The Rabbit Ears

3 October 2008

Rain threatened, so I spent extra time in the morning to make sure everything was packed well and my tarp system was fully functional and prepared, requiring some stops at local outdoor shops in Steamboat. I was buying some groceries at a small market when a woman running a garden stand outside struck up a conversation about the bike. She had moved from Connecticut 30 years prior. Of course the town then was perfect and is now overgrowing, such as the ranchers probably felt when she was moving in. She had homemade infused vinegars, that looked tasty, but unviable for my trek. She gave me a head of garlic. I thought about eating it raw, which would probably be handy for the mosquitoes I now face in Missouri. 

Finally all was in order and I climbed Rabbit Ear's pass. Steep, but short, and the sun broke for me as I summited. The pass has two major summits, lulling you into a false sense of security with the first and then continually throwing more climbs at you until you reach the second, my first crossing of the Continental Divide. At Rabbit Ears, so named for a pair of volcanic columns visible from the eastern descent, I crossed from the Upper Yampa watershed into the Colorado Headwaters. From this point, the Divide makes a big horseshoe east. Descending the Muddy Creek Valley toward Kremmling, I made a brief, bottlenecked foray into the Colorado Headwaters, which flow pacifically, before climbing back up the divide, in the Blue River Valley. (I think I got all that right). 

The road to Kremmling wasn't as downhill as I hoped. Winds gusted and I saw the first rain to fall on a travel day. Dusk fell quickly, with the occasional curtain of sunlight draping down from the cloud cover. The pasture land was again perfectly manicured, and I considered setting up a hobo's camp in an abandoned 1800's barn at the base of Whiteley Peak, a sheer prominence around which Muddy Creek seemed to gyrate. A mare paced me for a few hundred yards before reaching the limits of her corral. A hawk perched casually on a fence post. I set up tarp at Wolford Mountain, reluctantly shielding myself from the only rain I'd yet seen.