Day 13, Montrose, CO to Durango, Co

112 miles.

There was discussion of Day 9 (and fear and trepidation) only because nobody looked at Day 13... The day in elevation...

So we did 3 passes over 10k feet in the day... it was a straight shot south on Rt 550. First we had to get out of Montrose, a bigger town than it seemed from the night before (a half vacant strip of shops with no taxi in town to take us anywhere for dinner...), so city driving down a strip of development, then into the open, then just riding steadily. At 38 miles, about where you see the bump in the elevation, that's the town of Ouray, nestled in a bunch of mountains, and boom, up the road goes. Second day in a row of something new: white line on right side of road, 6 inches of asphalt, 50 ft straight down\no guardrail. If you went front wheel first over the side in a bunch of places it was goodbye, so we tried to be careful. All the traffic, a beautiful Saturday in July, made it interesting. Jeeps w/ winches and roof racks and fog lights, FJ Cruisers, RVs and everyone towing something: horses, rafts, ATVs, 2nd cars, something. From 7,706 to 11,118ft at the Red Mountain Pass, somewhere there's a picture.

Then zoom, down, lunch in Silverton, all tourists, all the time. Gold mines, silver mines, Ye Olde Photo store and such. Silverton is the very bottom trough between the first two spikes because right after lunch, back up to 10,910ft, Molas Pass, complete with pelting rain on the descent that REALLY HURTS even when trying to go slow because rode is slippery. Lose 1,300ft... and climb back up to 10,640ft, Coal Bank Pass. Descend again, this time to Durango, very, very fast (hit 50MPH) and wide roads, the rain stopped and it was just really hot for the long ride out. Had to pass through most of town to get to hotel.

And when the day was done we were really outside Durango at a Best Western on the highway, jeez was it hot, so instead of a walk into town we went next door to Christie's Restaurant where we watched the Tour de France finale in Paris and sang happy birthday to Jerry (Wisconsin) and called it a night.