Two Mates, Two Bikes, & 2800 Miles to Mexico : Day 18 - Canyon Clark Reservoir to Cow Patty Heaven

Trip Overview

This blog will follow two totally inexperienced bikepackers, Geoff and Cam, and their journey from Banff to Mexico via the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route. The route follows the Continental Divide, exposing riders to high altitude, diverse wildlife, and solitude. To learn more about the route, check this out. Randy will be the official bookie so get in touch with him if you'd like to place a wager on how far we will actually make it.

In the mean time, you can track our progress here thanks to our SPOT device.

This will be a site where we will try our best to post some pictures and stories along the way. Happy reading!

Wednesday, 16 July 2014

Day 18 - Canyon Clark Reservoir to Cow Patty Heaven

Today was our longest day yet. With a nice tail wind behind us, we managed to cover 35 mile in the morning into the small town of Lima (again, not pronounced like Lima, Peru, but like lima bean). We ate some lunch and got back on our feet. The afternoon was a 37 mile pedal to the middle of nowhere. This happened to be into a 20 mph headwind on terrible gravel roads riddled with washboard terrain. This was a pretty tough pedal. We just wanted to reach our campsite for the night. After finally reaching what was marked as a "back country campsite" on the map, we discovered it was just one stretch of road without fence directly beside it, allowing riders to fit tents. This grass/ditch was absolutely covered in cow poop. Everywhere. There wasn't a square yard without cow poop and gopher holes. What would you prefer - sleeping on cow patties or waking up to a gopher intrusion? We tried kicking the dried poop out of the way but that just busted it into smaller and smaller pieces. Anyway... we just slept on poop all night and got out first thing in the morning.