Day 2-Riding With the SheWolves!

The wind blew throughout the night, and it was cold, but I stayed warm, and Bethany said she stayed warm too. It was a rather long night though. I woke up at 5:00, realized it wouldn’t be light for another hour and a half. I went back to sleep. I woke up again at 6:30, and it was light! We packed up our stuff, and we were back on the Sierra Vista Trail by 8:15 (can’t really say we were “back on the trail” as we never really left it…camped right next it).

Let’s go!

We didn’t have much longer on the trail. We were quite happy to finish, and get out to the road. 

Ahhh…sweet pavement!

In Vado (I think it was still Vado), we stopped at the infamous Tacos El Torito food truck. 

I got a torta and a burrito. I meant to eat the torta, and save the burrito for later, but I ate the burrito instead, and ate the torta later (it was wrapped up better). We made a stop at the Circle K for some water, then got back on the route. 

We were heading to Kilbourne Hole to meet up with the Doña Ana SheWolves for a night of camping. We stopped at a small market when we saw another bikepacker. His name was Phil, and he knew all the women we would be meeting. He was out doing the Southern Loop in the reverse of what we are doing. He was looking at Billy, so I went to get off. Caught my foot on my sandals on the back, and completely fell over backwards! It was a good thing I had my helmet on because I whacked my head on the ground. Yes, I managed to make it through the whole Sierra Vista Trail without crashing, yet fell over getting off my bike in a paved parking area! I was okay, just a bit of a headache that I cured with a coconut ice cream bar. 

As I was eating the ice cream, the SheWolves rolled up. There were five of them, including Sara, who picked us up at the airport. 

After introductions, we started riding toward Kilbourne. We were soon on gravel. 

All the women are strong riders. I was often near the back, or at the back. 

We stopped to eat some lunch on the side of the road about halfway to Kilbourne (for them…we had about an extra 10 miles). These ladies are so much fun! 

We made it across the train tracks before a train came. Phil had had to go around a train that was stopped, blocking the road. Before too long, we entered the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument. 

Apparently, this is a new sign. 

We still had about 8 ish miles to go. Not long before the turn to where we were going to camp, we hit a section of deep sand. It was slightly uphill. I let some air out, but it was still really hard to ride it. I had to walk a few feet. 

We all met up with Kat who had driven her car out with firewood, water, and all kinds of stuff. She had scoped out the camping for us because at the spot we were originally planning on, there is a film crew doing a documentary. We rolled to the edge of Kilbourne Hole (it’s a crater that NASA used to simulate the moon for training), home for the night. 

We made it!



 

Kilbourne Hole 

We all chose our spots to put are tents. It was tricky because there is a lot of broken glass. A fire was started, and we all grabbed our chairs/sit pads. Misty brought her four little dogs. One is Sweet Pea, and she is a dapple dachshund. She hopped into my lap. 

A bunch of SheWolves sitting around a fire. 

Me and Sweet Pea. 

We spent the evening laughing and telling stories. So so much fun! I’m really glad we got to connect with them! 

Tomorrow we’ll ride a bit more with them, then they will turn back. Sara is going to ride longer with us as she is going a different way. Now I need to go to sleep. Today was 43 miles. We’ll have at least that much tomorrow.