Day 304
Local knowledge
Our Warmshowers host Shaun is a mine of information on cycle routes across the States and his local knowledge is fantastic too. He advised on a traffic-free route for us which started pretty much outside his house and took us 20 miles through stunning scenery, result!
We rode along the Arkansas River Trail, as the river runs along, the deep levee style banks are home to the longest painting in the world. I saw a Blue Jay, a first for me. We stopped for a break at a particular picturesque point and watched a pair of adult Ospreys try and persuade their teenager to get out of bed and have a fly with no success. The river trail took us through the Pueblo State Park. It was simply stunning, miles of path ways to cycle on, a river, lake, dam, surrounded by the Greenhorn and Wet Mountain ranges with views of Pike’s Peak to the north, at 14,115 feet it dominates the landscape. The Peak was named in honour of one of the intrepid explorers of the west, Zebulon Pike, who tried and failed to climb it during his expedition to map out the area. The band of Ute people who called that area home were the ‘Tabegauche’, meaning people of the sun. Tava or Sun is the Ute word that they used for the mountain.
We met another long distance hiker, ‘Side-tracked’, so called because he keeps living up to the name! He was in training to complete the last 900 miles of the 2,190 mile Appalachian Trail. If you’re reading this Side-tracked, we did get up that hill and you can finish the trail this year!
The route from the park took us back onto the roads and the Trans-America Trail. As we approached our destination for the evening we were flagged down. Janice, a Warmshowers host wanted to offer us a bed for the night, or did we have time to join her hiking group the following day to see some petrified redwoods, or pop by for a natter etc.! She was a fantastic lady but we pushed on, we spent the evening camped at Dwayne and Stephanie’s. Dwayne was away but Stephanie made us so welcome. We spent the evening chatting in the sunshine, playing with her 3 dogs, resting up for the next few days, when we would be heading into the Rockies, our first serious climbing since arriving in the USA.
