Frame building slideshow

Day 5: F' this shit! I quit.

The morning of day five came after a long night filled with many trips to the bathroom at the Graham Ranch. There is a sign (actually it's a paper plate with words written in marker) behind the toilet that reads something to the effect, "Conserve water. If it's yellow let it mellow. If it's brown flush it down." I certainly adhered to that rule, however, by no means do I feel as though I conserved any water as I filled that toilet with brown and subsequently flushed more than a dozen times. To the Grahams: Sorry, I would have gladly used the composting toilet to conserve water, but it was locked. Oh, and thanks so much for the shower.
When the sun rose we opened the door to find that the horses were now in the pasture directly in front of the hut door, about twenty feet from us. They all stood against the fence and watched curiously as we got ready for the thirty plus miles ahead of us.
The weather looked promising; partly cloudy, but none of those clouds hinted at an impending storm. Nonetheless, I had decided that it would be the last day that I was going to bike. J had mentioned that day five would end in a small Colorado town called Gateway and it was in this town that I planned to find both anti-diarrhea medicine and a ride to Moab.
I was just about to say this to Tom when he said to me, "Well, this is going to be my last day." I understood then that he too was throwing in the towel. He went on to explain that his cardiologist had recently prescribed a new medicine for his heart condition which made him fatigue dramatically whenever his heart rate exceeded 120 beats per minute. Keep in mind that I'm not in bad shape and my heartrate gets higher than that if I get off of the couch.
I told Tom that I would be joining him in the quitter train. That I wasn't feeling any better and that my energy was starting to feel sapped by the illness. Day six, which was supposed to be just as difficult as day one, still lay ahead and I just didn't feel as though I could handle it feeling the way that I did.
Tom and I broke the news to J and Sean. They didn't seem entirely surprised by it. Tom had been consistently bringing up the rear despite his dedication to his spin classes this past summer, and I spent more time shitting than sleeping so far on this trip.
We got the phone number for Elda Graham from a handwritten note in the showerhouse. The note said to call Elda for help or a ride. We figured that this would be a good number to call when we finally got to a place where we could get a cell phone signal.
We finished packing and loaded our stuff onto our bikes. There were at least three partial rolls of toilet paper loaded for my benefit. I would become very grateful for that bit of thoughtfulness later in the day.
The first six miles of the ride was a gradual ascent. The air had a bit of a chill, which helped to prevent me from getting too hot while climbing. We got to the first turn at about the three mile mark and stretched our muscles now that they were thoroughly warm. The huge yellow road graders at the intersection proved to be excellent leaning post for stretching. Sean was amused by the warning label on the side of one showing a part of the hydraulic system exploding in some guys face. I preferred the one which depicted the grader blade being dropped onto an subsequently severing that poor guy's toes.
Once we were loose we continued along the road. Three more miles of gradual uphill went by much faster than one would expect. I think it was because Tom had found a good rhythm and the hills weren't overwhelmingly steep, such that we didn't feel the need to stop frequently as we had the previous days.
After the six mile ascent was past we got to enjoy some downhill fun. Parts of the road had deep ruts in them from the ghosts of stuck trucks past, so we couldn't get up a ton of speed, but we at least were not climbing for a while. There were also some mighty tight doglegs in the road that required us to keep the velocity low, lest we hit the corner too fast and skid out. On one occasion the latter is exactly what Sean happened to do. He managed to escape without more than a few bruises and a broken pannier.
When we approached the end of the descent, or the beginning of our next ascent we stopped and ate the PB&J sandwiches, which had become our lunch staple. They stood as a nice contrast to the Powerbars, Clifbars, and candybars that we ate for between meal fuel.

