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Day 16- Emory Pass and Caballo State Park

 New Mexico finally showed us a little love. The forecast for today’s ride up to Emory Pass was ugly, with showers throughout the day. We walk to cloudy skies and what tense because it did as expected rain overnight.

I got on the road at about 830. The peak at Emory Pass was at mile 19 and the climb began early but provided increasingly spectacular scenery.


For a while the vistas opened up; then just as quickly, the landscape became more jagged until we were riding through canyons of rock. 


At one turn mother nature made sure we were paying attention with a rock slide in the road.



I shed layers like a stripper on the way up but put them all back on once I reached the pass. At 8228 feet it was cold, and the air was full of moisture. 


We took a quick trip to see the Vista at the top and it felt as if the whole world was spread it out in front of us.




Then the downhill. I had on the following:

  • A T-shirt
  • A long sleeve shirt
  • A fleece
  • A windbreaker
  • A winter puffy coat
  • A raincoat
And I was just warm enough. I don’t like long down hills much and have found I don’t have the required hand strength. I also realized that my fingers are not really long enough to reach the brakes the way I needed them to. As a result, I stopped fairly often on the downhill.
The skies opened up at the bottom of course they did and luckily Carl had secured a spot on the porch of a vacant house — at least we hope it was vacant. It poured for a while and finally light up a little. I put the baggy rain pants to work and while not fashionable they got the job done. Sorry no pictures this time.




Once we got to the bottom things leveled out and again we had vistas worth stopping for. This truly is an amazing country. The last 30 miles or so were all downhill which made a great sunny finish to a 58 mile day.

This was my favorite day so far.

Things I learned today:
  • It is better to be overprepared
  • There are no words for how beautiful somethings are
  • You sometimes have to look for horse poop before you sit out your tent.

Comments

  1. AnonymousOctober 11, 2022 at 5:17 PM

    Incredible Lydia! Amazing photos and story about your ride! Stay safe!!- Gari

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousOctober 12, 2022 at 5:29 AM

    I love that you write about rock slides and rain yet it was your favorite day so far. You are truly finding beauty in so many things, and you also have some very helpful hints...like looking for horse poop before setting up your tent! Thanks for the good info. Great pics too. Debbie

    ReplyDelete

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