DAY 17 – Del Norte to Brazos Ridge camp (89miles)

After stretching at every opportunity yesterday to fix my achilles my legs are feeling full of energy as I turn out the first few miles. My achilles is also on the road to recovery and no longer a worry. I just have to focus more on the steady climbs to not tense my calf, but suffer the pain in my shoe instead. The route today starts with a 15 mile climb ascending 11,910” Indiana pass, the highest part of the route, and rolls along in the thin air to Platoro at only 10,000”. It is brutal.

The restaurant at Platoro is a welcome sight for a mid-afternoon break. The store is limited but has enough and I fill up all my water containers not wanting to rely on anything out there from here. I sit down with Matt and Bruce in the restaurant on some very uncomfortable chairs. The waitress tells us Alex was here last night for dinner, but just grabbed a shower and headed on. I hadn’t heard about him for a few days now, but follow his tracks all day in the dirt wondering how old they are and how far in front he is.

The twenty-three mile downhill from Platoro is hard work over a very loose gravely road, and not at all the free ride I expected looking at the map, but it is down and I have to be grateful for that. I make my call-in from Horca and drink some more at the store. The air is thick with billions of insects in the air as dusk comes and we climb up a steep pavement road for 10 miles through an insect cloud. At the Colorado/New Mexico border its totally dark and the three of us pitch up for the night. It’s a short day for distance but has been incredibly hard with more hours than usual in the saddle, so I don’t feel bad about making less than 100 miles.