Into the shadows of the valley at night

In the distance the mountains grow, forming a smoky silhouette only dimly discernible in the waning twilight. As they approach, their enormity describes a stark, jagged edge, an impossible blackness carved out against the starry night. And those ghostly cliffs close in all around, standing tall like giants, quietly menacing, as rank upon rank of looming pines peer down darkly from the barricades.

A buck stands on the shoulder thirty paces ahead, in an island of light cast by the glow of a lonesome street lamp. The too sudden realization of his gaze startles you. He seems to you an apparition, staring, motionless. There is a strange power in his stillness, a self-assurance which makes you think that he must be more than the animal you see, all the vital energies of the wilderness manifested in the form of an antlered beast. And then, slowly but with confidence, he approaches.


We spent the other night in a gazebo in the park at Ouray (58 miles from The Black Canyon). I was a very comfortable until the sprinklers gave me a soggy surprise in the middle of the night. Ryan happened to be lying on the dry half of the gazebo. In the morning we bathed in the nearby hot springs. Ryan was disappointed that they didn't look more rustic and less like a pool club.

Yesterday we crossed the San Juan Mountains at Red Mountain Pass (11,018 feet), Molas Pass (10,910 feet) and Coal Bank Pass (10,640 feet). In total we rode around 74 miles and ended up in Durango, where we spent the night at Jared's house, who is a friend of a friend.