I'm not sure whether it was being off of the bike or having a full stomach that got my colon angry, but something pissed it off. I had to hike up the trail a little ways to find a spot where I could squat without making the guys lose their lunch. This began the point where I was very appreciative of the guys having grabbed multiple rolls of TP.
We started the next series of hills which contained a number of switchbacks. We climbed for a while and then came to another downhill section with some tight turns in it. After I finished one of the descents I heard J say something about there being something in the trail. He seemed to think it was an umbrella. I didn't remember seeing an umbrella. I figured that I had better check to see if my rainpaints were still strapped to the top of my trunkbag where I kept them and my raincoat. They were gone. I yelled back to Tom to please pick up my pants and narrowly avoided the misery of being caught in a rainstorm sans rainpants; which, as I had learned on day three, is a horrible thing.
J and I somehow managed to get ahead of Sean and Tom. The only explanation we could come up with was that they were making out like teenagers at a movie theater. Regardless of the fact that Sea and Tom were "allegedly" making out, it was at this point that the sky really started to get dark.
We had seen dark clouds in the distance for several miles now but until our most recent turn the storm's direction seemed to not intersect our path. J and I put our full raingear on and waited. We could hear thunder in the distance and lightning bolts started to cross the sky. J and I counted the seconds between the flash of lightning and the boom of the thunder; twelve seconds. We waited for Sean and Tom. By the time that they caught up there was only about three seconds between the flash and the boom. The thunder storm was headed our way and it was close.
Sean and Tom put on their raingear as J scouted a safe spot to find shelter. He came back and said that he found a spot so we put our bikes under a tree and headed up to the spot that J had scouted as the rain began to fall steadily. J led us to a spot off the road under a small tree where there was enough room for us all to sit.
On the ground between J and I was a cactus that I never would have noticed had J not pointed it out to me before I sat. Then J proceeded to check to see if it really was prickly by touching it with his gloved hand and receiving a tiny little puncture wound, thus proving that cacti are, in fact, prickly. Thanks J for solving that mystery once and for all.
The rain came down pretty hard for a while. Then came some rain mixed with the tiny little hail pellets smaller than BB's that we were becoming used to seeing as a typical form of precipitation. Soon then rain began to slow and the duration of time from flash to boom grew to five or six seconds. We decided that we should get moving since the lightning seemed to be at a safe distance now.
We got on our bikes and headed up the red dirt road. At first it seemed like the clay content of the road was less than the red hue indicated. Soon it became clear that the red was indeed from clay as the mud began to steadily collect on my tires as I climbed the hill.

I looked behind me at J and could see his rear tire start to spin as its diameter grew by inches. I watched as the diameter of my front tire grew to the point where the mud began to bunch up onto the V-brakes and eventually the brake bridge on the fork. J soon had to get off of his bike as he could no longer get traction. My chain almost immediately started jamming as it was so full of mud that it had trouble bending. I too had to get off off my bike and walk.
As our bikes became incapacitated Sean caught up to us with barely an real accumulation of mud on his vital bike parts. We stopped and waited for Tom and then discussed our options. We tried to see if any of our phones would get enough of a signal to call Elda; no such luck. We decided that we would probably have to hike our bikes the remaining ten miles so we started hiking with Tom in the lead.
After ten or fifteen minutes of slowly pushing our bikes in the mud, the sun came out. Within a few minutes the road was nearly dry. J and I started to clean our bikes, but I had to take a brief break to go contaminate another delicate habitat and use up the second partial roll of TP. When I finished I returned to my bike to find Sean and J cleaning out the drivetrain for me. I thanked them and finished the job.
We continued for a few miles and came to the top of the final descent into Gateway, CO. We stopped and I once again contaminated the habitats of countless wild creatures. As I did that the guys wandered off of the road to enjoy the view.
The road that we were on was about thirty feet from a cliff and between the cliff and the road were trees that obscured the view below. I came back to find the guys on the other side of the trees looking at where we would soon be headed.

