Kendall Valley Lodge to Lava Mountain Lodge
Strava: 101 km, 1602m, 7:15, 323 shifts, 46.8 kph max
Today seemed hard but it’s probably mostly to do with getting a late start. We packed up and hung out until 8, when breakfast opened. I had the best omelet of the trip, then they made us lunch sandwiches to go. All that took time and we didn’t start until 9:15, unheard of for us.
The rough dirt started right away, with a 10 km gentle uphill warmup, then a more serious climb. Then we just continued up and down, pretty much all day. The big excitement was Wytze seeing a bear, so after that, whenever I was riding alone through trees, I had my Swiss bell from Daniel engaged and ringing.
We cruised on and on, past a forest fire that turned the sky a little dark and made the air smell for a while. We stopped around halfway for our lunch sandwiches. For the first time there were quite a few mosquitoes around, but we sat on granite rocks in the wind which worked for a while. When the wind dropped we carried on riding.
There were lots more climbs and we talked to a number of cyclists and it seemed like most were no longer Tour Divide racers, but just people riding the Great Divide like us, mostly SOBO. We rode past some snow over 2900m but very little.
Eventually we had one final large descent and hit a paved highway. It was getting near 6 pm but we only had a couple of km to the Lava Mountain Lodge I had booked a couple of days ago. We pulled in and immediately had a round of Voodoo Ranger IPA. Then to our room for showers and laundry. Dinner after that, very fancy and slow but worth the wait. The salad greens were grown in their hydroponic garden, the trout was absolutely boneless and delicious. We shared a bottle of Chardonnay and drank lots of water and lemonade. I retired early to write this but it was already 9 pm. Luckily we think we have a slightly easier day tomorrow.
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