Safford, Arizona to Silver City, New Mexico: Snow showers; ponderosa pines; broad expanses of high desert grasslands tan with the winter cold; two mountain passes through craggy piles of weathered volcanics; inclement bands of clouds leaving us always on the edge of cold; and a final 23 mile uphill to the Continental Divide (6,230 ft) just above Silver City, NM.
It was our most challenging day: 117 miles, 5,900 vertical feet. Roughly half the riders sagged the last 30 miles, some will shuttle back tomorrow to finish the ride.
It was a long day - the first full-distance riders arriving in Silver City 10 hours after our start in Safford; and it was a cold day, spitting light corn snow at lunch at 6,295 ft where Steve, Kathleen, & Carol built us a campfire and we huddled around it, nibbling at lunch and rubbing our hands towards the fire, then bundling up for the chilly descent down the pass to the high rolling grasslands that feed the Gila River.
It was the most spectacular scenery so far, crossing the southern edge of the Gila Mountains where vertical-sided volcanic necks jut skyward, and it was our lowest traffic day: we probably could have counted the total number of cars on all our cumulative fingers and toes (so Team WIMP which sags in heavy traffic was happy indeed).
And finally, it was a day for a wrong turn for five people - "The Clifton Five". They were on their own tour of sorts, taking a wrong turn and riding north through Clifton and beyond before turning back. Their tour was a bit longer than the official ride, but they missed the worst of the steep, nasty climb up the second mountain pass after being picked up by the sag, so, who knows, maybe it was planned all along.
