Distance 45.5 miles, Av speed 7.1 mph
As we knew we were camping at over 9,800 ft, we were expecting a cold morning. However, waking in the middle of the night due to the cold, we weren’t that surprised to get out of our tents at 6.30am to find ice on the tents and BOB bag.
Hats, gloves and socks were all brought into service. The cool weather helped with the climb up to Carnero Pass. The route then brought us out through a canyon, where we heard a cowboy rounding up his cattle by simply yelling at them. Seems to work – they all mooed back to him and came running!
We were puzzled by the fact that the route did not seem to follow the most direct course to Del Norte, and wondered why. First, the route seemed to be a fun single track, but then we hit soft volcanic ash and sharp jagged rocks which was not at all fun!
Numb Stuff was able to ride most of it, but Dirtbaby, after falling off once, played safe and walked Sherman down through the badlands.
Once down, our problems were not over, there was a road closed sign placed on our route. We chose to ignore this, as there was no way we were going back up that ash! We soon found out the reason why the road was closed – they were building a new runway for the airport so we had to sneak across the construction! 
All this meant that we hit Del Norte later than expected, so after a quick bite to eat (gas station pizza –yummy!), we had just enough time to pick up our package at the post office, and ship some more stuff forward before it closed . We noticed there was a Del Norte Microbrewery, “Three Barrels” located next to the post office, but unfortunately we didn’t get time to sample their wares. This was because we were about to climb the highest pass of the entire trip the next day, Indiana Pass. Not only that, but all the stream water in that area was not safe to drink, even after filtering, due to the naturally occurring minerals and also the superfund mining activity. Therefore, we will have to carry enough water for the next day and a half, just to make life harder!
We decide to camp at the local RV park, and who should we find there but Harry, with no Larry (or Steve). After leaving Sargents, the threesome camped at Luders Creek campground. The next day, Harry decided he no longer wanted to cycle with Larry and Steve (maybe the 5am wake up calls got too much?) and so they cycled off from camp without him. Sod’s law came into play – as soon as they left, Harry found he had a flat, and also he had lost a part for his pump so that he could not fix it. Poor Harry had to wait 6 hours for a car to come by that road to get a ride to the nearest town to pick up a new pump. We had dinner with Harry to try and cheer him up as he no longer seemed to be having fun on the trip. Then, it was time for an early night, to get us ready for Indiana Pass!
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