Tour Divide Update: Day 24
210km - Gila National Forest to Silver City, NM
As planned, I was up and at it early on day 24. Early starts got easier as the Tour Divide headed further south, as the morning chill became much less of an issue and it was easier to get moving.
After tearing down my tent, I struck out in the pre-dawn dark once again, and enjoyed one of the most spectacular early mornings of the route. The scenery itself was incredible, but most striking was the wildlife - this was the day when I went from seeing occasional antelope or elk to seeing them everywhere. At one point, a huge herd of startled elk ran across in front of me - there must have been easily more than 100 of them. Even though I was in a hurry, I couldn’t resist stopping, taking out the drone and grabbing video of such an amazing sight.
Before long I reached the fork in the road where the detour began. Unlike the rest of the route which I had researched intensively over the last year, I knew next to nothing about this portion of the ride and it threw up some surprises - some pleasant and some significantly less so.
To that point, the detour quickly headed into what felt like a never-ending climb back up in to mountainous territory. It seemed that every time I thought I’d reached the top, I’d go around another bend and see the route winding its way up and around the next peak!
The last couple of days had seen the route drop back out of this and onto flatter territory, and I was startled to find that by the time I finished this climb, I was back around 10,000 feet above sea level. Not the most ideal start for a planned 205-210km day!
Eventually I began to descend, and it was a challenging one - rough and rocky, to the point that I actually had to take a break on the way down for the first and last time on the entire route, to give my arms a rest. It was rough enough that about a quarter of the way down the descent, I heard a noise and looked back to see my water bottle rolling down the hill behind me - the stress of the descent had led to my bottle cage snapping in half and jettisoning it across the trail.
Eventually the trail turned to paved road and I entered the “mining ghost town” of Mogollon.
If the climb was an unexpected challenge, this was an unexpected highlight. As soon as I rolled up to the visitor centre, the door opened Cresta emerged. I’d seen on one of the Facebook groups ahead of time that she was keen to help riders out when they came to Mogollon, and boy did she do that. A ball of enthusiasm and kindness, she explained to me the layout of the town, advised me to check out the Purple Onion cafe across the road, and told me to come back to the visitor centre once is ordered so she could show me the resupplies they had on hand. Sure enough, there was a table full of Gatorade, store-bought snacks and homemade treats that were just there for the taking (with an optional donation).
So, with two lunches in my belly, and a frame bag full of food and water, I headed out - but not before Cresta also hosed me down to cool me off! What a morale booster Mogollon and Cresta were - she’s an incredible ambassador for the area and despite the climbing required to get there I would advocate for this becoming a permanent part of the route.
Unfortunately the Tour Divide doesn’t let us have nice things, and no sooner had I left the town then I was presented with a severe climb for the next mile or so that at one point registered as a 16% gradient on my GPS. Fortunately it also presented gorgeous views of the surrounding scenery which really contextualized the isolation of Mogollon.
After this, the “real” descent began, and it was one of my favourite descents of the entire event - fast, flowing hairpin turns that you could safely throw the bike into knowing that the surface was good.
I had one minor blip quite close to the start of the descent, as I’d started to hear a rattling from the back of my bike. I was a bit paranoid about technical issues by this time so I immediately stopped and checked things out. I couldn’t see anything wrong, but then recalled that I’d heard recently that the brake discs on Salsa Cutthroats can sometimes come loose. By this point I was sufficiently tired that my brain wasn’t working well, and without thinking I grabbed the disc with my hand to check it wasn’t loose, forgetting that I had just been descending and of course it was lava-hot. I found myself with burns and blisters on three fingers of my right hand, which made gripping the brake levers on the rest of the descent quite painful, and was annoyed at myself for such a dumb self-inflicted injury when there were already plenty of external challenges to deal with.
Nonetheless I got back onto the descent, and flew down it. I actually caught up to a car that had passed me while I was pulled over, and seeing my speed they pulled over to let me pass. After the descent levelled out and I’d gone about another kilometre and turned onto another dirt road, I looked back and saw the car just then finishing the descent!
After another 10km or so of relatively flat dirt road (about 20km after leaving Mogollon), I reached the town of Glenwood where I snagged a couple of ice cream bars to cool off and get some high-calorie food into me ahead of what Cresta had warned me would be a tough next section of the route.
Sure enough, after leaving Glenwood I found myself first on busy highway with a long, hot, exposed climb and then on a dirt road where that climb continued. My Garmin informed me it was 51 Celsius at that point, and that section of dirt road climbing was hard. Once again I kept looking over my shoulder and expecting to see another rider coming up behind me, but it never happened (in fact, aside from a brief encounter with Forrest that evening after we’d both finished riding, I didn’t see another rider on the road for the duration of my Tour Divide). At one point I found a tree to sit under, and just ate everything I could get my hands on to try to get my energy levels up. I’d taken to carrying multiple energy drinks at all times by then, and slammed down a couple of those too as the oppressive heat was truly draining.
Eventually, a combination of hike-a-bike, low-gear spinning and some choose swear words took me to the top of the climb where, after a couple of brief but ridiculous canyon descents and immediate re-ascents, I hit a long, glorious section of flat-to-slightly-downhill dirt road along which I was able to absolutely fly.
Fortunately for me, I again managed to dodge the rain that I’d been warned about and which was notorious for - you guessed it - turning the road to peanut butter mud. At first I thought I was ahead of it, but I started to see signs that it may have blown through before I got there, and that the obscene heat was just drying it out really quickly.
In an uncharacteristically good twist of fortune, I had also somehow regained access to my higher gears! My chain came off along this part of the route, and upon re-mounting it I found that I once again had access to all but my highest gear, and that even that would sometimes work.
Despite the heat I thoroughly enjoyed this flatter section, as I did the next portion of the route whereupon I descended down towards the town of Gila which sits in a lush, green valley - quite the change from the last few hours. Upon reaching Gila, I met Clint - another trail angel who had with him a cooler full of food and drink, of which I gladly accepted some while discussing the route and the opening day of the Tour de France which had kicked off the previous day.
By this time it was after 6:30pm and I needed to head out to tackle the last 45km or so of highway to Silver City. I thought this would be easy and that I’d be there by 9pm, but as it turned out there was still more climbing to do and I was very concerned about the risk of drunk drivers in this area, which I’d been warned about (and saw a few of). Still, I finally arrived safe and sound at a motel in Silver City with about 2 minutes to spare before its office closed at 10pm.
It may just have been the part of town, but as I’d been warned by locals throughout the day, Silver City didn’t live up to its glittering name - drug addicts everywhere, and street racers blazing by periodically late into the night. Having showered and washed my gear, I bumped into Forrest as I left a convenience store with supplies, and as he was just rolling into town I advised him to take his bike into the store with him lest it be stolen.
With some friendly words exchanged and a comparison of plans for the next day, I headed back to my motel to eat yet another convenience store dinner and get my gear ready for the next day - hopefully my final day of the Tour Divide!
Total distance for the day: 210km (Strava)