Friday 13/5/05

Friday the 13th today, scary, especially so as we have to climb the biggest mountain of our entire trip today, the dreaded Monarch Pass sitting at 11,312ft above sea level. It has been basically uphill the whole way from Cotopaxi to the top, thats 48 miles climbing a little under 6000ft. Now as if a long climb like that is'nt bad enough at that altitude doing excersise you are suseptable to altitude sickness anywhere above 7000ft. We were already having throbbing heads and a general lack of energy in the morning in Cotopaxi, but as the day progressed the hills got stepper and our energy levels got less and less. We had to stop numerous times before the summit from sheer exhaustion.
Heres a good photo looking back at where we had come from shortly before hitting the summit:

We did make it though after 7 hours or so in the saddle and no lunch. By the time we arrived at the restaurant at the top we were absolutely ravenous. What did they have for us though? Nothing but hot dogs and crisps. What an anti climax!

The road down the other side though was some awesome fun (except for the problem of my hands nearly freezing off).
Heres the view from half way down the otherside of Monarch:

We didn't have to pedal all the way down to our destination a town called Sargents. This actually was not a town, we found it only had a population of 16 permanent residents however this did not stop it from being one of the highlights of the trip. We arrived at the campsite, which was an RV park, grocers, restaurant and yes a bar all in one and sat at the bar to enquire about prices where we got into a conversation with a middle aged couple who rode Harleys called Kathleen and Russell who were extremely nice and very amusing. They had six kids between them, their youngest being our age, but that sure didn't stop them being cool. They treated us to three rounds of drinks each which after Monarch was a God send and left at about 7. Kathleen even offered to pay the difference between the price of our camping and a cabin but we couldn't do that obviously. However we struck a deal with the owner of the place who said she would let us have a cabin for camping price if we tidied our cabin and the one adjacent which was absolutely no problem, awesome in fact, it got way below freezing at night. After getting settled we went back into the bar and got some food. There we met an old cowaboy who was a bit hard of hearing, then we played some pool and met some really cool people. Two brothers by the names of Jarrod and Ernie, Jarrods wife Angel and her friend. Well to cut a long story short after much revellry and pool we went back to their house listened to loud music and sat in a hot tub, yes you heard me right a HOT TUB, and it was minus four outside and we were drinking cold beers, it was awesome after the days ride, just what our bodies needed. Guys, you rock. Thank you so much. All in all an awesome day I think.