On July 6th I did 93.8 miles past Atlantic City. On July 7th I did 102.9 Miles to "Oil Road to Mines" Road. On July 8th I did 22 miles to Rawlins, WY. On July 9th I did 28.3 Miles to Sage Creek Road.
Listen to "Time (You and I)" by Khruangbin. This is my desert theme song and now comes out everytime I'm doing stupid stuff in extremely inhospitable terrain. I was first introduced to this song as Lizzy and I were burying food caches on the Hayduke and were measuring distances by beers consumed (bonus points if you get that reference). Don't tell my mountaineering friends that I almost prefer a desert sunrise to a mountain peak. If I moved nimbly through the desert with grace and speed I'd be a desert fox, but I'm a little more haphazard, never on trail, and always excited to find water that I really never knew existed making me a quintessential desert rat.
After leaving Teton National Park I had a big day infront of me. The Idaho/Wyoming section doesn't have as much elevation change as Montana, but it does have a few passes and I was going to gain over 8,300 feet in one day going over Togwotee and Union Pass. I slowly made my way up Togwotee, it was a grind and around every bend in the road it continued to climb. I eventually hit the pass at 130p and started my decent. It was a 15 mile decent that had me going fast enough to not have any high gears left so I just stopped pedaling and absolutely bombed down the mountain. I was smiling ear to ear and had to pick all of the bugs out of my teeth when I got to the bottom. Unfortunately what goes down must come up and after my amazing decent I was once again climbing. Union Pass was brutal but the scenery was stunning. I left the basin and made my way up into Pinion Pine country before coming across huge high alpine meadows.
I camped at Union Pass and got up early the next morning for a chilly decent down the backside of the mountain. My back wheel was a little squirrelly and sliding a lot as I was cornering. I managed in 1,200 miles to completely wear down all of the tread on the back tire and it now looked like I had racing slicks. The lack of traction made things interesting but I managed to stay in control and was dumped out along the Green River next to the Wind River Range. The Winds are one of my favorite mountain ranges in the lower 48 (I am planning on hiking the Wind River High Route in Early September). I got to follow along the base of the winds for 30 miles as I made my way towards Pinedale, WY where the promise of a new tire and cold beer kept my pace abnormally fast. In town I was able to do my town chores, get a new tire and work on my bike some more. I ended up sleeping in a city park (I was told we were allowed to). I got an early start the next day but got delayed when I passed a coffee roaster on my way out of town (I'd rather bike into the night than pass up good coffee, or even bad coffee).
I rode out-of Pinedale following the Wind River Range and watched the peaks slowly loose stature until the range met the basin floor just outside South Pass and Atlantic City. I was excited for the day since two of my friends were hiking the CDT and it looked like we would overlap between South Pass and Atlantic City. I got to South Pass at 6pm and looked for them in the small historic town but couldn't find them. Since the Divide and the CDT share a dirt road in between South Pass and Atlantic City I figured I'd see them on it. Unfortunately I didn't see them on the road in-between the two towns either so I went to the only bar and restaurant in Atlantic City to see if they were there. They weren't there either and I was off the CDT for maybe 10 minutes looking around town for them (there is no cell service in either town). I kept biking along the CDT and entered the Great Divide Basin and still didn't see them. I had no idea where they were and setup my tent. I ultimately ended up missing them and it turns out the 10 minutes I was looking in Atlantic City for them they passed me... thats some real unfortunate timing.
The Great Divide Basin is a basin in WY where the Continental divide splits in two and goes around a large area that does not drain to either the Pacific or Atlantic Ocean. The Great Divide Basin should not be confused with the Great Basin which is much larger and in Nevada, Utah and California. There is a cool map showing all of the divides in North America, and you can see the red line forms a elipse in Wyoming which is the Great Divide Basin.
The GDB is barren, there are no trees and the sage brush only grows a few inches high. When you dig a cat hole you just have to hope no one comes by since there is no cover and you can see for miles. Luckily almost no one is in the Basin except for dumb hikers and bikers who swear they have nothing to prove but yet travel across a desolate landscape for absolutely no reason. In the basin I hit the half way point of the ride. I didn't have anything to celebrate with, no beer, no chocolate, no fireworks.... but I did have bear spray. I'm out of Grizzly Bear territory now since I am the only bear dumb enough to leave the lush mountains for sand dunes. When I hit the halfway point I discharged my bear spray (yes I checked wind direction first) and yelled out into the nothingness. It was a fun feeling to be half way done on a trip that has been completely opposite of all my expectations. I kept going after the halfway point. For some reason I decided I wanted to clear the GDB in one day. You would think that after getting beat up on the passes I would try and appreciate a few low intensity days but that is too logical and I decided to make a giant push to see if I could make it across in one day. I had gotten up super early that morning and used the cool desert mornings to my advantage, I also had the wind at my back which at times was so powerful it created a dust storm I could hardly see through but more importantly it was strong enough to actually push me up hill without pedaling. I ended up on the otherside of the Basin at 830p with plenty of light to setup my tent and crawl into my sleeping bag. The next day I got another early start, not because I had any great distances to cover but because Rawlins, WY was 22 miles away and it was a town day, and the sooner I was in town the sooner I was relaxing.
