Jeremiah Watt

Boy howdy, it was a cool one sleeping beside that creek. The bike read 34 degrees at 7:15 am.

I rode for a ways in the shadows of the huge redrock cliffs above me, and think I am about to freeze, so I stop and get out some long pants and gloves. I am searching for a coffee shop to get some Joe, but none are open. So I pedal just for the warmth that it brings.
We are riding all along Eagle Creek here, and it is so pretty.

I seen my first covered bridge on the trip, and several great looking old barns along the way. Plenty of beaver dams, and plenty of rushing white water. I finally stopped in Avon, and had a cup of coffee took a few minutes to look aver my map and get ready for the ascent of the Vail Pass.

Along about exit 181, I come to the turn that sets my onto a bike path that runs alongside I-70. The very first turn is a steep incline and I think to my self, I hope I have enough legs for this????? The path is full of riders of all ages, from 6 to 80 for sure, and on every type of cycle you can imagine. I am quite impressed with some of the younger riders out covering this hill. From bottom at the bridge to the top of the Pass, I am told it is 12 miles. I confess after asking riders as I went, I never checked in on my own bike to be sure……..but rest assured it’s long enough that exact mileage doesn’t matter.
I rode for about 1/3 of the climb and stepped off to eat a little of any thing I could put Peanut Butter on, and a Bagel of relative freshness was at hand, along with 2 Fig-Newtons and a slug of water and I was pedaling again.

At about 5 miles from the summit you make a hard right turn and decend a steep hill which crosses a creek at the bottom and then you burst out of the creek bottom to shoot under the I-70. And this is where it gets you, right after you come out from under thetunnel that goes below I-70 you make a hard left and are looking at a very VERY steep but short hill maybe 500-600 yards. Nothing to do but put it into the lowest gear and grunt and fart till you climb out, I was envious watching all the others as they went by, because they could stand into the climb and I cannot because I am pulling a trailer.

The last 4 miles had the hardest climbs in it for sure, but I finally made it to the summit and the little rest area at the top. There is a cold mountain stream running thru by the Rest Area, so I go soak my feet for a wee bit, to cold for even a skinny dipper like myself to get in. It was so cold you can see where it froze the color right out'a my feet.

I fill my bottles and talk to a few folks around the parking area. There are a ton of bikers up top, but since I started I have not seen another trailer, and only one fella with panniers on his bike back in Utah.

I am ready for that long coast of the top of Veil Pass at some 10 thousand feet, down into Copper and then Frisco. It is a superb descent on the bike path into Copper, and once there I stop to get a cup of coffe and take a look at the map to see what I should do for camping.

While I was having coffe some riders come up and also stop and have coffee. We talk for while and it is Sam who suggests that I ride down to Frisco with him and his family and stay overnight with them. Nice folks, real nice folks, so I agree to do so. It was right about then that Emily Kitching walked up from the parking lot and said hello, that really caught me off guard. Emily runs the web site side of things for Buck and Mary Brannaman. And Emily tells me that while I was at the Library in Eagle, just a day before that Buck was doing a clinic at the Eagle Fairgrounds, and I missed stopping and saying hello to him. Oh well, that’s life is it not.

Its time to make the plunge down the hill into Frisco, and a plunge it is, you drop some 2000 feet in 6 miles they said. All the way down it was bothering me to sty with these folks, since they had all come from different parts of the country to get together for some family time, so I decided to find a camp ground with a shower………I had to have a shower tonite.
There are none to be had even with out a shower, so I opt for a Motel Room and that is where I am blogging from tonight. As it ends up, I could not get my card reader software to work in the Hotel system, and these pages have had to sit for several days until I could find a Library that would allow photographic downloads.
Good Night and God Bless