We packed up in the morning after the 7am train horn rousted us from deep sleep, saying goodbye to our friendly campsite hosts before starting a steeeeep 3,000 foot climb.... We ground out the first section on normal gravel and got a nice quick descent before transitioning to reddish dirt where it started to get pretty spicy. Ziven occasionally had to stop and walk because his gearing couldn’t handle the steepness and I was dripping with sweat, barely going faster than his walking speed. Near the end we went down a pretty steep and rocky little chute during which I essentially closed my eyes, kept my hands off the brakes, and hoped for the best. After one final stretch of climbing, we eventually topped out and popped into an aspen forest with beautiful purple wildflowers before running into another rider, a father with his adult kids doing a section of the route from Rawlins to Salida. We continued on some flatish terrain before heading downhill in the forest, entering a flat valley surrounded with fields of wildflowers and large hills on either side. We then hit a decent sized river crossing and had to stop to take shoes off and carry bikes across. I had to stop in the middle when my feet, unaccustomed to walking without Chacos on, began screaming with pain. It forced me to put down my heavy bike, which I had never carried on my shoulder. I panicked, putting down my bike in the pretty swift river and almost getting pushed over before Ziven gallantly waded in to grab my bike while I hobbled to the shore. We dried off, filtered water, and said hello to some dogs that jumped out of a truck when a fisherman stopped to look at the river. We then put our socks back on and kept trucking down the valley.

We skipped across a highway and onto another climb, which we slogged up before stopping for a snack at the top. Discouraged that we had only gone some 20ish miles, we prematurely ended our snack break to descend the gravel, which was quite smooth and tossed us into another valley of aspens on one side and farming/ranches/fancy mountain retreats on the other as we approached Stagecoach. Our GPS told us to turn onto a road that was clearly marked NO OUTLET which seemed ominous, but we took a gamble and descended to lake level and the parking area of Stagecoach Reservoir. We then climbed around the reservoir past fancy mountain houses. Pausing to ask a homeowner if we could get around the lake this way and meet back up with the road, he responded that there was a bit of singletrack with some steep switchbacks that would be difficult on loaded bikes but met up with the dam road on the other side of the hill. This seemed like another ominous omen, but we kept going until a tiny, scraggly trail appeared off the road.

I begrudgingly entered the first section of singletrack for the trip and immediately did not like how narrow it was - you had to take the path offered or else go off into the deep bushes on either side. Panicking a little bit, I did not fully appreciate the beautiful aspen trail that our meadow meanderer eventually morphed into until well after the ordeal was over. With Ziven forging ahead and me trundling slowly or hiking my bike behind, we eventually hit the first switchback, which made me burst into tears of fear, slam on my brakes, and start slowly hobbling down the mountain. I didn’t stop my tears or my slow way of getting through the rest of the switchbacks until the trail met up with a wider fire road and Ziven stopped me for a hug and words of encouragement. We hopped back on and rode across the dam, le quickly without looking down at the 100 foot plummet on either side (the path was separate from the dam itself and so it hovered in midair) and Ziven stopped to take pictures. We then pedaled downhill from and wound up on a beautiful gravel road along a river. The gravel soon ended and we were on the road outside of town. I stopped to text my parents our ETA - about 2 hours - and we scampered on, fearing the thunderheads in the distance. We trundled alongside mammoth vacation houses and beautiful, multi-million dollar country estates before stopping to route ourselves to my parent’s Airbnb. We decided to stay true to the route and follow it into town instead of taking a bit of a shortcut that led more directly to our accommodation. We turned and immediately regretted our decision as we battled a fierce headwind until we turned again and it became a crosswind. Winding across more farmland with alternating fancy wedding venues, country estates, and real farms, we eventually hit the town’s bike path and stopped under a tree to call my parents. We asked if we should stop at the store to buy a new toothbrush, having lost ours in Hartsel a few days before, and if the hill the Airbnb was on was really too steep for our legs. Deciding to go shopping later, we braced ourselves for a huge climb up to the ski resort, finding it instead to be a lot shorter than anticipated. Around the second-to-last bend, we spotted my parents waving at us from their balcony and rolled into the parking lot to see them filming us and smiling broadly. We got situated in the Airbnb, hiked our bikes up the stairs, took luxurious showers, gave a tour of our set up, started the laundry, and eventually rolled down the hill in my mom’s car to buy ice cream, shaving materials, and a new toothbrush apiece. We relaxed for the rest of the day and my parents made noodles, salad, and put out a Costco vegetable plate that Ziven and I devoured. We hadn't seen a vegetable in quite a while. We watched a bit of TV before drifting off to sleep.

Ziven here; Although Elisa was having a miserable time, that switchback singletrack that we descended was one of my favorite parts of the trip! Another thing on an entirely different note. As we reached the paved road my chest began to hurt really badly every time I would take a deep breath. Really shallow breaths didn’t cause too much pain though, so I kept going. As we got closer to Steamboat even shallow breathing started to feel like my chest was in a vice. I was pretty scared I would have to stop the entire trip, but we had a rest day coming up so I figured I could take it easy and recover. I don’t think I expressed this very well to Elisa, until we were leaving Steamboat 2 days later and passed an ER where I stopped to consider going in for assistance. Spoiler alert, I started feeling a lot better a couple hours after leaving Steamboat and I still don’t know what the issue was.