Day 32 Gee Brief: What an Awful,Scary, Perilous, Horrifying Experience!

July 22nd
Sheridan, WY to 22 miles west of Lovell, WY

First things first: The  title of this post was lifted directly from the words of our friend...J, who happens to be married to a different G. So therefore, I got the title from a J and G, who are not J and Me. Credit is important, especially when we're dealing with a story that might get picked up by MGM and cast with Hugh Laurie and Kristin Kruek.

But enough namedropping....let's begin.

The day began very smoothly. J and I have settled into a very efficient morning routine that gets me on the road as quickly as possible. The last thing we do before departing is to sit down and go over that morning's route with our respective gps/cell phone. We use Google Maps and make sure that we've each programmed the exact same set of turns. This being done we kissed/hugged goodbye, and Jenard sped off into the distance with me barely able to control him. This was his big day...Jenard v THE MOUNTAIN.

The mountain we picked was in the Big Horn National Forest. I don't know it's exact name. As it turns out, we actually climbed TWO mountains that day, one was around 8,000 feet, the other was listed in our atlas at 10,000 feet. If you'd like to see it for yourself, it's on route 14 and 14A from Sheridan, WY to Lovell, WY.

As we raced past the outskirts of town, the air seemed to change. The houses gave way to countryside and we were quickly 15 miles away from our starting point. It was at this point that I made my first major mistake of the day. (yes, there would be a few more)

We came up to a dirt road. I hesitated, but Jenard looked at it and said, "Let's do it". Unlike other road bikes, dirt roads were just fine with him. He was designed to sustain the impact of cobble stones and nasty terrain. He could fart a dirt road in his sleep. In the back of my head, I remembered the 10 miles of dirt road we encountered back in the midwest. I suggested turning back, but Jenard would have none of it.

So we ventured on. The landscape was surreal. Again, there was rolling grasslands, with nothing else, but this time there were mountains in the background. And then we encountered this barn, out there in the middle of nowhere, on it's way to somewhere else. SOMEONE apparently liked it well enough to put it up on moving

jacks, but then had either changed their mind, or were taking a little break. No clue where it was going, but there it was, up on jacks, ready to go somewhere else. Perhaps somewhere with ANIMALS? and PEOPLE? Because out here there was NOTHING!

Then the nice dirt road turned into a seriously bumpy, not well taken care of road. It became twisty and turny. Although it passed houses and barns, it inspired no comfort....only a sense of "why on earth would you choose to LIVE out here?"

I re-checked my gps. I had already gone a good 20 miles and it looked like I had another 15 or so miles of dirt road ahead of me. How could this be??  Choosing the little car symbol on Google maps had NEVER led me down a dirt road. Dirt roads only happened when I picked the .......OHHH CRRRAPP.

I looked in disbelief as I saw that my gps was set on the "bicycle" feature. As I've mentioned before, the bicycle feature should be relabeled "mountain bike" or "4 wheel drive".  I was dumbfounded. How on earth had this happened????

At that point I should have immediately cut my losses and turned around. But I didn't. I pushed forward, not wanting to erase the forward progress I'd already made. STUPID STUPID STUPID!!!!! (hitting myself repeatedly in the head, even now as I write this)

The road became even less road like, as I passed a guardian angel walking her dog. I asked her if I was headed the right way to route 14, a paved road.  She hesitated and said, "Yes, but you probably don't want to go THIS way." She then went on to tell me that the road ahead got even worse. She said it turned into muddy clay that even the locals didn't travel on. She then looked at my skinny tires and said, with those I'd probably just sink right in and go nowhere.

Here's the thing about guardian angels. For them to do their job properly, you have to LISTEN TO THEM.  I didn't.  I pushed on. And sure enough, about a mile or so down the road, there was no real road at all. There was a clay/mud primordial soup that almost swallowed Jenard and me whole.

Thick balls of baseball sized clumps jammed up in between his tires and frame and stopped him COLD. Jenard was not designed for this. NOTHING was designed for this except maybe a helicopter that could fly OVER it.

I looked at my phone. It was 9:30. I had traveled about 20 to 30 miles and had gone NOWHERE. I still had the toughest climb of the trip ahead of me and here I was stranded in a sea of impassable muck. To top it off, that days distance was supposed to be 111 miles.  I just added another 40 to it!

My thoughts wandered to a similar quandary I found myself in about 26 years ago by the shore in Connecticut. (Cue the flashback music).............
I was on a long distance ride from Florida, and heading toward Rhode Island.  It was July 4th around midnight. I had kept on riding trying to find a motel but instead found myself on a dark, shoreline road. There were no streetlights, and my bike lights had burned out long ago. And it was raining. I could only barely see the road when a very occasional care came by and illuminated the way, or the tree canape broke to let in barely the dimmest star light. As I road slowly down the slick road, my front wheel fell away from me, indicating that I was going down a hill. As I applied the break, it felt like something reached out and grabbed my front wheel, twisting it to the left.

