San Juan Hut Trip -- Rainpants and A Mixed Bag of M&Ms. Days 1 and 2
Hmm, what else, what else... be sure to bring iodine tablets, a spare derailleur hanger, you'll probably want a pair of flipflops, oh and don't forget rainpants.Rainpants? I don't own rainpants, Justin. I'm sure I'll be fine without them.Your call man. See you in Ridgway!Pshh, rainpants. Soon after this conversation, I reach out to my good friend and former teammate Timmy Duggan. "Ted, you and I raced through some of the gnarliest conditions the world could throw at people on bikes. We were dressed in spandex and riding skinny tires. If it got cold, we put on a cotton cap and a vest. You don't need rainpants dude." Case closed, I returned to my packing mission, no rainpants included.In the summer, Colorado is known for its cool mornings, the temperature skyrockets up and it's baking hot by lunchtime, around mid-afternoon thunderstorms roll in and douse the state, then it all clears up for dinner and wonderfully crisp thin air for bedtime. This forecast is about as accurate as predicting sunny and hot in Phoenix -- it's a safe bet. Colorado is most certainly not known to have four consecutive days of wall to wall rain. So when one eighth of our intrepid party announced over beers during our last minute, 10pm planning meeting on the eve of our ride that we were due to be hit with something monsoon'ish, I truly thought he was kidding. Here I am in Ridgway, CO, close to absolutely nothing and about to set off into the Colorado wilderness, and there I am sans rainpants.But first let's chat about what it is I'm chatting about here. Two good friends of mine, Timmy and Justin of nut butter fame, were setting out with five others on the San Juan Hut Trips. I was invited to round it out to eight which made me psyched. This is a five day trip from Telluride, CO through the incredibly barren San Juan Mountains of southwest Colorado, staying at very sparse huts with bunk beds, a propane stove and two burners for cooking, neither running water nor electricity (nor wifi!), and some bomb-shelter-like food provisions, ultimately riding to Gateway, CO equally in the middle of nowhere.For reference to time and geography, I'm coming from Utah and basically had this very block of time to occupy before settling in on Leadville for my final Leadville training. I wanted to be at altitude: check. I wanted to spend time on my new Cannondale Scalpel (more on that later): check. And I wanted to have some fun. I've been part of so many dull and dreary training camps (and plenty of good ones too) that if I were to buckle down for a while here in retirement, it was a requisite that it be fun. Check.Day One, Sunshine and Blue SkiesHere we are moments away from setting off. We've each grabbed about 6 hours of shuteye, I woke up around 5am to finalize the build on my brand new Cannondale, we then grabbed watery coffee in styrofoam cups from the hotel buffet, poured UnTapped on instant oats, and drove from Ridgeway to Telluride to set out on this once in a lifetime adventure. From left to right: Timmy, Justin, Mike, yours truly, Scott, Yo! (Johannes), David, and Phil.
The bike took some mastery to build. The frame and fork are the super-rad Cannondale Scalpel Carbon 2. The 2 stands for "ridiculously fast and a sleek black and yellow color scheme". SRAM came through BIG time and sent Eagle, plus a bomber Truvativ stem and swoopingly sweet handlebar, plus the RockShox Reverb dropper post. It's 2016, but we're in model year 2017, so it's about time I got on the dropper bandwagon. Speedplay outfitted me in their outstanding SYZR pedals, and the fine people at UnTapped gave me this bottle. Fizik Gobe saddle completes the bike, Camelbak was rad to send me a H.A.W.G. NV. All these parts were shipped to Studio Velo in my hometown California and then shipped at the eleventh hour to our hotel. It arrived the very night that I arrived to our hotel, I put the finishing touches on it, made sure the fit was spot on, the dropper dropped with pizazz and then zoom zoom badaboom, it's time to shred!
The day begins with an easy spin down the bike path from our cars to the Telluride. Next up, we a load up and hop aboard the gondola from base of the mountain to top so that we can begin the day with some shredding singletrack. The picture above, in fact, is the Prospect Trail, which I highly recommend to anyone who has an interest in having fun and riding their bike with an ear to ear grin.
No more than three minutes into day one, I rounded a corner and found a member of our team down. He's not down and out, but he's most certainly down and in extreme pain. It was a relatively slightly bend of a narrow section, scattered with damp small rocks, and off camber. Two others of our crew were soon there as well and we went into quick emergency assessment mode. Our fallen soldier had smacked below his left arm/armpit/chest/back area pretty hard so that his shirt was torn, had a long deep cut as if shredded across a sharp rock, and clearly had taken an enormous impact. Lest we forget, we aren't just riding bare bones lightweight; we're each carrying 30lbs on our backs. His front wheel was considerably bent, his handlebars and saddle had spun well out of straight, and he was in a mild state of shock.I'm adept in pro bike crash evaluation, which takes place on European roads with people swearing in six different languages all amid shattered hundreds of thousands of dollars of carbon. This takes place in a matter of seconds, so trailside bike crash evaluation over the course of a swift fifteen minutes is more than ample. We deliver the best in trail first-aid response, then deemed it appropriate to for him to slowly trudge back up the hill escorted by one of our party who hadn't taken a spill, and safely take the gondola down. The other non-fallen and I zipped down the mountain to our very inquisitive remaining four who wondered where the heck we were for the previous twenty minutes. "We're not heroes" we solemnly respond,"we're just saving lives."This picture below captures Justin, Timmy, and Scott as we have settled in at the base of the mountain and are trying to assess what our next move is. Currently we have two members of our party at a different part of the base of the mountain, one is severely injured and extremely bummed, two others are going from our side of the mountain to theirs to help facilitate the subsequent round of car-musical-chairs to get different people to different parts of the town... and ultimately different parts of the state, since our injured buddy has been deemed too injured to continue. And then this trio and I are trying to set off towards camp 1 before the epic rains set in. Thank the good Lord we have cell reception at this point since we're still a stones throw from Telluride.
