ascended a gully much more steeply than usual. It was hard enough for me to keep plugging away on the railroad-grade segments at this altitude; when we hit the first killer steep pitch, I knew instantly that I’d have to walk my bike up or completely lose my rhythm. After a very tough post-lunch start, I was finally hitting my aerobic groove on the steady climbs and I didn’t want to blow that groove just to temporarily play hero (or martyr) by hitting the steep stuff hard. It was difficult to resign myself to this because the climbs looked so short and doable. However, the altitude multiplied the effort unbelievably.

Chris, one of my companions, was probably experiencing the same phenomenon, but reaching a different conclusion about it. He was a strong muscular guy and had been well out in front pretty much the whole day, riding very strongly on the main incline. He hit the steep pitches just as hard, but apparently they were hitting him back. He told me he experienced something like an anxiety attack at the bottom of one of these pitches: hyperventilation, a sense of panic. At the next rest stop, Chris abruptly disappeared from the group, leaving along with the truck: apparently he suddenly told the guides that this trip wasn’t for him. We were all very surprised, but I think I have an idea what he was experiencing. High altitude totally changes the reality of what one can expect from one’s body, and I think he may have had trouble changing his expectations of himself… and, consequently, had trouble getting enough oxygen to meet those goals. Also he’d had some chain trouble earlier and things weren’t going smoothly for his bike in some fashion. In any case, we never saw him again: now we were four, not counting the guides.

We climbed and climbed. We passed by the Ophir Needles near the little town of Ames, where the first AC electric generator went into commercial service, in defiance of Thomas Edison’s prediction that DC would carry the day. We went past mountains towering over the brilliant teal-colored Trout Lake, as dark clouds moved in yet again and thunder started crashing. On the final 5 miles from Trout Lake up to Lizard Head Pass, I was a good 2-3 minutes behind the rest of the group. Approaching Lizard Head Pass, the inevitable wave of bad weather hit, but this time (thanks to our altitude at the pass) this meant hail mixed with freezing cold rain. I rode the last few minutes of the climb with hailstones stuck in my right ear, drenched in cold water, shivering despite the full-length rain gear. Everyone else was waiting in relative comfort under the shelter of a roadside National Forest map sign with a little roof: their lead had enabled them to just miss the hail while I got slammed!

We looked at the map; Rachel indicated that our camp was located approximately at the location of the letter “Y” in “YOU ARE HERE”. We rode down the asphalt in the hail and rain to “The Y” and pitched camp in our hail-littered campground. The bad weather cleared, but the temperatures remained near freezing. After a delicious blackened salmon dinner, we all crashed in our soggy tents.

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