Killer (my bike at the time) and I went down...HARD. But the fall didn't stop our forward movement. The hill was steep enough that I and the bike continued to slide. What WAS slowing us down somewhat was my right hip, which was now grinding into the ground. The bike, my hip and I slid down this road heading toward a guard rail, which we would easily had slid under, had the whole thing not just suddenly STOPPED.

I stared for a second at the guard rail, inches from my face, breathed a sigh of relief, and stood up. First things first. Am I OK?? The hip seemed fine. A little scraped, a little sore (still is to this day), but I could move and walk.  Then the bike. I picked Killer up, spun his wheels, checked the brakes....everything fine.

Then I looked around me and listened. It was DEAD still. The rain had faded away, and with it, had taken away even the crickets will to chirp. I heard nothing but an occasional drop falling from a soaked leaf. I could faintly see the forest all around me.

And then it struck me. I WAS TRULY ALONE. Anything could have come out of that forest at that moment and it would be just me against the forest thing. But it didn't scare me. It exhilarated me! I was energized! I filled my lungs with cool damp air and almost screamed , I AM MAN!!! Watch me RIDE!!!!!!!!!!!

I got on Killer and pedaled away fully charged with the resilience of being ALIVE!

Now reverse the flashback and come back to me in the muck of the Wyoming hinterlands. This moment, 26 years later, of being pushed to the wall, and stretched to my absolute limits was NOTHING like that midnight ride in Connecticut. I now had a cell phone, a wife, and a brand new truck with four wheel drive. So I called her and she come got me. This is how they will tell the story of J's rescue mission for generations to come:

Like the cavalry she came,

through the mud, muck and rain,

Screaming, "I've come to save my G!

so get out of the way,

or you'll be history!"

 At least that's the way I remember it. Sounds better than me having to talk her through a K-turn to go back to town doesn't it?

So, around 9:30 or 10 I started the days ride all over again. There's a town that you go through just before you head up the mountain. I saw the bike below parked outside of a hair salon. Jenard scoffed at it and said, "They probably just didn't bring enough water...Let's go!"

The climb up the mountain was breathtaking...not because it was steep, but because it was GORGEOUS. The switchbacks were at a nice easy grade that Jenard was eating up. And the view just kept getting better and better. Here's a video sample of what it was like. CLIMBING!

Here's a sample pic:

As J mentioned in an earlier post, the pics don't come anywhere near conveying the real experience of being there. The reason for this is multiple: temperature, wind, gravity, visual depth of field, and the anticipation of what's going to happen next and the sheer reaction of your vehicle to the road are all missing from the shot. But it's still pretty isn't it?

Here's a few more climbing shots.
Climbing 2: Talking to Mountains
Climbing 3 Shadows

Despite the morning debacle things seemed to be going good. Jenard was handling the switchbacks with grace and finesse and this 8,000 foot spur of the Rockies seemed to be just fine. And then I got cocky.

At one of my next two water breaks with J, I told her to travel ahead 40 miles and just wait for me. This bizarre plan was agreed on because we knew there would probably be no cell phone coverage, and the mountain seemed to be going down at that point. I thought the worst of it was over.  Duh.

What my gps didn't tell me, and what the Trek itinerary neglected to mention is that there were actually TWO mountains with TWO climbs. This is a fairly crucial piece of information when you've already added an additional 30 or so miles that you didn't expect to travel.

After I conquered what would turn out to be be the FIRST mountain, I begin the well earned descent. Trek had described it as being about 25 miles, so I hunkered down for a sweet downhill glide. It lasted about 3 miles.....and then it started GOING BACK UP!

To badly paraphrase A Beautiful Mind, I was mystified, stupefied, mortified, stultified...... I WAS PISSED!!!!!

And it wasn't a straight forward sort of hill. It was a stunning Wyoming valley type hill with amazing scenery all around me. There were these majestic outcroppings of rock that each looked like a nature's version of Mt. Rushmore. There were LOTS of natural style Mt. Rushmores all around me. They seemed

 to be saying, "Don't worry about the hill... look at us! Marvel in our beauty!"  And I was marveling. But when your legs and your bike itself seem to be turning to lead, there's only so much marveling you can do. The "hill" was deceiving, because it LOOKED like a somewhat level road through a sort of valley. Sometimes I was IN the valley, sometimes I was bordered by hills on my right and a drop off to my left. But regardless of right and left scenery, my bike just didn't seem to want to go FORWARD.

I even stopped to check the tires. They were both inflated just fine. Then I turned around to see where I had just come from. The road was sweeping away and DOWN. I was climbing a hill much more serious in nature than I had thought. But the way it fit into the whole landscape masked just how steep it was.

That's when I decided to call it quits for the day. However, I had told J to go 40 more miles ahead and this time there would be no cavalry. My cell phone had no bars. I was in Wyoming at high noon faced with the same dilemma as I had been in 26 years ago in Connecticut at midnight. I had no choice.  I had to ride.

