I thought I'd finished for the day, but the campsite options weren't great, so I continued a bit more:
Silverton
Did not sleep a wink. Got up when alarm went off at 4:00. Gathered rest of items from Airstream, wrote message in guest book, ate granola with oat milk and a hard boiled egg, got in the truck with my bike and gear with Josh. We talked about avalanches on the drive up to Molas pass. Used the restroom at the parking lot. It was dark! I started my Garmin and loaded the course for the CT, then it just started hanging. It does this weird thing where every user action took like 30 seconds for a response. I just finally gave up trying to restart it and trusted that it was working and went. Another thing I noticed is that my mini headlight doesn't see over the bags, so I have to put it on the end of my grip, which is weird but works. I also used my headlamp, but not so much when I was walking or riding. Segment 25 was surprisingly rideable, really nicely put together. I was able to climb quite a bit, maybe because I was finally down from 13,000 ft. A recreational mountain bike group went by at dawn, about 6:00 a.m. I saw a lot of recreational riders this day. Saw five women in their '50s to '70s running at 12,000 ft with their dogs, on the Colorado Trail. So Colorado. The initial climb turned into hike-a-bike after a really fun section. Saw Engineer trail and another one intersect with it. I think there were two big climbs, but it felt like there were more, long pushes, lots of walking this day. Some good riding though. Lots of mud. There was one chocolate-colored mud puddle that was a sneaker, was actually hub deep and I went almost over the bars, my feet went in the puddle and I was wet to the waist. The final descent to Celebration Lake was so fucking muddy. Really messed up my drivetrain. When I got to Celebration Lake my bike was not sounding or working well, I was beat, tired, and I was not motivated to start a new segment, but I had to. I stopped and had a snack, cut some salami off to eat it. I got a gel. Cleaned, then oiled my chain as best I could. Saw Payson McElveen. Was planning on filtering over the top, and that worked out.
Series of climbs and returns in segment 26. It's shorter, only has one noticeable climb on the elevation profile, and after that, there's a good water source. This was my plan, to camp at the water source, the data book said you could. The final climb up Blackhawk Pass was a real pain in the ass, but I managed to make it to my scheduled finish rather than whatever the weather dictated. So I got over Blackhawk Pass, filtered at this good water source, met some hikers, Leo, Anna, Matt. Filled all my water receptacles, two bottles, a filter, my bag. Thought I was going to camp there, but it wasn't flat enough, so I kept going down to the very end of segment 26, where it meets the road and segment 27 starts. Found a flat little camp, set up relatively early, dozed in the tent, made dinner, met some young hikers also doing Denver to Durango, who camped near me. Tomorrow I will wake up at 4:00 and see if I can get to Durango. It's going to be harder than today was, but at least I'll get some sleep, I hope.
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