Distance - 52 miles (of which 7.5 miles were in pilot car), Avg Speed - 8.4mph
We leave Togwotee Mountain Lodge, whilst they are having their morning prayer circle in the car park. There is another 9 miles to the top of the Togwotee Pass, but there is some major reconstruction work going on as part of the Obama administration’s “Putting America back to work” program which means we and our bikes have to be taken through the roadworks on a pilot car three times, twice on the uphill and once on the downhill. Loading up 2 bikes plus trailer quickly is not easy but by the third time, we have it down to a fine art. We enjoy hearing the banter of the road crew on the radios while we are in the pilot car. First Julie is majorly pissed because a Coca Cola truck drove through her stop sign and nearly ran her over. Our second driver told us there are 2 seasons in Wyoming; winter and road construction.
Our third driver, a salty dog kinda guy had a wicked sense of humor. He was telling us the dumb questions tourists ask from – “Are those mountains real? No, ma’m they’re inflatable. We just pump ‘em up every morning and let them down each night to let the wind blow through” to “what time do they let the animals out?”. The “inflatable” mountains are pretty impressive.
There is no sign to mark the crossing of the continental divide at the top, just chaos from the road construction (this was one of two Divide crossings today, #7 & #8). A big 20 miles downhill on pavement follows, after which we begin climbing the Union Pass Gravel road up to our new record of 9,676ft. This road is part of the main wagon trail that took supplies from east to west that the Mormons, amongst others, followed.
At the top, the terrain changes to an alpine setting with more meadow flowers and a wind so strong we could hardly hear each other talk. The wind plus the loading and unloading of bikes wiped us out so we decide to call it a day and camp next to a pit toilet in the middle of nowhere!
This is our last night (we think) in bear country so it is fitting that we finally get to hang our food for the first time – luckily someone has kindly provided a wooden bar to hang from and Numb Stuff performs a text book hanging.
Numb Stuff serves dinner, (who said he doesn’t cook?) then we are both tucked up in bed by 7pm, out like a light until 6 am, 11 wonderful hours of sleep!
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