Desert century! (Alpine, CA)

Our last full day of riding was something else, to say the least! A few of us joked that today's events were like a microcosm of our entire trip, involving desert, mountains, heat, dehydration, a thunderstorm, chills, a car accident, getting ridiculously lost on the road, Andrew leaving the trip and coming back, rescues by strangers, an ambulance (don't worry, everyone's okay), and altogether 107 miles and 15.5 hours of fun on the road. You have no idea how relieved and elated we were to arrive at our campsite in Alpine! -- and in good spirits. To keep the story short, I'll tell it in pictures:

Bike odometer: 3432 miles

PS - Check out pictures for yesterday's ride to Brawley below.










After waking up at 3:30am for an early start, we started the day riding into the flat part of the desert, which looked a lot like this. Occasionally we would pass a building or two, but almost all were closed.










Group, my shadow reaching up for the picture. Anita, Liz and Ryan accidentially missed the turn for this road, and added an extra 30 miles to their trip getting back on course. 137 miles...those guys can bike!










Forty miles into the desert, we got a phone call saying that our support van (or rather, the trailer it pulls) had been rear-ended in an accident, and couldn't come out to bring us any water or food. Right around the time we were all running out of water. Amazingly, a woman on horseback comes riding up and offers to let us into the RV park she owns a mile away to fill up on water. Less than amazingly, we were in a geothermal area, so the water coming out of the tap is as hot as the air, which was 105 deg. by 10am.











We saw some fun desert critters, like a coyote and this baby rattlesnake.










Gradually the flatlands gave way to big deserty hills. Here's where we stopped at a closed campsite for more hot tap water. Somewhere along in here, Andrew (riding with a different group) blew out a tire and was rescued by someone from the fire department, who drove him to a bike shop many miles away to buy a new one and returned him to the group (kindness from strangers has never failed our group).










As the hills got bigger, we began to see more green and bushes replaced cacti (Jochem). Right before we came to our biggest, 6 mi. climb of the day, we found an open convenience store and stopped for gatorade and snacks. Unfortunately, one the girls I was riding with (Ivey) had developed heat exhaustion, and began to feel sick. Since our van was out of comission, we called the local park ranger's office to ask for a ride for her up the big hill to give her a chance to rest. The rest of us left her at the store to begin the big climb, and found that the weather had changed dramatically while we were in the store. A thunderstorm blew up and started pouring on us, much to our delight. Through the rain, we saw flashing lights, and suddenly an ambluance blew by us, followed by a fire truck and two emergency SUVs. At first we were really scared, but we soon learned that thanks to some miscommunication they were coming for Ivey (they even put her on a stretcher and took all her vitals!), who was actually in okay health, just tired. We all had a good laugh when we met up again and began pushing onward.










Eventually the climate and landscape changed from desert to cool, forested mountains (Mary Olive, horse).










We finally made it to Alpine right around sunset (it was pitch black by the time I rode up to the campsite). Alpine is nestled in a valley surrounded by beautiful hills (Mary Olive).













Seven miles of steep downhill dirt road leading to the campsite (Ivey).













Hills, almost-full moon.










The campsite was actually located on Viejas Indian Reservation, here.










My victorious riding group (we dubbed ourselves Ivey and the Tar Heels): Mary Olive, me, Ivey, Yvonne, and Emily B.