COAST TO COAST 2016: Day 52 - Rocky Mountains here we are!

After our day off in Pueblo our week startet with a very sad moment. We had to say goodbye to Benjamin, who continues on the Transamerica Trail to Oregon while we took the Western Express route to get to San Francisco. We splitted in Wetmore, after our last 30 miles together. We tried to convince him to follow us on the Western Express, but unfortunatelly he was strong enough...

After drying our tears we climbed the first 9,000 ft (2743 m) until we got into a nice valley and a town called Westcliffe. We tried to figure out where to sleep and this is how we met Steve and Sue. They invited us to stay in their guesthouse. The nights get real chilly out there in the mountains and we apprechiated the hot shower and warm bed. Thank you very much again! And thank you for introducing breakfast burritos to us! ;)

The next day we climbed to 11,312 ft (3447 m) which was the highest point on our entire route. It took us 2,5 hours of contstant climbing to get to the top and only 25 minutes (average speed 55 kmh (34 mph)) to get to the bottom again. It was a great feeling to be the only ones that climbed that pass on bikes among all those Pickup-Truck tourists. We even had snow on the top so we did a short snowfight. But down in the valley it was very hot again...

At the moment the landscape changes every hour. Sometimes the rockies are like the alps with green meadows and lots of trees. And the next corner it is dry and dessert like. We realized that we are very close to Utah (locals pronounce it like U-taaaahhh) and we should prepare ourselfes for the dessert. We have four more days until we reach the hottest, dryest and lonliest stage on our journey. So we try to enjoy the weather, the green grass an the trees in colorado, even if it is very hard at the moment. Today sun and thunderstorms alternated all day long. We even had two hailstorms on our way to the dallas devide pass and we had to hide behind the guardrail because the hail was coming from the side and there was nothing else to hide. After this we were soaked to the bone and the temperature was in the 40s. We were freezing like hell so tried to keep on pedaling. We hope we'll be in the dessert soon ;)

By the way: we saw our first bear today. But i guess he was more afraid of us like we were from him... he dissappeared too quick to take a photo...

Cyclist hints:
- Sugar and spice mountain bakery, Westcliffe, CO (try the breakfast burritos)
- The W Cafe, Gunnison, CO (great breakfast!)

Total mileage so far: 4186 km (2600 miles)