When I'm planning a
bikepacking trip I absolutely love to study the route, but for as much as I
have studied the route, I fooled myself into thinking that today would be an
easier day by looking solely at the number of miles, 42, that were scheduled
for today.
Sleeping in the city campground, I woke to discover a few others, most likely bow hunters, had joined me after I had already called it a night. I made quick work of packing, after five days of doing the same thing each morning you really get into your routine, so that I could ride down into town to have breakfast at Phil & Debs Town Tap. This was where I was going to eat the night before but also realized they opened at six for breakfast. When you bring your bicycle helmet in with you it is a great way to start conversations. When you leave it out on your bicycle, you're just another person eating a meal. After giving my story as to what I was up to the staff and regulars I ate a hearty breakfast of eggs, sausage and hashbrowns and black coffee. I was ready to tackle the day.
Back to the route planning If I’d looked more closely, I’d seen that the first 16 miles were fairly rugged singletrack. The kind of singletrack that you most likely have no problem on a mountain bike but add 70? pounds of gear and it gets more interesting. Following my Garmin, I did manage to get lost twice but eventually found my way out of the woods and into Rockton Bar. Rockton seems to cater mostly to the horseback riding community and has plenty of space to stretch out in. Again, I had thought it would have been to early for lunch at this restaurant but the singletrack made that not as much of an issue, so I opted to skip on a bacon cheeseburger and go for a lighter grilled cheese sandwich and tater tots. Knowing that it was taking me longer than expected I gave thought to cutting out to the highway and skipping more singletrack, but my sense of adventure won out and I'm glad I did as the trails were fun even with a few hikes a bike sections and a muddy creek crossing to endure. At this point I haven’t seen another cyclist on the entire trip, but I did encounter 15 equestrians all on their way to Rockton for a drink. Most of the horses had not seen a bikepacker so I made sure to get well off the trail to let them pass, even being off trail a few of them were skittish.
After a couple more decent climbs and some long stretches of straight into the wind paved roads, I was pretty spent by the time I finally hit the Elroy Sparta trail. It is moments like these where you remind yourself just how important it is to keep eating your calories and drinking fluids. My legs felt shot but downed an entire sleeve of shot blocks and drank a bottle of water and rode on. I was still feeling sluggish when I got to the tunnel no. 3 of the Elroy-Sparta trail, but I knew this was a highlight, so I got my camera gear out and started taking selfies. This tunnel has to be one of the longest I have ever pushed my bike through at almost 4000 feet in length. Inside you feel like you are in a rain garden as the water drips into puddles that line the sides. Walking and pushing my bike alone, with just my headlight to illuminate things around me gives you a little bit of the creeps even in the middle of the day. At the very middle the tunnels ends are just tiny little dots of white light.
By the time I got through the tunnel the energy from the shot blocks had hit my legs and I was ramping up my speed hollering out loud Yeehaws! as I pushed my speed upwards on the relatively flat rails to trail.
I like to bike camp but will admit I’m very much a city kid so with the option to grab a cheap motel room for the night and dry out clothing, charge all my batteries, I took it. After getting into my room, I headed over to Taco Paisa to grab a burrito an then down the street to Beer Shop for a couple of really good craft beers on tap. I'm a bit of a beer drinker and I will say the barrel aged Henna: Double Rainbow from More Brewing Company, clocking in at 15 percent it was awesome.
Levis trailhead tomorrow night!