Note: if you find yourself outside of Telluride and someone tells you to ride to Last Dollar Hut, be warned that you're about to climb a considerable mountain. And it's entirely worth it.Better yet, if someone tells you to ride to Last Dollar Hut, I would highly recommend traveling with two professional chefs, because here is what the pantry looks like. Here is the canned goods and herb section:
And this section I'll accurately call "Peanut M&Ms, dried fruit, and imperishable Half and Half area". This picture doesn't quite capture scale. That's roughly 23 pounds of mixed nuts the second row down and a five gallon jug of cookies on the lower right. But spoiler alert, even though the huts are each stocked in nearly exactly the same way, the Peanut M&Ms are clearly a hot item since this was the only full bag. Hut 2 had a 5lb bag of M&Ms with only ten M&Ms remaining. Ten. No M&Ms existed after that. The travesty.
When given lemons you make lemonade. When given a bag of bread, cans and cans of SPAM, impressively high quality cheddar cheese, diced jalapenos, eggs, some butter, and and a cast iron skillet, you make the worlds most amazing grilled cheese and fried egg sandwich. Here is David in the midst of his artistry.
Needless to say, these were served with Campbell's Tomato Soup.
At which point you're blessed with a spectacular view of the San Juans with only the sound of sheep grazing 1,000 feet below you and the rumble of thunder off in the distance. Day one, we lost only one member of our band, it didn't start raining (dumping!) until 11pm, we had stellar views and ate grilled cheese sandwiches -- I call that a success.
Day Two, Calling an AudibleDo you know what brake fade is? I've never experienced it, but I've heard rumors that it's when you're on a lengthy descent and as you grab your disc brakes, you pull tighter and tighter, but with less and less effect. Ultimately you're squeezing your brakes and literally nothing happens.We started day two under rainy conditions and no rainpants, and since we were sleeping at 11,000 feet, it was downhill for a while. New to this sensation of brake fade, it was a bit concerning that I needed more braking power, but it wasn't coming. Only then did I look down and to see some creative hose routing so that every time my shock compressed, my front brake rotor would clip the lengthy front brake hose and eventually with the chronic wear with each squeeze of the brakes, hydrolic brake fluid was spurting from the hose. Truth be told, it was actually kind of funny to see this with the minor exception of this being the second day of a mountainous bike ride and I presumably will at some point over the next few days want those brakes.Timmy is always up for adventure and today was no different. We had a roadside powwow among all eigh... err, seven of us and Timmy and I decided we would take a right when everyone else went left towards the hut, we would ride waaaay down the highway back to Ridgway, cross my fingers that there's a bike shop that can fix this relatively obscure part in a relatively obscure town, then soldier back to that intersection which is basically ground zero, and onwards to the hut. Easy peasy, right?Down to the road, off to the right we went, and normally Dallas Divide is one of the most scenic parts of Colorado. With Timmy on this partially brakeless day, it looked like this. Please note, Timmy also does not have rainpants on.
This legendary detour to end all detours, first we visited one shop where they couldn't fix it. The generous proprietor there told us to go down the road to Cascade Bike Shop in the off chance they have this random hose. We spun down to Cascade which conveniently was right next to the sole coffee shop in town. So we waited a while for them to open, then first met the affable Andy who was immediately and totally down for an equally legendary detour. "Okay okay, we don't have the part, but we can drive you to Montrose, get the part at our sister shop there, then I'll drive you half way back into the woods, and you can ride to the hut!" He was stoked. Unfortunately the sister shop didn't have it.Then in walks Nate who shares a bunch of mutual friends with both me and Timmy, so that was cool. eanwhile Timmy is deep into conversation with Andy about a private ski compound somewhere in the middle-of-nowhere, Colorado which piques Timmy's interest like the Absent Minded Professor to Flubber. Nate is a mechanic genius and fixes what ails me -- temporarily, but at least as much as he can fix my bike for the week where I get the new part shipped to me in time for Leadville, and then I'll send this part back to them. They were awesome. In summary, if you meet a Nate or Andy in Ridgway, they're two of the best Colorado has to offer and they totally have you back.
The only sad part of the day was bidding farewell to both these two, warm coffee and internet, but at least we were happily back to the trail. On the long and lonesome highway, east of Omaha... (west, actually).
And after one final bushwacking hike-a-bike push through the woods we issued some bird calls to our waiting party and stumbled upon the cabin precisely at happy hour (what I didn't show in that previous stockpile of provisions is the ample beers. Modelo and PBR and Durango's SKA Brewing Co, oh baby, they have you covered in slightly cooler than room temperature sudsy beverages!). With woodsy beverages come forest lawn games, such as horseshoes in only a slight drizzle.
Two days, two major incidents, both with uplifting outcomes. What could come on days three, four, and five? Only one way to find out, stay tuned...