Mountain Music

“You see that mountain over there? Yeah?

One of these days

I’m gonna climb that mountain”

- Alabama

Considering today was such a short ride (35 miles), there were an awful lot of choices for this. There were various Rocky Mountain tunes from Joe Walsh and John Denver, and countless songs that reference rain. The one I really wanted was “I Can’t Stand the Rain,” but the lyrics just didn’t work. I almost went with the BJ Thomas classic “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head”, but in the end, I decided to accentuate the positive about today's ride, rather than the negative.

After a really nice evening in Ridgway with my Warmshowers hosts, John and Mallory, I was on the road early this morning. The plan was 3 major mountain passes, all over 10,000’, and a total of about 80 miles down to Durango. The first climb promised to be the biggest and most daunting. Red Mountain Pass is at an elevation of 11,018’. By contrast, Ridgway, where I was starting, is at about 6,900’. I had to climb just over 4000’ in 24 miles. The first 10, from Ridgway to Ouray, were fairly flat meaning the brunt of the effort was in a 13-mile stretch after Ouray. To complicate matters significantly, for me anyway, is my almost paralyzing fear of heights. On the road up, I was on the outside, there were no guardrails, and there were places that had perhaps 6 inches from the white stripe to the precipitous drop off. To add a slightly higher degree of difficulty, my efforts to get out early and beat the traffic were only half successful. I got out early. I was being passed by 18-wheelers, a front-end loader, plenty of pickups pulling flatbed trailers with off-road machines, and perhaps the scariest of all, another cyclist. About 2 1/2 miles into the climb, she pulled up next to me and said “good morning”. As that was absolutely the last thing I expected, I nearly crapped in my pants and rode over the edge! She blazed on by with a sheepish apology for startling me. The next time I saw her I was about 2 1/2 miles from the top and she was on her way back down. That time she just waved.

Mercifully, after about 5 miles, the road turned away from the cliff’s edge and then was just an unending series of switchbacks to the top, with one brief reprieve on a flat stretch through an old mining ghost town. I had given myself 5 hours to make the trip up, starting at 7 with a goal of being to the top by noon. That was about 5mph, including stops - of which there were many! It’s hard to catch your breath at that altitude. Thankfully, I was a bit better than I estimated, reaching the pass at 10:45. I stopped and took a couple pics, fixed my saddlebag which had partly come off - again - and inflated my rear tire, which I thought had gone flat about a half mile from the top. Because I was uncertain about the state of that tire, I was much more cautious than usual going down the other side. I even stopped a couple times to check and make sure the tire was holding air. After 10 miles, I got to the town of Silverton - the only town between Ouray and Durango, still 50 miles away. I figured I’d have an early lunch and then try and finish the ride. I hadn’t been inside the BBQ joint for 5 minutes when it started to pour, and continued to pour for the better part of an hour. The water was streaming down the street. The rain eventually stopped, but the forecast was for thunderstorms for the rest of the afternoon. I pulled the plug and got a room in town and I will simply do the rest of today’s ride with tomorrow’s planned short day all at once tomorrow. All in all, a good day even if it wasn’t quite what I was hoping for.

Leaving Ridgway and heading up into the middle of that somewhere

If that’s not a bike shop, it should be

The main drag in Ouray (apparently pronounced You-ray)

They were not kidding - at least for the part I’ve finished

The main drag of Ouray, from a slightly different angle

Storm clouds beginning to gather. Apparently, I have been spotted on the road.

Back down from where I came. Note the road on the right and the drop to oblivion.

The upper reaches of the Uncompahgre River.

Not hard to tell why it’s called Red Mountain Pass. There are actually three Red Mountains, cleverly named Red Mountain #1, #2 and #3.

The top. There might be a tad of sweat on that shirt.