Carson National Forest, New Mexico

Erik rode further today than I thought he would.  It is all uphill.  He is camped at 8,400ft, (2,400m).
Weather forecast is good for the next few days.

All going well, Erik should reach the Colorado State Border tomorrow.  Perhaps 2 days after that, he will be riding up the highest pass of the Tour Divide Route, and getting to Del Norte.  Soon the racers from the North will be crossing the trail.

Erik is camped just above the squggle at the top.

Update from Erik:  We left just before 8 in the morning. Abiquiu isn't really a town -- there's a convenience store, an inn, a post office and a library spread out along the highway, but nowhere you can say "this is Abiquiu". Weird. The run-down houses are all in a cluster away from the main road.

We rode along the road to El Rito, which was 25 km away. The road climbed gently, and it was relatively easy going.  We saw another bull snake, a small one this time.

We covered the first 8 km in just 25 minutes; the same distance would have taken us two and a half hours yesterday.  By 9 AM the temperature was already 30 degrees. It was hotter because we were lower and in more desert-like conditions, with cactuses growing beside the road.

El Rito was a run-down town with lots of derelict houses and buildings.

 It looked like a town from the 1940s. A man there gave us water, and we continued on.

 The road became unsealed, and entered a national forest with trees all around. We climbed steadily.

 The temperature had reached 40 degrees by 10:30.

By the time we stopped for our lunch break at 10:30, we had covered 32 km and climbed 1,600 feet.

 There were plenty of trees, but for some reason we saw no birds or animals, not even squirrels.

The road continued to climb until about 40 km, where we dropped into a valley with a fast descent. At 48 km, we reached the settlement of Vallecitos, which was a real eye-opener.

 Derelict-looking houses that people still lived in, complete poverty. A woman gave us water, and her family looked extremely poor. They were living in squalor: was dog-shit all around, and the kids just playing with the mangy-looking dogs. They didn't look like they had electricity. One little girl had a disfigured face, as if she'd been bitten by a dog.

Pete gave the two children a muesli bar each. They seemed to appreciate it.

The road became sealed again after Vallecitos. We rode past a rich-looking homestead, then a post office, complete with a handicapped car park, in the middle of nowhere.  A few km further on we passed an abandoned sawmill.

The road suddenly headed up a steep and hot climb, before dropping down to another small township called Cañon Plaza. There we found the snack stand featured in the Ride the Divide movie. There was nobody there, but a sign said "honk for service". Gay called out "honk" and a woman came out and opened up for us.

After all the riding, it was fantastic to sit in a chair eating ice-cream and drinking Power-aid. I also stocked up on a few more food items.

The woman who runs it, Sylvia, was featured in the movie. She said the snack stand started when her children, aged 10 and 8, started selling chippies and other snacks to people going into the forest to fish and hunt, and it continued from there. That was over 20 years ago. Only in recent years have cyclists started using it. She keeps track of the racers on the Internet, so she knows when they're likely to be passing through.

We continued on, and immediately faced another steep climb with switchbacks on a dirt road. I was feeling quite tired by this stage, and was looking forward to reaching the camp site.

 We found it a few km on from the top of the switchbacks. We had covered a total of 62 km, with 4,000 feet of climbing. We're sleeping tonight at about 8,400 feet, and tomorrow we'll climb to over 10,000 feet. We've only got about 130 km to go until we get to the Colorado border.