Day 2: August 12th, 2008 – Sprinkiller

Westcliff --> Monarch Pass ( ~16 miles east of Sargents)

I was under attack….the sound of the repeating action of a sub machine gun was all around me! I struggled to break free of my restraints, it was pouring rain……... then, in a flash of understanding, I woke. The restraints had been my sleeping bag, but the sound of the would be machine gun continued even louder than before, but the rain I had dreamed was very real as I was soaked head to toe. I squirmed to the edge of my sagging shelter and lifted the edge of the tarp as at least two gallons of water poured off my roof onto my head. Sprinklers!!! Naught but two feet from my tent a sprinkler blasted all that I owned. Still in my sleeping bag, I grabbed the nylon sack that carried my tent poles and looped its drawstring around the rotating mechanism of the sprinkler head to arrest the head in a position away from myself. It worked, but the excitement of the fight with Sprinkiller, as he came to be known, was over and I was left with the sad reality of being completely drenched at 2:00 AM in the forty-five degree chill of Westcliffe, CO. Not wanting to deal with it, I curled back up in my sopping sleeping bag and hoped for some type of coma like sleep, which I promptly received once my heart returned from my stomach. When you see a grassy green park in the alpine deserts of high Colorado….don’t put your tent there! Lesson learned.

The next morning, as I shoved the soaked pieces of my life back into their respective sacks, a curious 10 year old boy with a string trimmer approached me, and in a straight to the chase way that only children can get away with, he said, “What are you doing?” I explained that I had come from pueblo and had plans to head West. The boy pointed down the valley and then up the valley walls towards the Sangre de Cristos and ask what direction was west. I pointed West towards the mountains and he immediately told me what he thought of it. “You know I have no idea why you people do this, I just made 17 dollars mowing this lawn and it only took me an hour and a half, how much are you getting paid?” I told him that I was actually paying to ride my bike and he couldn’t believe it. He gave me a lecture on how I should really try to make some money off of the whole deal and then he bid me goodbye. Maybe the little entrepreneur will understand in a decade or so, or maybe that what he was thinking about me…

After being reprimanded by the tot in the park,I packed up everything I once thought was essential but could no longer stand to drag with me and mailed it back to Nashville. I made good time to Cotopaxi, at the base of the climb to 11,300 ft. Monarch Pass, where I stopped at a greasy spoon for lunch and met a slew of awesome folks. Sitting at a table outside the dinner, an old man on a BMW motorcycle pulled up to my table and ask me where I was headed. Turns out Rick was a 72 year old legend who had crisscrossed the country multiple times on his motorcycle. He invited me inside to have a burger with him and as he put it, “Tell lies to each other”. I gladly accepted as I was reluctant to start the climb.

Immediately after we ordered we met The Dude, another journeyman who had completed the route from Alaska to the Florida Keys on his bicycle in 2001. The Dude and Rick stuffed me with motivation as they recalled tales from their adventures. Rick had been halfway across the country headed west on highway 50 when 9/11/2001 became infamous. His son was the head chef in the towers and Rick immediately turned his bike around and made a B line to New York. His son survived because he didn’t go into work that morning; but he lost 34 of his staff…. On this same morning in British Colombia, The Dude was a few thousand miles into his Alaska to Florida tour at the home of a hospitable Canadian dairy farmer that took them in for the night. The Dude was carrying in a few pales of fresh milk when the farmers wife gave him the news, the rest of the day they spent glued to the radio in their living room. These guys were legends, and the stories went on till we had cleaned our plates of the best burgers in Cotopaxi….(population 50ish) and even less burger joint competition. They offered some huge motivation for a guy who had spent his night in a cold hell.

The rest of the day I spent in a grueling climb to the highest elevation of the trek. The climb was higher and longer than the day before but I managed to feel tremendously better. I slept that night at 11,200 feet in the Monarch Campgrounds, dined on ramen and the other half of my quesadilla, and spent what would be my only night below freezing of the trip. 68.9 miles….only slightly better than the day before but at least I could move without wanting to chuck.

Day: 68.9 mi

Total: 132.8 mi

Elev. Climbed: 4800 ft

Elev. Difference: 3500 ft

Elev. Peak: 11312 ft