It was one of the the hardest things I've done this trip, one of the hardest things I've ever done I think, but I did it. Today I biked from Buffalo over the Big Horns to Ten Sleep, a quiet little town of crazy prices. I had kind of hoped to make it all the way 90 miles to Worland, where I have a couch waiting for me, but the Big Horns proved a full day's adventure. So, I'm here in Ten Sleep for the night, enjoying what I feel is a well deserved overpriced pizza and drink, and thanks to the permission of some radical teachers am going to camp on the track of the local school.
It really was a tough day. The difficulty began well before I even started up the mountain. A segment of my other tent stake broke with a sudden snap in the night. The tent didn't collapse on me, so I just groaned and said the heck with it for the night. I "fixed" it in the morning same as I did for the other one. Through some web searching I found this is a common problem and well known defect. Through some organizing with my dad, I'll be getting free (through refund after returning broken ones) replacements sent to some post office down the road. Along with that, I found my water jug had developed a leak and needed thrown away. I decided a replacement could be found after my mountain climb, save some weight. And then as I was setting out, I forgot to secure a bungee cord, which allowed it to get caught in my tailer axle. The cord needed cut and still took a lot of effort to liberate. Thankfully the axle seems okay and I have plenty more bungees. It was just stress and burnt time before the real trial of the day.
The mountains... I'd never done mountains. The Black Hills were mountains to me compared to anything I had faced before. But the Big Horns, well, they're actually mountains. There's snow up top, even now, in June. ...We're not in Nebraska anymore, Toto. It was a tough climb, with lots of ups and downs in between, and I was at a crawling pace much of the time. It was gorgeous the whole way, but I confess in the difficulty and struggle against time, I often forgot it. Especially when a storm started brewing. Thankfully the rain that threatened never really came, but the winds turned really fierce toward the top. It made what was already a struggle much tougher, and not to mention much colder. That wind always seems like an invisible malevolent force. Seriously, at one pont the wind actually picked up some sand and hit me with it at enough force to hurt.
But eventually, I reached the pass, at 9666 feet. I asked some folks up there taking pictures if it was all downhill from here then. They said with a few more small rises first, it was indeed ALL downhill from there. When I hit a sign a little further on saying it was still 20 miles to Ten Sleep, I felt a little discouraged, tired as I was. ...But that was a damn fast 20 miles. And my job for it was not pedaling, but just holding on for dear life and steering through. I didn't bother with the less than ideal looking shoulder, and stuck to a lane to have maneuverability. Only two cars passed me on the way down that wild ride. It was a beautiful plunge down a canyon, but there was sadly little room for looking and no chance to stop for pictures (not without destroying my brakes). By the time the rollercoaster finally let me off, my ass hurt and my hands were numb. It was wild.
But I made it, all the way up and back down the Big Horns. And when I finally got down and got signal again, first thing I let my parents know I was still alive.
...Well, it looks like the previous weather indications were wrong and it's going to rain tonight after all. Here I was hoping to sleep under the stars in just my sleeping bag. But what's that thing they say? Can't always get what you want, but sometimes, if you try real hard, you can get what you need? Yeah, that's life, especially out here. Time to leave this pub and figure out my sleeping situation tonight.
No comments:
Post a Comment