Day 34

Referring to my stay in the woodstove home, somewhere during the night I was reminded about one of the disadvantages of wood heat is controlling it, woke up probably at 2 AM way way too warm… Finally figured out a window nearby to open and all was good. Made my oatmeal and coffee in this beautiful home, a clear sky outside and hopefully by 9:30AM when I expect to be rolling in the sun will be reaching here to warm my departure in the chilly air. 

A very chilly windy morning, wasn’t at all easy leaving the radiant heat of the woodstove home. But I did…

Turned left on the main road and I had been warned of the big hill. Up I went, some walking but mostly riding, and I got up to the top, about 1.5 miles up! A great accomplishment first thing in the morning! Except…………. When I checked my route, I was nowhere near the blue line! SHIT! I had climbed that hill for nothing, I shoulda took a right directly in front of Mark and Patricia’s place!!! $&@#%!!!!! Oh well, my error. There were more to come today…

That put me about an hour behind a good schedule gor the long day. Today and tomorrow are crossing the Great Divide Basin. The basin is where water flows neither east nor west. The basin is this huge, well… basin that collects all that water, and it normally absorbs or evaporates quickly. Right now, the basin is absolutely devoid of surface water…

The wind is relentless!! As there is no water across the basin for I think about 100 miles, there is only one place listed called the Diagnus well, it is a pipe sticking up out of the ground that the BLM put there so that some water would be available for wildlife.

Well it is not marked on the road whatsoever, you have to track your mileage along the route which I did a little bit of a poor job of. I went a mile and a half past it, I had to backtrack as certainly I would never have made it across the basin without that water! So at that point after filling up all my containers, I was carrying about 7L of water on the bike, about 15 lbs, a noticeable additional load, but absolutely necessary! 

Decided to take shorter route that appeared on the GPS track for the route. What a high effort failure… I found the start of the route no problem, and started up the much lower quality rocky road. I continued on about 30 minutes when I realized I had gone off the track downhill. Back up where I came, found the correct goat path and continued. The route continually diminished in quality and clarity. Eventually I came to a point where I could see the blue line on the iPhone GPS, but looking at the land, I could not decipher the path whatsoever. So I reluctantly abandoned my effort to save 20 miles today; instead doing nearly that many in my failed attempt. I retraced and returned to the main path, probably two hours spent in that folly…

Hence, with all my errors and backtracking today, I was riding until sundown at 7:30pm, wild camping just off the road. (No cars passed from 730pm through 9am.)

I am so remote here! And it is a certain special kind of challenge to set up a tent in strong winds! Cooked my din in the dark with headlamp help. Figure I have about 77 miles to Rawlins tomorrow. A huge day on gravel, and there is one big climb; guess I’ll be paying dearly tomorrow for my errors today. Aargh!!

So many antelope today, several predator birds feeding on rabbit carcass, a few deer, several groups of what appeared to be wild horses…

Day 35

Amazingly, the incessant wind quieted overnight, when I woke up it was pretty calm. So thankful for that! But that didn’t last long at all…

A beautiful morning, but I am truly in the great divide basin, it is barren and not a tree insight in any direction. Nor is there any water, so thankful that I went through the effort to find Diagnus well yesterday, that water will bring me through today.

The wind was always present, about a third of today was directly into the headwind, and two thirds was a side wind. Whenever I would see the road veer slightly left, I was always so excited to see how the wind would be reduced. Similarly, when the road veered right, I knew I was straight into it again. I would call this a two gear wind, when facing straight into it I had to drop two gears to be able to continue riding. 

Today’s route was supposed to be about 77 miles, but I was aware that there is a construction closure south of Rawlins which was today’s destination. So I detoured on an alternate blue line down to Wamsutter. It put me through miles and miles of oil fracking wells, something I hadn’t seen directly before.

From what it appears, there are numerous substantially large facilities surrounded by a dozen or so smaller facilities about a half mile perimeter. My guess is is this larger facility is pumping pressure or whatever they pump into the ground, and the perimeter smaller size units are the collection points for the oil. After cycling through true untouched wilderness day after day, it seems odd to be going through wilderness that in every direction you can see a dozen or so small facilities dotting the landscape…

I saw at least a dozen antelope today, just four cars. Surprisingly, an older couple that I had stopped and talked to briefly yesterday when they stopped, passed me up today and yelled their kind regards! A kind word along the road is always nice!

Eventually I made it into Wamsutter, not much of a town for sure! Pretty much a large truck stop, and then across the highway are a closed down restaurant, closed down gas station, a Baptist church, and a grocery store that is closed. But the Sagebrush Motel is open, and I got perhaps one of the funkiest little motel rooms you would ever find in the United States, very much one star. But compared what I’ve stayed in on some of my Asia bike trips, this is perfectly fine!

I think the only option to eat is the truck stop across the way, I know there is a subway over there and I think a little store of some sort. Heading over there shortly…