Wow. Today was tough, though now, lying comfortably and warmly in my sleeping bag, the day’s difficulty is slowly seeping away. The wind slammed us as soon as we got on the bikes; Wyoming seemed not to want to let us out of its clutches. We rode 51km today, and it was an all day effort, averaging probably 7, maybe 8km/hr in the morning, and thankfully we were probably doing 10 or 11km/hr in the afternoon. Don’t even bother converting that to mph. Talking this morning at breakfast, we didn’t expect to go farther than 45km, but here we are.

We had a good dinner tonight. Virgile and Marion are quite proficient fire-makers, so we had a nice one to huddle around and get warm. Almost everyone who drove by us and talked to us today said we’re crazy to be riding the Divide this late, and that it’s going to snow tonight for sure, we’d better get moving. One man was quite rude about it, insisting we’re the last riders of the season, when who knows, there could easily be someone behind us, especially if they came down from Alaska and started there a week or two after we did. People have ridden the Divide later than we are now, and if the snow gets too bad, then it’s just time to find a different route. Maybe everyone’s just excited because this will be the first snow of the season. Whatever happens, for now we’re safe in our tents, and once we reached the forest, the killer wind died down. Cold we can deal with, especially with climbs to warm us. But wind, headwind, is just mentally-draining, an invisible force against which we can do nothing but put our heads down and struggle against. It won’t be the last headwind we encounter, though. Headed to Patagonia, where it’ll be a toss-up whether we get lucky and catch tailwinds across the region or will be fighting headwinds the entire time. There the winds are legendary. This is just practice.

Strong winds and gravel roads make a good argument for biking with nose and mouth covered.

Just keep riding.

So windy that pushing is as fast as walking.

Refuge in the forest.