Most Beautiful Day Yet

Sunday, August 13. Kremmling, CO, to the Denver Creek Campground in the Arapaho National Forest, CO.

In Dillon, when we revamped the remainder of the trip, we decided to stop halfway up Willow Creek Pass and camp, so that is what we have done. The facility, the Denver Creek campground, is a US Forestry Service campground, and is very well kept. We found a nice campsite not far from the bathrooms and community dumpster, but not so close that activity around them will disturb us.

Last night in Kremmling, we opted to eat at a local restaurant (since it was there, saving our camp food for when we really camp, like tonight); and when we returned to our "camp" behind the volunteer fire station, we could see lightning over the bluffs. The wind was pushing that system in our direction, so we moved our bikes and trailers under the covered area next to the building so they wouldn't get wet if it rained.

Well, it rained. It rained hard, and didn't let up for a couple of hours. While Nancy read by the light of our little Pak-Lite, I closed my eyes and tried to occupy my mind with a kind of engineering analysis of the tent: the resisting force of each of the tent stakes, the flexibility of the tent poles (did I mention the wind?), and the surface area of the tent exposed to the wind. I did this all while trying to maintain an exterior appearance of utter calm. Every so often, the outside would be lit up by lightning, and thunder would reverberate through the valley in a low rumble, audible over the pelting rain and gusty wind. It was a nice night.

This morning, we opened our eyes to a beautiful, clear blue sky, and cool temps. Breaking camp, we decided to go over to The Moose for breakfast, and we had a nice leisurely Sunday morning breakfast over the Sunday Denver Post. We didn't even hit the road until 10.

Like the Blue River yesterday, the Colorado River was our companion today as we rode. Several times we passed spots where we could see fishermen in the water, and other times just the river winding along in front of the mountains like you'd see on a postcard. At one point, we saw a large group of horses down in the valley with the river in the background; they looked like they had been posed specifically for people stopped at our vantage point up on the road. But they were real, real horses in a picture fit for another postcard.

Our route also followed along a set of railroad tracks; we knew they were active because we heard freight trains pass in the night in Kremmling, both before the rain and after. We weren't disappointed; we saw three freight trains and an Amtrak train go by while we rode. We even stopped at one spot and got a little video clip of the train approaching, including the sound of the horn. It was near a shooting range, where we had already stopped to record the sound of the shots as they echoed around the valley.

Between Parshall and Hot Sulphur Springs is a five-mile stretch of highway 40 that ascends through a canyon cut by the Colorado River. The rock juts up vertically on all sides, and the river gushes along down from the road. The rail line continues, not far above the water. Trees cling tenuously to the rock faces and at the tops where erosion has not yet undercut them; evidence of trees that have succumbed lie alongside the tracks and in the riverbed. And just as you emerge from this fantastic vision, you enter the town of Hot Sulphur Springs. We stopped there for an uneventful lunch.

Once we turned northward again, on SR 125, we saw a sign indicating that moose live in the area, and that shooting or possessing one was illegal. I laughed a bit at that: how would a possessed moose behave? We had just started the climb that would take us up towards Willow Creek Pass, through the Arapaho National Forest on the way, and where we would camp for the night, so we regarded this as the last leg of the day (which, psychologically, somehow makes the climbing easier. Don't ask me how.). As we ascended, the valley scrub brush and predominant desert-like terrain gave way to evergreens and lush creek-fed floodplain vegetation. We even saw a small group of bison grazing on a grassy field at the base of a mountain - another picture-postcard perfect scene. Every time we rounded a curve, another stunning view would present itself. It just got more beautiful with each pedal stroke.

We passed the first campground, the Sawmill Gulch campground, and could see many empty sites, which bade well for the campground just two miles further up the road. Still, it was nice to know that, even if our intended destination was full, we had a fallback site. But the Denver Creek campground had many empty sites as well, so we virtually had our pick.

So tonight we will hope the clouds scurry by and leave a clear night, so we can see the stars, and perhaps some of the Perseid meteor shower, which is reaching it's peak about now. Tomorrow we will complete the ascent to the Willow Creek Pass (and our second crossing of the Continental Divide), and then veritably roll all the way to Walden. We expect to reach Wyoming the next day, which will be the sixteenth state we will have visited, not counting the Canadian provinces of Quebec and Ontario or the District of Columbia. While I worry a little about the sparse population ahead (northern Colorado and most of Wyoming can still legitimately be called "frontier"), I know that we will prepare ahead of time for areas without services, and we won't push ourselves so hard that it could create a crisis. We should be through those areas in a couple weeks, and then should have phone service most of the way to the coast from Yellowstone. Until tomorrow!