Temp at departure: 34 degrees

It's been a frustrating day! You'll see why in a moment.

We left Lake City, CO at 7:30 A.M. this morning and started our trek west for our first test of the day, Cinammon Pass. Cinammon Pass has an elevation of 12,400'.

As we left Lake City, we immediately started climbing. The scenery was spectacular. We first passed San Cristobal Lake, a few miles out of Lake City. A manmade lake, it was gorgeous in the early morning light, a mirror finish reflected the high mountain peaks.

As we moved on up valley, and close to the tree line, the climate changed to high alpine tundra. High alpine tundra is the area from the tree line on up, where all plants become miniture versions of the real thing. The climate is harsh enough that the plants, and many animals, have found it necessary to only grow to small sizes.

Almost around every corner there was evidence of the mining industry of yesteryear. If there wasn't a cabin or

building of some kind, there was a tailings pile, or the actual mine shaft.

Its truly amazing to me how people survived at that altitude, especially in the winter, which many people stayed through.

Later on, after Cinammon Pass, we would pass through the ghost town of Animas Forks, which, at one time, boasted of having the highest Post Office in the U.S. of over 11,000 feet.

As we approached the summit of Cinammon Pass, the trees thinned and the road became windier. The snow became more prevelent.

Words are hard to describe how beautiful the scenery is.

We started descending down the back side of Cinammon Pass towards the ghost town of Animas Forks.

After several miles, we were in Animas Forks, and immediately started climbing again towards Corksrew Pass.

Once again, we began climbing alot. As the road came closer to the top of the pass, it began to switchback.

The switchback was a turn to the left and up a rise. I told Meredith to get on the gas.

As she was coming up and over the rise, her front wheel started to skid to the right. It then quit skidding. When it did, it compressed the forks since she was on the gas. When forks are compressed, they must become uncompressed. When they uncompressed, they shot her sideways. This made her go off the road and into the ditch. Unfortunatley, the ditch was three or four feet lower than the road, along with a snow bank lining it.

When I got back to her, she was laying in the ditch under the motorcycle. I was able to lift the bike enough that she could crawl out.

After a moment of collecting ourselves, we tried to upright the bike. As Meredith began to help me pick up the bike, she realized something was wrong with her right arm.

After closer examination, we could detect a minimal amount of swelling, if any. But the pain, when she tried to use it, was immense.

We soon decided that her riding anymore was out of the question, and we needed to find the closest town.

We decided that the town of Silverton, Colorado was the closest town of any size that would have help. We would have to leave her bike and she ride with me.

As we were preparing to leave, a jeep came by. They stopped and offered to drive Meredith part of the way, since they were going part of the way to Silverton.

So, I followed Meredith in the jeep for a few miles. Then she got on the bike with me, which, with my saddlebags, my backpack and computer case, and her backpack, it was a tight fit. We looked like the Clampetts go to Colorado!

We headed towards Silverton, and, in 20 minutes, we were there.

One of the first places we saw was the fire department/clinic. We stopped and a man named Mark called the EMT to look at Meredith's arm. The EMT told us that there was no x-ray machine in Silverton, and the closest one was 50 miles south in Durango, CO.

By this time, Meredith said her arm wasn't hurting as much and we decided that we would find a motel room and let it rest instead of a 50 mile bike ride to Durango.

Mark was nice enough to carry Meredith down to the motel, while I followed on the bike.

We were able to procure a room a the Prospector Motel. The owner, Andy, has been very helpful to us.

Mark also offered to carry me back up the canyon to get Meredith's bike. Meredith obviously stayed at the Prospector while I went to get her bike.

On the ride back up the canyon, Mark told me all about the mining industry in, and around, Silverton. It was like having a guide service around the area in the middle of an accident!

We made it back to Meredith's bike and I rode it back down to Silverton.

We had a late lunch and are now in the motel room. At this time, I think our travels are over. There's an outside chance that she's just sprained the ligaments in her arm, but it will take a while to heal. Her parents are on the way back here to pick us up, and we'll take her to Durango for x-rays as soon as possible.

Hopefully, the diagnosis will be good. If the trip does end here, we can't say we didn't have a ball! It would have been folly for us to not have considered the trip to end with an incidence such as this!

We'll update as soon as we know for sure what our plans are.

See you down the trail!

Daily Mileage: 42 miles

Total Mileage: 2758

Money Spent: $146

 

June 20