Sec 3 South Pass City WY to Silverthorne CO - D18

06/27 Day 18, Colorado  Steamboat – Kremmling (95 miles)

We started our way out of Steamboat at 10:30.  Because of heavy snows and early melts, the Yampa River had been flooding.  Our route was to follow a bike path along the river and through some train tunnels.  Most of this was closed off so we found our way, trying to stay as close to the route as possible.  On a trail still close to town, there were 2 men on 4-wheelers herding some horses.  They were absolute jerks to us (Kevin from Virginia was with us too by this point); in no way open to allowing some way for us to pass.  I write that in all honesty, we did nothing to bring this on and were completely polite.  We stayed behind them for quite some time and the guy flipped us off as he drove off up a hill.  Nice. 

Sandbags along the Yampa in Steamboat

We both had a rather sluggish start to the day.  There was (surprise) quite a bit of climbing around 8000 to 9000 ft. 

Early in the afternoon we came across 4 guys from Dallas that were touring parts of the GDMBR.  They were hilarious and wanted pictures of their robot mojo with Sharetha.  Well what happens on the trail stays on the trail but I think my mojo doll was rather violated. 

Sharetha and RockemSockem Robot - mistakes were made

Dallas guy - I have no idea

At about 60 miles we came to a creek that ran across the road.  I waded in and could not find a shallow spot.  The current was swift enough I wondered about being taken off balance carrying the bike.  STB is not a swimmer.  Kevin arrived while we pondered.  He listened to our discussion and when we opted to take a detour, he went too.  I am unclear about the rules for this but it sure seemed to me that we should have worked together to get the bikes across.  But he did not offer and we did not ask.

The rules allow for going around something like this but you have to return exactly to the other side.  Which we did.  It cost us 10 miles of additional riding and a cross country bush whack.  Kevin kept going on route.  In hind site it was silly, I should have tried harder to get across.  I’m a paddler for heavens sake!  We also found out later that there was a good shallow spot that we did not see that was only knee deep.  I made one of our rare mtbcast call-ins that night and only said “Yes, we did that” and left it at that.  Anyone one watching would get it.  Another round of character building on the Tour Divide.

At any rate, we returned to the exact opposite side of the river and continued on route.  We rode along the Gore Range, crossing Lynx Pass (8937ft) then began a magnificent, circular decent towards Radium and Colorado River.  Note, the mosquitoes were extremely heavy in this whole area.  I could not imagine trying to bivy.  Making a pee stop was torture.  The buggers could fly at our climbing speed and bite us while we rode.  The whole affair was just wrong. 

Raduim is out of site past and below the 2nd ridge

Raduim seemed to be a railroad switching area.  Crews were getting off trains and I presume staying in the cabins near the tracks as new crews boarded.  There was a park used for staging river trips yay concrete bathrooms for hiding from mosquitoes.  

The road climbed away from the Colorado River for at least 10 miles until it crossed a watershed divide.  The last 10 miles were easier going but it was late when we rolled into Kremmling.  We wanted to get food before finding a hotel and of course, the only thing in town open was the Kum N Go convenience store.  You just can’t make this stuff up in the middle of the night.  There was a long hot dog rotating on an electric grill that reminded us both too much of the movie Slackers.  We opted for microwave food and hard boiled eggs. 

We stopped at the Eastin Hotel but there was no one there.  No one. So weird.  Thought about sleeping on the lobby floor.   Instead we moved on to the Allington where we fortunately got a room.  The night clerk was also the local bike shop owner.  We heated up our mac n cheese and soups in the hotel dining room and were out.  It was 1am by the time we got to bed.