Day 13 Park Creek Campground to Pagosa Springs

It was a good peaceful night next to the river. The campground hosts, Dwayne and Dixie (or it might be Ditsy) introduced themselves last night but I forgot to mention it in yesterdays blog. They’ve been travelling for 5 years and were planning to stay for the season to get a $500 bonus! We spoke about the film Nomadland and they knew some of the people represented in the film.

Anyway, we pumped some water from the well and set off for Pagosa Springs. The first part of the ride was a 10 mile climb up Wolfs Creek Pass but it was well graded. Back to stunning scenery.

We reached the summit at 10,857ft and crossed the Continental Divide. I’ll be honest, I didn’t really know what the continental divide was before this trip so I googled it. A Continental Divide is a naturally occurring boundary or ridge separating a continent’s river systems. Each river system feeds into a distinct ocean basin, bay, or sea. This divide separates the watersheds that drain into the Pacific Ocean and the river systems that drain in the Atlantic Ocean. So there you go, if you didn’t know.

At the summit I spotted a direction sign that was more confusing than the one on the northbound M40 where it joins the M42!

Now we had a long downhill. With all the weight on my bike I get a lot of speed wobble which is a bit unnerving. We stopped halfway down at a scenic overlook.

We stopped for a quick lunch at Treasure Falls before a final 15 miles to Pagosa Springs.

Brent had been looking forward to Pagosa Springs and visiting the Pagosa Springs Bakery for a bowl of Green Chilli. I went with his recommendation and it was delicious. The flavour and spice comes entirely from the hatch chillies.

We made it to the hotel, Pagosa Lodge. There are a lot of firefighters staying here due to a nearby wildfire. We we went to dinner at Colorado Roadhouse and I had the best burger I think I’ve ever had. Avocado, bacon and mushrooms with a 12oz Patti.

Looking forward to a chill day tomorrow. Today we rode 38 miles and climbed 2887ft.