Post 22: Wednesday 20 July, from Muddy Gap, Wyoming

Now solo again.....

Rest day - fettling the Condor

Julia and Ben had to head back to Denver, and thence home, yesterday. (Incidentally, for this Blog that means an end to photos of me, unless I can recruit another official photograher.)

But I can now begin to believe that I will get to the Pacific. In terms of riding days, I have done more than two-thirds of those planned: 50 out of 71. In miles, I am nearly two-thirds, over 2700 out of 4200. And in climbing I don't know - but it is more down than up now! So I am beginning to think forward to seeing Janet again, on 13 August.

On the windy Interstate 80

Early build up of a storm

By the way, for detailed followers of my route, I have changed the last bit; from Missoula, Montana I will go northwards towards the Canadian border, and then cut west through the northern tip of Idaho then northern Washington State, through the Cascades, to end at Anacortes, just north of Seattle. So the map which acts as the watermark to this blog is now misleading - sorry.

The last two days have been relatively easy cycling, with a drop in altitude both days (and a mainly following wind too). I am now at about 6,200 feet, which is the lowest since Canon City in Colorado, two weeks (or 8 cycling days) ago. I guess I am going through some sort of high-altitude training.

Empty land north of Riverside, WY

3rd crossing of the Divide

4th crossing, a few miles later

 I have mentioned the Continental Divide a couple of times already. Naively, I had somehow thought it would tidily track north-south. But in fact it wanders hither and yon, and it isn't always at a high altitude either. Today I have crossed it twice more, at heights below 7000 feet. It is still for me a romantic thing to do, though, and to remember that from two raindrops falling side by side, one will end up in the Atlantic, and the other in the Pacific.

So empty!

I am finding Wyoming fascinatingly attractive. It doesn't have the picture-postcard allure of the Rockies in Colorado (and it's much harder to photograph!). But each day of riding is like a geography lesson (but without a teacher). The notes on the Adventure Cycling map say Wyoming is a series of basins and mountain ranges. The mountains I have passed lack the grandeur of Colorado's, but often one sees steep ridges above the basin floors - presumably formed of rock which is harder for water and wind to erode. The effect is striking; what I think of as a 'Badlands' landscape (yes, I know, too many western movies as a boy....). And the soils vary from sandy yellow to Devon-red; again very attractive.

This part of Wyoming is indeed arid

A very isolated ranch home!

But it is dry and barren. Today, in 45 miles, I have seen very little water - just a few diminishing pools at the bottom of creeks. Hardly any wild flowers soften the roadside.

Trees somehow manage to grow in the rock wall

The landscape is unfenced (except for the roadsides) and cattle roam freely. You can understand why you need people with horses (and considerable skill) to round them up.

I must add here that Julia, Ben and I saw two cowboys, who were almost caricatures, come into a cafe we were in the other day. They were wearing cowboy hats, of course, and boots with spurs (really!) and they had that Clint Eastwood rolling walk (which however hard I tried, I could never get right). Brilliant! But disappointingly there weren't two horses tied up outside, as I had hoped.

Rodeo star ... not quite!

My foremost impression is that Wyoming is so very empty. I suspect it has the lowest population density of any of the 10 States I will have been through: 530,000 people in 98,000 sq miles. (What is the figure for England, I wonder!). Today, in 45 miles from Rawlins, I think I have seen fewer than ten homesteads. Where I am staying tonight, Muddy Gap, is essentially only a gas station; the owners and their little boy presumably produce a population total of 3! (They have a trailer home (very well appointed) alongside their store, and that is my home for tonight. Apart from wild camping, it's probably the remotest place I have ever spent the night....) And tomorrow I will ride 80 miles before getting to Lander, which we would recognise as a town.

There's not much animal life either. Today I've probably seen fewer than 100 cattle, plus three antelope, and a few birds - no other animals at all, not even roadkill...

As I say, empty, empty, empty.... (though I must add majestically and humblingly so, in the same way as I found the prairies in Kansas).

Increasingly the earth is reddish

History here, as I have commented before on previous places I have passed through, feels very recent. J, B and I visited a super little museum in Encampment (close to Riverside) on Monday. Encampment boomed as a copper mining centre (it called iself 'Grand Encampment' then), with a peak population of over 3000, in the late 19th century, and the museum showed, in its displays, and in reconstructed buildings from its heyday, what life was like then. (I was particularly taken by the 'ice cream parlour', which had become a general grocery store - without bothering to change the sign outside - and contained a marvellous old cash till!)

And who remembers TV stories of the Pony Express? Well, the route that mail service used was close to here. The aim was to take mail between St Joseph, Missouri, and Sacramento, California (nearly 2000 miles) in 10 days. Each rider covered 75 miles ata time, changing horses every 10 or 12 miles; and of course they faced dangers that modern postmen don't, like sometimes hostile Indians! (The service only operated for about 2 years, from 1860, before being rendered uneconomic by the telegraph.)

Two more evocative names from my map for this stage: "Lost Soldier Lake" and "Deadman Lake". Who knows what sad stories gave rise to them?

So, again, thanks for following my 'loopy adventure', and thanks for all your support.

More soon! Till then very best wishes,

Ken