Day 63: Today was brutal
This next 200 km section was going to be without much resupply so needed to carry 3 days of food and 2 days of water. We prepared last night so we decided to get up and out early. However Blake and Marcus are stronger and more experienced bikers than me so they soon left me behind.
The cycling was pretty good. Well, it was for about 10 minutes. Then it got awful really fast. Some nice guy in a truck that was camping out to watch the Baja 1000 race stopped me for a chat and filled a water bottle. Little did I know this would be the last person or sign of civilization I see for a day and a half as I head into more proper desert and proper wilderness.
The day was brutal. I have had hard days on this trip before but they have always been manageable. Or have been the hard where it is just physical and know there is light at the end of the tunnel with a campground with food and water at the end of the day. But today was a different kind of hard.
Firstly I was barely cycling at all. It was all pushing the bike and scrambling up and down mountains and sand and gravel. Maybe it was because the Baja 1000 race was just yesterday making the roads so much worse or maybe it is always this bad.
Second point is the same as the first. I averaged about 3 or 4 kms an hour for 8 hours. On a bike! Or rather with a bike as I wasn’t on it much.
Third was the mental side of things. If I bought water for 2 days, then this pace could become a problem. There is a restaurant with water resupply at 100km into this section so would need to be hitting at least 50 km today and tomorrow to make this. The only good point is the pgs route says most of the climbing for this 200km section was at the first 40km
At one point where the Baja 1000 race route and the Baja divide bike route diverged, I didn’t notice and continued on the Baja 1000 route. Was a good 2kms later before I noticed. 2kms off route doesn´t sound so bad but at the speed I was going, this was an hour wasted. Such a pain. Daylight is a limited resource now so this was so wasteful.
The last hour or so of the day was a little better. Managed to get 48 km done today. But is a full from dawn to dusk day with only a couple of 5 min snack breaks.
Today was brutal. But as the sun set, I realized I would make it to just shy of 50km meaning that even if tomorrow is as bad as today (which from map elevation profile, it shouldn’t be), I should make it to the restaurant to fill up on water, which alleviates my main water concern.
Sun set is around 5pm. Around 4.30 I saw a nice camp spot that was clearly used by prior bikers as it had a fire pit etc setup already. Literally 5 foot from the “road” as no one except people on push bikes would ever ride these roads.
Made myself some quick cold burritos in my tent and fell into my sleeping bag by 5.30.
Within 30 mins I am awakened by what seems like larger creatures around my tent. This happened many many times throughout the night. My now wake sane mind knows it was just the wind or mice or something but at the time I was sure a pack of coyotes or mountain lions were circling around my tent. Was pretty terrified tbh. It hit me that this was my first time solo wild camping too so going to put it down to nerves and being a little scaredy cat.
I hope the next few days are not like today. Would be possible for me to do but would be approaching the type 3 kind of fun.
I also have very few photos for today. I find I don’t take many photos when the going gets tough.
On the bright side I did set an elevation gain PR on strava. The little things
