Day 2.. Wet morning Coffee, big climb, more bears, horses, trail Angels. This trail is full of surprises!!
With a small drizzle sustained through the night everything that was left outside had a small coat of water. My tent performed well and kept me nice and dry, along with all of my gear. Boiling water and getting some hot instant coffee was definitely the highlight of the morning. Swapping stories with follow bike packers, hot water and packing up were the morning chores.
Out of our group of four, I was the first to leave. However, they shortly caught up to me because I took a half a mile detour down the hill.Not paying attention to my GPS while chatting with a road biker, who decided to stay at my pace lead me to miss my turn. That extra half mile turned into a full mile as I walked back up the hill I just rode down. Although, during this little portion of the trail, there was quite a few rollerblade skiers on the hills. You don’t see that every day.
Once I finally found my way back to the trail, there was a very steep pass I needed to climb. At one point my GPS said 16° slope. However, the weather is amazing and the scenery is undescribable so there’s no better place to do a walk up at 16° slope.
The top of this climb did mean that most of the rest of the day was going to be downhill. A mile after getting to the top, I ran into two grizzly bears on the trail about 200 m in front of me. Pulling out my camera. Once again, I was able to zoom in to them and get a good look before I approached. Luckily, this time I had another bike packer with me. We moved up tactically to the crest of each hill so, that we could keep an eye on them. All the while he was screaming “hey bear” while I was whistling loudly. It took about 20 minutes to get these bears off the trail and they moved off to the left. But just another 200 Meters down the trail We saw fresh bear tracks in the mud. We decided to stick together and sure enough in another hundred Meters around the corner. There was another grizzly just on the left side about 30 m from us. We started yelling at it and it eventually moved a little bit for us to make it past. My compadre was really worried about the bear chasing us and asked if I could still see him. When I looked, I did see a bear but I actually don’t think it was the same bear. So I think there was two pairs of grizzlies but I can’t be 100% sure. That’s OK we were getting out of there
Moving down the trail, which was mostly downhill at this point, I ran into a herd of horses. I don’t think they were wild horses. One of them was wearing a bell. There was about 10 horses eating grass just off the side of the trail, and at least that many in the tree line minding their own business. There was some other bikers that came across them right in front of me, and decided to give them a little food. I imagine that the one that was on the road knew this little trick that if he waited on the road, somebody might feed him.
My big surprise on day 2 was when I was going down some mountain biking trails I had my first crash. It was just a little baby crash and only my pride was hurt. However, about 5 miles later I had my second baby crash and my front tire came unbeaded from the rim. All of the air came out. The sealant that is in the tire was leaking everywhere around the edges and making a huge mess. So normally when a biker has this problem, he has a CO2 cartridge in order to get some high-pressure air and reset the tire. Customs took my CO2 and I didn’t notice it until the morning of the start. Luckily, I was only about a mile and a half away from my next town so I walked my bike in. Hindsight 20-20 I should’ve replaced the air in my tire with my back up innertube.
I was under the impression that the town I was going into had a bike shop or two, but I would’ve been mistaken. Luckily, while walking through a residential area, a lady rode up on her bike and asked if I was doing the continental divide. I confirmed her suspicion and then she asked if I could use some help. She noticed I had a very flat tire. Her house was just a couple houses back. I told her I would be happy to receive some assistance. So her and her wife helped me in any way they could to try to get my bike tire seated. And They were kind enough to give me a beer, although that really didn’t help me seat my tire. Eventually, I got my inner tube in and got back on the road. But still would need to find a bike shop the next day.
They were true trail angels helping out somebody in need. They asked nothing from me, except for conversation. I think our communities need to start to band together and do more things like this. I’ve only experienced this type of treatment while either hiking or biking on trails . It is some of the best experiences in the world and gives you faith in humanity.
So if you can be anything in the world, be kind.
