Day 50 – Ohio City – Lake Fork Campground (outside of Sapinero)
Posted by Kiki | Colorado | Posted on July 14th, 2009
Tuesday, July 14th - Ohio City – Lake Fork Campground (outside of Sapinero)
Today we got up about 7:30am (somehow the GPS alarm didn’t go off on time at 6:50am), but we got up and going and left the cabin after chatting with the other guys doing a small tour in Colorado. They (Gary, Adam, and John) were doing a trial-run with their mountain bike tires (massive tires) and all their Ortlieb gear. They’re basically staying as far away from civilization as possible, it seems. Doing all off-road stuff as much as possible and climbing passes by way of rocky jeep trails and such. So we chatted with them a bit and then they set off and then we set off about 9:30 this morning.
Adam's monster of a bike next to mine.
We arrived to Gunnison about 1 hour and 20 minutes later (21 miles later) and stopped for a quick ice cream (McDonald’s) and then went in search of warm-weather clothing for Chase. We went to a thrift store, a fishing/outdoors store, and Walmart. With a little luck, Chase is now decked out in camoflage (hunting gear) from the outdoors store. We also stopped at the bike shop to check our chains and they both appear to be in “Good” standing. Chase has ridden 2,400 miles on his chain and still hasn’t needed to replace it. I’ve riden maybe 800 miles almost on my chain since Springfield, Missouri. About 4 hours later and we finally got on the road again just before 3pm after having lunch at Mario’s Pizza. We both got the lunch special of a mini stuff pizza, salad/soup, and a drink.
Bighorn Sheep alongside the Blue Mesa Reservoir
We had 30 miles to go from Gunnison before we reached Sapinero. We unfortunately had a headwind the majority of the way out of Gunnison but the views were amazing. We rode along the Blue Mesa Reservoir/Lake and saw a few bighorn sheep that were grazing on the side of the road. One went up the side of the mountain which was probably at a 80 degree angle – amazing how they can walk up such steep inclines. A couple other sheep jumped across the road and then every other out of state license plate vehicle stopped to take photos, as well as about 4 motorcyclists. We kept on riding and stopped at a restroom on the side of the room and a couple traveling from NC to Wyoming stopped to chat with us for a bit. We debated as to how far we wanted to ride today and ultimately decided to stop for water at Lake Fork Campground, which is where we decided to stay for the night – it’s a nice little campground and we set up tents and then cleaned up and cooked dinner. Chase had his spaghetti and I had butter and herb pasta. Now if only we’d had something for dessert!
The sunset at Lake Fork Campground