A few weeks ago when we left Texas for southern Colorado, by happenstance we found a great camp site overlooking the valley in Sugarite Canyon near Raton. Plans to stay a day turned into several, the cold evenings and 80º days feeling so good after the sweltering heat of Texas. Our camp neighbors were Lyle and Janda, world adventurists and explorers in their late 70's. Well read and intellectual, we had many interesting conversations and I hope that I can achieve 1/10 of their efforts in travel. From Sugarite Canyon, we explored many roads in north central New Mexico and returned each day to an evening rainstorm it seemed. Our intention had been to stay a day or two, however we enjoyed it so much that we stayed far longer than expected.
Kim had her baptism of fire in adventure riding in 2 consecutive days, and looking back I have to chuckle a bit. The first real challenge for her to face came during a late evening ride back to the campsite. As we rolled into the canyon, a severe storm blew in with intense lightning, high winds and pouring rain. Lightning is a real fear for anyone, but Kim had had a very bad experience in it years before and was having to face that fear directly. As we turned onto the rutted camp road and headed up the mountain in the midst of this, heavy hail began pouring as well. In my headset I tried to joke about it as we rode through the mud, rain, hail, wind and lightning. She wasn't responding other than to say how soaked her riding pants were, as we hadn't had time to toss on rain gear. Luckily she had her Klim Altitude jacket on and my Firstgear Kathmandu did it's job well.
The next morning we laughed about it - at least she'd gotten it all out of the way in one fell swoop the previous evening - and we rode south for Taos and the Pueblo.
Roadside wreck of a house was a good spot for a portrait
Pueblo de Taos, a UNESCO World Heritage Site
Returning to Raton
After a good nights rest, the plan was to ride a forest service road near Cimarron and we headed south for some more ride time. For those who've ridden the road from Raton to Cimarron, you well understand the beauty of the vast plain the road edges through. You may also remember the winds that can accompany the scenes. As we raced south for a forest service road outside Cimarron, there were several afternoon storms rising ahead, and the cool shadows and sprinkles were appreciated. Just as we were exiting the edge of one of these, I saw a small tornado of tumbleweeds cross the road ahead of Kim, followed by what seemed to be a microburst gust of wind that blew her sideways across the road. I rocketed past as she went off the edge, her voice in my headset loud as I tried to wrestle the wind and get stopped. In my mirrors I couldn't see her but heard her voice. As I got stopped and the burst blew past, I turned around to see her sitting about 30 feet off the road in the midst of a roadside prairie dog community. She was shaken but hadn't dropped the bike. After a couple of minutes to recover, she motored through the dog holes and back onto the roadway. In less than a day she'd ridden lightning, mud, rain, hail and wind, plus the pleasure of being blown off the road in a microburst.
A few miles later we hit the forest service road near Cimarron and rode back deep into the canyons heading northwest. After an hour or so of riding, a large storm began rising ahead, so we turned back.
We'd gone a few miles back down the road, when I turned to my left to see a large cinnamon black bear on all fours on the roadside. He was between two bushes and about 20 feet off the road. I yelled excitedly "Bear! Bear!" in my headset, which freaked Kim a bit. She was ahead of me a few yards and unsure where the bear was or whether I was warning her that he was coming for her. We both got stopped and looked back, spotting the bear as he took off in a full run away from the road and down into a riverbed, clearing the water and up the hillside in a flash before pausing to look back at us. He then continued to run up the mountainside pausing every 200 feet or so to turn and look back.
As we continued back south, the storm behind us grew, as did a few other cells over the plains. We headed hard and fast back towards Raton, but the black skies ahead didn't seem worth the effort, especially after having experienced the wind earlier. We had gone a few miles and decided to wait out the rain at the Colfax Tavern roadside grill, which sits in the middle of nowhere thankfully.
We toasted the ride and bear sighting with an ice cold drink and burger, until the skies cleared and we headed for Sugarite Canyon.