But there was no exhilaration, no I AM MAN moment. There was just growing anger at myself, at the sun, and at this @#$@#* hill.

A student of mine who loves golf once told me that a bad day of golf is better than a good day of anything else. I feel the same way about cycling. However, this particular day was one of the worse good days I have ever had.

A mile or so down the road, I spotted the Bear Lodge. They had rooms available, but they would not let me use their phone unless I gave them a dollar...CASH. I only had a credit card. My own hubris stopped me from BEGGING them to let me use their phone. Besides, the chances were very good that J was not getting cell phone service herself, so calling her would be futile.

So I pushed on. The heat was unrelenting. The sense of desperation was increasing. I knew that I could do it, but I didn't CARE that I could do it. I didn't WANT to do it. I just wanted to get into our nice new air conditioned truck and enjoy the company of my wife.

At that point I started seeing J mirages. A truck would be sitting by the side of the road off in the distance. My heart would leap. "It's her!" I would think, "She's sensed my danger and come to the rescue!". But alas, it would NOT be her. This happened several times. Eventually I began actively trying to communicate with her telepathically. I even had little arguments with her in my head, "But you told me to go 40 miles and WAIT"...."I don't care what I said, come get me NOW!!!"

But none of it worked. And then the guardian angels appeared. Two couples in the same car were pulled over by a pipe that was sticking out of the mountain, spewing water near the road. "Better fill your canteens!" one of them said, "It's going to be a long hot ride!".  I was indeed running low, so after getting their assurance that the water was drinkable I filled my bottles.

The ensuing conversation with them was a HUGE help. Remember how I said that interstates are much better because they give you INFORMATION? These people gave me the info I needed. The hill continued UP for about another four miles. But then it dropped down SHARPLY for about 25 miles. The lead angel told me that I better have good breaks, because the descent was a %10 grade. I told him that Jenard's breaks were just fine and up for the task. I thanked him heartily and told him that I would have kissed him if his wife wasn't standing there.

Reinvigorated, I sliced through the next four miles at the dazzling speed of mud. My legs were still exhausted, but they were a happy kind of exhausted and willing to do what needed to be done. At the end of what felt like four miles, I did indeed reach the summit, and went down a brief descent for perhaps a mile or two....then I started going back UP!!!!

I was not phased however, because guardian angels don't lie. I was a little confused about the descent though. "There HAS to be another one," I thought, because that was certainly no %10 percent white knuckle drop. And then I saw the sign: Check brakes, %10 grade for the next 20 MILES!!!

I almost screamed...no I DID scream....YEEEEE HAAAA!!!  I was practically DANCING until Jenard told me to sit down and lock and load.... I set my helmet cam to record and we were OFFFF!!!!!

I've cycling in earnest since I was 18 years old. No ride I've ever taken has even come close to this one. At points it literally FELT like I was about to cycle of the edge of the earth. The web cam quit before the descent even began. The battery ran out. This ride is now on my bucket list of rides to repeat with a WORKING helmet cam. The few pics which I stopped to take with my camera actually do come close to the experience of this ride, but I will have to rely on my words to pain the rest of the picture. Are you ready? Here we go! First take a look at this pic below and I'll pic up on the bottom half of it.

The ride began with a very quick drop off as the earth opened up in front of me. The road slid through the v-shaped opening that you see in the pic above and the dropped almost straight down so that I felt I would be launched out into an endless landscape that reminded me of the Grand Canyon itself...only BIGGER. My tires touched road just enough to give me SOME control. But the road kept dropping and turning so often that I HAD to keep an almost steady pressure on the brakes so as not to plummet off the side.

Even with the brakes applied, Jenard was ROCKETING down the hill which I would later learn that locals had nick named "The Shell".  Massive outcroppings of sheer rock would jut up to my left as cliff and skydive scenery dropped off to my right. And then briefly, the road would stabilize into what felt like the best roller-coaster ride through the best Disney landscape ever.

Knowing that my helmet cam was not working, I kept BEGGING the view to stop being so incredible. But the view did not cooperate. It just kept getting better and better.

At the end of this glorious ride I turned around to see the mountain I had just descended.

Again, the image does not convey the fantastic 20 mile descent. All I know is that at the end of that descent, I saw a cherry red Ram 1500 with a small J jumping up and down running toward me. 

I am always thrilled to see my wife, but doubt that I've ever been quite THIS thrilled. She cried and we held each other for a long time. 

Along with everything I've just mentioned, the thought of her driving the truck down that descent was very heavy on my mind. A car could have gone off that road at SEVERAL points and not be discovered for a long time. I was so incredibly grateful to see HER alive and well. The full realization that the days ordeal was over and we were once again united was a feeling I will hold close forever. 

That moment, of finally SEEING her and holding her is now at the top of my list of awesome, empowering moments  of all times. It has taken it's place with, and surpassed my midnight ride in Connecticut. Thank you sweetheart for being my home.