Day 5 in a nutshell,
as relayed to Ham via text;
"Was seriously
considering pulling plug last night. Only
problem is getting out of there. Hence
move on. Today
was a rest day - only 158 km, but it took me 13 hrs. Rode
the whole stage by myself. Only
2 climbs but rained pretty much all day apart from 2 hours in the middle. Both
peaks at 2000 m. Almost
hypothermic on the first. Somehow
lost my fleece gloves descending the second pass (huckleberry). Now in Lincoln. Hopefully
weather will be kinder tomorrow. Apart
from being frigging cold, the top cm of road surface was like peanut butter for
large chunks . just super heavy conditions. By
some miracle the achilles was passable today."
To expand a little. I
headed out of Holland Lake in light drizzle. Half
way up the climb of Richmond Peak my phone gained reception, with Ham
encouraging me to keep going. I
had a bit of a weep at my predicament, wishing I were back at home in the
company of friends. Come
the top it was full-on icy gusting rain - too much for the light
rain jacket I'd started in. I
almost became hypothermic on the descent but decided not to take the Seeley
Lake turnoff at the bottom but push on. A
little later at some isolated dwellings I pulled into driveway then under an
awning of a partially constructed house, stripped off and redressed with my
long sleeve thermals and heavy shell. I
contemplated crawling into my sleeping bag but thought keeping moving was just
as important. The
fellow working in the barn of the same property 50 m away didn't raise any
objections to my presence but kindly ignored me.
The road to Ovando
was a heavy sludge. All
of a sudden a rider appear travelling in the reverse direction, apparently back
to Seeley Lake, then another in full shiver. Then
Nic Brown appeared, walking in the wrong direction, rear derailleur in hand. Then
another rider appeared. Consensus
seemed to be that survival depended on the warming of bodies at Seeley Lake. I
pushed on to Ovando, arriving just as the rain eased, enjoyed hot soup and a
burger, and had my photo taken. Socks
were wrung of water, resupply occurred at the general store and all seemed well
again. Typically,
as I arrived Peter was heading back out.
The last climb of
the day, the delightfully named Huckleberry Pass, was of even gradient that I
really enjoyed, despite the constant of light rain, perhaps as I seemed to have
my layering and temperature regulation under control. I
was furious, however, when I rolled into Lincoln only to discover that my much
valued flip-top mits that I was airing over the bars had jumped ship somewhere
on the way down. How
could I be so careless? One
thing for certain, given conditions and my exhausted state, I wasn't going to backtrack to look for
them.
I bumped into another
rider, Eddie O'Dea, at the general store in Lincoln, who kindly offered to
split his room with me, and showed me the location of a hose so that I could
de-gunge my bike, before dragging it into the room. The
bike and drivetrain were heavily caked, to the extent that most of the zippers
on my frame bag were resistant to function. I
cleaned myself up and went to the adjacent bar to dine with Eddie, and two
other riders new to me; Miroslav Novak and Bryan Bergstedt. Eddie
was actually one of the GC favourites but had accidentally lost his credit
cards atop Richmond Peak whilst adjusting something, so had spent a day waiting
in Seeley Lake for their delivery via another rider who'd fortuitously found
them. Miroslav
was a Slovak who resided
in the US and had some serious road and Mtb credentials, and was travelling
extremely tidily, especially for a 61 year old! And
Brian was a fit-as-a-fiddle numbers man who'd heavily researched the route;
"the next climb is 3.8 miles long with 950 ft of climbing which at X miles
an hour would require 240 Watts". I
think we all figured we'd done OK to make it this far (although perhaps Eddie
felt short changed), with someone suggesting that it takes about 5 days
for the body to get into the Tour Divide rhythm. It
was the end of day 5. Despite
being pretty depressed and pessimistic at the start of the day, by surviving I
actually took some heart out of its conclusion. I
later learned that my companion of several days, Heath, was another victim of
the cold who'd ended up at Seeley Lake that night. I
wasn't to see him, or Paul, again on the tour.
(159 km, 2202 m. A
short but tough one, given conditions)
Richmond Peak was bleak
I was credited with the "lamb chop" award. The smile belies what a tough morning it had been.
Onwards to Huckleberry Pass
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