The view was both breathtakingly gorgeous and terrifying at the same time. Before us was a view of the road that snaked along the side of the mountains. At one point in the road we could see a bend so sharp that it appeared as if the road simply ended; dumping its contents off of a cliff.
In the distance we could see the La Sal Mountains looming ahead; taunting those who were brave enough to take on day six. Words simply can't describe how amazing the view was and pictures hardly do it justice.
We stopped briefly to take in the view but the sky threaten rain once again so there was no time for a group photo. We feared that this section of road would get muddy enough to make the winding descent a life threatening ordeal.
As we sped along the curvy road it did begin to rain quite hard but the gravel content of the road was much higher than it had appeared, so traction remained good until we reached the "flash-flood zone" where all of the gravel and sand had been washed during previous rains. Serpentine gullies in the deep, soft sand provided difficult obstacles, especially since any sudden turns resulted in wild fish-tailing. Applying the front brakes resulted in an even more treacherous oversteer which nearly led to me dumping the bike on several occasions. The fact that each of our bikes was carrying twenty plus pounds in gear made matters just that much more interesting.
We managed to reach the bottom of the hill without losing life or limb. A paved road would take us the rest of the way to the hut, save for the last half mile. The paved road was wide and smooth and very welcome considering that my stomach was ready to let loose another smelly wave of toxic waste. I clenched my buttcheeks together and continued pedaling.
I noticed something that gave me a chuckle on the side of the road as we rode through the miniscule downtown of Gateway, Colorado. Under a tree sat a clothesline and an old ringer-washer with a sign that read, “washer and dryer, 5¢ a load”. I wish that someone had taken a picture of it. I’m willing to be that the thing had been put there for the steady stream of cyclists that rode that path the hut system. It was a hell of a deal, but at that point I had given up caring about clean clothes, as I wanted nothing but to drop a bomb on that composting toilet.
When we reached the dirt road to the hut, or at least what we thought was the road to the hut, J decided that he would go into town to see if he could find a grocery store where he could purchase some much craved meat and some much needed anti-diarrheal for me. It turns out that the directions were a bit unclear, or totally wrong as we quickly reached a dead end on the road that we thought the hut was on. We turned around and tried the next road with much more success.
This hut was very different than the ones where we had stayed previously. It had board and batten siding and was painted a cream color of sorts. Inside there was no woodstove like the others had. It appeared to be much older than most of the others and I presume that it had been in that spot for a while. Outside there were two composting toilets, one of which looked newer and was very close to the hut. I decided that closer is better and ran into that one.
J retuned soon after I finished in the toilet and gave me the much appreciated medicine. He said that there was a small general store that had a limited supply of groceries, but what really interested him was the restaurant that was in the same plaza. He asked us if we thought that it would be cheating to eat dinner at a restaurant. We all agreed that we just didn’t care and that we were all dying to have a steak. We got cleaned up a bit and headed into town on foot.
The restaurant was in a retail park that looked as if it was trying really hard to resemble a southwest resort. It had the general store, a hotel, the restaurant, and an outdoor gear shop. All of the buildings’ exteriors had stucco walls that were colored to match the red rocks of the cliffs surrounding them.

We entered the restaurant and asked to be seated out on the patio. We got beers and the “Triple Dip” appetizer. Rain threatened to make our dinners soggy so we had to move inside after we finished our appetizer. We all ordered steaks; Tom and I got t-bones, J got Elk strips, and Sean got something that escapes my mind. I ordered my steak black and blue. I must have gotten Tom’s as mine was medium/medium-rare, but I was too hungry to reject it. My meal took me about two seconds to consume, if that. J and I both ordered dessert; J got a molten chocolate cake and I got a bread pudding which was quite tasty.
The rain had stopped when we headed back to the hut, which made me happy since I was in too much of a rush to get some food to remember my rain jacket. We got back to the hut and Tom and I started to go through our stuff to make sure that Sean and J had everything that they needed from us to finish the ride. I lent Sean my trunk bag to put the extra gear in and we got ready for bed.

Day 4: At least I didn't shit my pants; Part 3.

I limped up the hill to where the guys were waiting and we took some pictures of the newly revealed view. The afore mentioned cowboy drove his truck up the hill and shut it off in the middle of the road and got out. He proceeded to point out the mountains in the distance and told us about a crater in the distance that is larger than the one in Arizona that is much more famous. We parted again and continued on.
The cowboy was good to his word; the road was almost entirely downhill after the second cattle guard. We quickly arrived at the campground where there was supposed to be a water spigot to refill our bottles, only to find that the spigot rendered no water.
We continued the remaining 3.5 miles to the hut under the threat of rain. Luckily, the rain never materialized and we arrived at the Graham Ranch Hut much less wet than we had reached the Columbine hut the previous day.
The Graham Ranch was gorgeous. We unloaded our gear while dozens of horses pranced around a watering hole. More beautiful than the horses was the showerhouse down the hill from the hut. We each took our turn showering before dinner. It was glorious.Unfortunately, I had to make many trips to the bathroom as my colon was still spewing liquid hot magma. We decided to just have chicken soup and Chef Boyardee Beef Ravioli for dinner and to proceed directly to bed as it had been a rough day for all of us.

Day 4: At least I didn't shit my pants; Part 2.

