Tracking my man through the Gila National Park, New Mexico.

The travelling companion of Erik's has a spot tracker, and that sends out a ping once a day.  I can find him on the map.  Lat 33.06882, Long -108.00343

 But I dont really know where he is ridden, what the terrain is like.  I found the map of the divide route and by zooming in / out on the screen, can establish where he has ridden today.  The screen shot below is the divide route and Erik is camping at the top right, at the squiggle.   The rest of the screen is part of where he rode today. 

Update from Erik:

We left the following day at 7:45, and rode out into the Gila forest. We met a road cyclist out on a training ride.

 It was amazing terrain, rolling country in what looked like a national park. We reached the top with an amazing view, and had a huge descent. After some more riding through farmland, we reached a store where we bought supplies (things like luncheon sausage and chippies).

We knew there wouldn't be any more water so we loaded up completely. I headed out with about 8.5 liters of water, about 5 kg of food, and 13 kg of gear. It was incredibly heavy and hard going...I had to ride slowly, only about 10 km/hour because of the hills and heat.

We thought we must have missed the turnoff, but it was further than we thought it would be, and finally left the main road.

Unsealed road with washboards, an extremely heavy bike, temperature reaching 45 degrees and a massive hill at the start. I surprised myself by riding all the way up.

 It was incredibly beautiful, and also desolate -- 120 miles to the next store, and few water sources along the way.

We rode along the Continental Divide for several miles, and stopped in the shade of some bushes beside the road for about an hour and a half to avoid the hottest time of the day.

 At 5, we headed out again and rode on to the next camp site, where we stopped for the night.

After we had finished dinner (hot dogs and couscous), a woman came up who was racing the Divide.  Jill Hueckman, from Denver. She had ridden from Antelope Wells in just over 24 hours, sleeping for only a couple of hours and riding most of the night to avoid the heat.

 I gave her some of the water I was carrying, and we fed her.

 

She decided to camp with us and head off around 4 in the morning. Apparently it's about 140 miles to Pie Town from here.

We had to hang out food in a tree because there are bears around, though Pete Castelli says it'd unlikely there'll be any around because of the drought.  It's a beautiful night with a full moon.  I fell asleep to the sounds of coyotes howling in the distance.

Arizona Moon 13/6/14 by BG Boyd