Day 25 Craig to Kremmling 153.7km Uphill 4993ft Downhill 3804ft

I am so exhausted that I fear if I close my eyes I would sleep. Sippin’ on a glass of ice-coffee seemed like a great idea at 5 pm last evening while I waited for the laundry to run thru all the cycles but at midnight I was still tossing and turning. You’d think I’d have learned my lesson from the ice tea a couple of nights ago! Oh and to top it off when we got to the high school last evening the area we could pitch our tents in was on a definite slope. I placed my tiny tent as close to school as possible to avoid the slope. Much to my dismay I got a drip, drip, drip all evening coming off of the overhang. I tried counting drips instead of sheep but this didn’t work so I went to the next best thing…meds. I think I started the day on 4 ½ hrs of sleep.

We are traveling on Hwy 40 again. The road was a bit busier then yesterday. Lots of campers, mini vans and trucks. The first 50 miles was a gradual incline. We grabbed a coffee in Hayden (although I could only drink ½ of my coffee before the guys were ready to go.

The next cyclists that came thru the door inherited my other ½. If I ever travel back to Colorado I would definitely investigate the next town we stopped in. Steamboat Springs. This is a quaint little town, very much a tourist destination. We stopped in at a small diner and she kindly refilled our water bottles before we started the climb.

The main street of Steamboat Springs

It was 7 miles of solid climbing before we got to the false summit. The view is like eye-candy. We rode up the west side. It was a welcomed relief from the brown sage grass plains. As we rode up we saw Douglas fir and Ponderosa pine. I also noticed significant patches of dead pine killed by mountain pine beetle. Everything is green. Looking back I could see large plots of farmland. Personally, Colorado has a lot more colour going for it than Utah (sorry, Utah). As we climbed the forest changed to lodge pole. These trees where used for making teepees. Colorado Blue spruce was up here, growing in the wild. (This useful information is being provided by Clare Kooistra.) Thank you Clare.

One view while I was climbing

One of our cyclists; Aaron Carpenter’s parents and grandparents were handing out freezers at the false summit. It's very deceiving. You get to the top and then they tell you you're really not there........there's more. I think God has a sense of humor! We had another 6 miles of rollers before we got to the actual summit, Rabbit Ears Pass. A beautiful area of open alpine meadows.

Rabbit Ears pass is named after the two rocks on the top of the mountain. Where's the carrot?

I sailed down from the summit hitting a top speed of 62.5km. We are now on the east side of the mountain, so that means we are back to the sage brush and brown mountains mainly because this area is in the rain shadow of the peaks. Ahead of us I can see the snow on the Rockies. The rest of the day was mainly ups and downs. Louie and Andy and I biked in together.

It’s been a long day. Average speed of 21.8km Total trip 154.6km Actual bike time 7:04:15

Tomorrow we have a short day but we’ll pay for it on Saturday. Oh, big news…..my husband is flying into Denver on Saturday. I won’t have to set up my tent for 2 whole days. I really wish Saturday was the short day!

Good night, Cynthia