Tour Divide Racer Reports

Today is my younger granddaughter's 2nd birthday and we just got home from taking everyone out for a birthday diner. My older granddaughter has been campaigning to sleep over for several days. My younger daughter is home from L.A. What more could proud parents want than to have the whole family together for a few days?

While everyone was taking turns taking baths and showers and getting ready for bed. I checked in on the Tour Divide Leaderboard and read some of the racers reports of pushing through miles of snow and over hundreds of down trees. Matthew Lee's report of seeing lots of bear tracks in the snow thrilled my wife the most. After that report it sure does not look like I will be continuing on the GDMBR this summer; especially since summer seems to be cancelled in northern Montana as well as in Colorado. My wife bookmarked the Tour Divide race web site on her computer. After a few more reports like today's and I will be lucky to be allowed to get back on the GDMBR for quite a while.

There is plenty to do at home and right here in New Mexico. This week I am going to enjoy my daughter's company. She asked me to take her on a hike; just not one of my "death marches." I have been working on the pictures I took of the New Mexico section of the GDMBR. I have thinned the pictures a lot and I am slowly working on captions. I am sure I will finish the GDMBR, but this doesn't look like a good summer to try to complete it. I have to report back to work on August 7th and I have some doctors appointments scheduled for the 6th. The weather continues to be wacky and it looks like it is going to continue to be weird for a while.

I am glad I made it off Brazos Ridge in northern New Mexico in one piece. The wind up there was absolutely brutal. Judging from the pictures on the Tour Divide web site of the route from past years the conditions are significantly worse in northern New Mexico this year. The "roads" are badly rutted and right now a lot of them are glorified creek beds. Mud abounds and the snow drifts seem endless. With the heavier load I carried as a touring bicyclist I was losing almost a pound a day. I could not eat enough to curb the weight loss. In retrospect the skin rash was a blessing in disguise.

I will continue to fill in the details of our trip through New Mexico and put captions with the pictures. I only have one drop shipment that I will have to pay to have returned to me. I will continue to prepare the drop boxes for another attempt next year. With 706 miles of experience on the GDMBR I have some comments on what went well and what did not; as well as what equipment worked and what failed. I will discuss those issues in future posts.