When we were about twelve or so miles away from the hut Sean stopped at the end of an intersection with a drive through a pasture. There happened to be a man sitting in a big white Dodge truck. The man saw us and got out of his massive dually He was in his fifties or sixties, with a rather big gut. He wore a friendly expresion, a cowboy hat, and a .45 caliber pistol on his hip. He leaned up against a signpost at the end of the drive and asked, "You guys headed to the Graham's place?", refering to the Graham Ranch Hut to which we were headed. We confirmed his suspicion and he continued to converse with us for a bit. He reassured us that pretty soon we would pass two cattle guards, and after the second one the road was almost all downhill. For those who are unaware, cattle guards are neat gates for containing cattle, which are hinged from the bottom such that you drive over them when they are open.
We thanked the cowboy and started up the hill in front of us. The rain had stopped about ten minutes prior to our meeting the kindly old cowboy, and the sky was partly clear. The rain, however had already fouled the chain on our bikes several times that day, requiring that we stop and clean and lube them every once in a while. Most of the times the symptom alerting you to the necessity of a cleaning was a clicking noise from a stuck link as it passed throigh the rear derailler. This wasn't really the case with my bike though. My bike preffered to suck the chain up and jam it between the chainring and the chainstay. This typically results in having to pedal backward half a rotation or so, until the chain rights itself, or to immediately dismount to avoid toppling over with your feet still in the pedals. At this instance I did not have the alertness to dismount in time and fell over, landing with the point of the seat jammed directly into my already battle weary rectum.

To be continued...

Day 4: At least I didn't shit my pants; Part 1.

When morning came I fealt very lethargic. I dragged my ass around, but moved at a snail's pace. Jason was also feeling aweful as his sinus infection was kicking his butt all over again. Eventually we were able to get back on our bikes and onto the road.
The sky was cloudy today and got continually worse as we saw rain for a majority of the ride. I was feeling pretty good considering the previous night. I didn't have to stop once to pooh on the side of the road, thanks to the dozen or so Pepto chewables that I took that day. That, and the fact that when your ass is REALLY sore from riding and you are sitting atop that narrow little saddle, that pain drowns out the pain in the colon, or at least lessens its urgency.
I can hardly remember the details of the ride. I do recall that it rained and or hailed almost nonstop. We did learn that if your directions say that there is an "overlook" ahead and it is a rainy, cloudy day, all it means is that you have to climb another big-ass hill. I'm sure that the views would have been great but I don't have x-ray vision to see through clouds.
Jason was definitely not feeling well today. He is arguably the most fit person in the group but he was bringing up the rear most of the time; behind Tom, who has a heart condition and the heaviest bike in the group.

To be continued...

Day 3: If you have rainpaints and it's raining, you should really be wearing them; Part 2.

We made excelent time(for us) as we were spurred on by the rain. We got to the hut around 4pm, which was pretty good considering it was more than thirty miles.
I started to feel a bit nauseous as soon as I got off of my bike and I was still freezing. I had just enough energy to do a bit of maintenance on my bike as the rear brake cable was sticking causing the brake to not return to it's released position. After that I slowly ate a helping of Sean's delicious chili-mac.
I started a fire using whatever paper trash was laying around in the hut. Surprisingly it warmed the hut remarkably well, yet I continued to shiver. I laid in bed around 6:30pm and fell asleep pretty soon after that. I awoke around midnight to the obvious sensations of diarhea. The good new was that I was no longer freezing. The bad news was that I now had diarhea and the composting toilet was ridiculously far away; on a winding, narrow, wooded path. A path which I proceeded to walk about ten times that night.

Day 3: If you have rainpaints and it's raining, you should really be wearing them.

Today started out pretty well. The sun was shining and I was feeling good despite there being some grinding climbs that seemed to last forever. About ten miles into the ride that change when rain and small hail started pelting us. We put our raincoats on and continued riding. Oh yeah, everyone else had spandex leg warmers that they put on. I didn't think that it would make much of a difference so I just continued on. After ten more miles I was absolutely freezing; shivering uncontrollably. At our next stop I put on my rainpaints and was much more comfortable, although still shivering. We saw tons, literally, animals. Pretty much all of them were domestic though. There were many points where I had to use my experience growing up surrounded by dairy farms to herd cows out of the road in front of us. We passed by a horse farm and were greeted by dozens of horses that flocked tot the fense to watch us pass. The last animal of note was the sheep that we passed in the middle of the road, not far from the hut. It bleeted as we passed and stared us down as if it might butt us off of our bikes at any moment.

To be continued...