Day 16: Rawlins, Wyoming

That was some day. I truly have respect for the cyclists who do the Great Divide ride. We met a few today. A Norwegian American couple who have been on the trail for a month with thier little dog. The dog still looked very perky but they looked like you might expect of people who had been living in the bush for a month, with a further 2 months to go. Nice couple though.
Later in the day we met 2 men deep in the desert. Neither wanted to stop to talk and in fact neither would even take their earphones out! Having followed their wavering tracks through 70 miles of gravel, sand, corrugations through the bleakest terrain imaginable I felt for them. How would you feel having spent an entire day riding your bicycle in this incredibly remote and hot country when 2 ponces rock up and start asking questions like "are you riding the great divide trail"?
What do you think we're doing out here? I guess it was easier to leave those earphones in after that opener!
Let me describe our day and then look at the photos and times the bleakness by a thousand and then place your soft little feet in the peddling shoes of these GDR riders. Madness but kind of cool in an extreme endurance kind if way.
We rode 320 miles today, that's over 500km. During that time we stopped at one town of serious non - descriptness after 70 miles and a further settlement called Atlantic City ( presumably named with humour) a further 70 miles later.
The latter was so small we could only get fuel from jerry cans. Certainly no Macdonalds.
The bits between were seriously remote. From our perspective we had a great day. The first section was over the 9000 foot Union pass. Still early morning air, trees , grass and just a great ride. We also saw our first herd of many pronghorn antelope seen during the day.
The greener photos are from there Most enjoyable mildly technical descent down the other side and eventually into the town of Pinedake. Presumably so named for the serious absence of anything remotely looking like a pine or a dale there.
From there we rode into mile after mile of sage brush on very fast wide dirt roads. The heat was building and despite rain falling above us it was evaporating before it hit the ground.
Next stop was Atlantic City and then into the 140 mile crossing of the Great Divide Basin. This area is fantastically remote. As Dave said you would not want your engine to stop out there, help would be a long time coming.
The basin is so named as any precipitation that falls here does not drain east or west but settles in this huge basin, presumably forming lakes and eventually evaporating. Don't feel too bad for these directionless rain drops. There aren't many of them as far as I could tell. It was in the middle of this that we met the 2 grumpy cyclists. How they must have envied our engines.
Much as we enjoyed the day we were glad to see civilisation again. The riding today was awesome in terrain for which the KTM 990 was bred. The bikes just galloped along at the kind of speeds that would most definitely earn demerit points in New Zealand, but all the time feeling so stable and settled.
Spare a thought for those cyclists. When you read this they will still be somewhere in the wilderness.