Day 62, October 2nd 2007 (Lone Pine,CA to 13 miles East of Furnace Creek,CA)

Waking up in a bathroom that was warm was a lot better than having to deal with the monsoon that I had experienced earlier in the night. Having had two 4 and half hour sleeping intervals I was able to wake up around 7:30. I had a lot of sleep, but not exactly the best. Just as I was packed up and walking out of the bathroom someone else was walking in. It was the maintenance guy in the area and I could tell that I caught him by surprise when I walked out of the bathroom with my bike and all of my gear on it. I was glad that he didn't say anything, but it was still awkward confronting someone in the area after I had just finished sleeping in their bathroom. I was now on my way to Death Valley! Who would have thought that such a great morning could turn into the hottest day of my trip. This was apparently the prime time to go to Death Valley. The temperatures are more tolerable at this time of the year compared to in July. I was told about a race through Death Valley that was 120 some odd miles held in July. It was a run and it was around 130 degrees at that time of the year. So apparently this was a lot easier of a temperature to deal with. It was 100 degrees by the mid-afternoon and I was hardly able to make it through. I was thinking about starting the day near Death Valley and then trying to make it to Las Vegas by the following morning. I was stunned to hear of "two little American boys" who had pulled a trip as well through a night ride. They had also rode through Nevada and since they had been in Nevada during such hot temperatures, they decided to ride through the night. I found out about them in Denver,CO when I met a a guy who had met them not far from where I was. At first I thought these guys were crazy, but the more I dealt with the heat in the afternoons and especially the heat I was going to deal with in Death Valley, I started to understand why they did what they did. About 240 miles is what I projected to shoot for the day and time would only tell. Starting the ride for the day at around 3,500 feet I rode through much more of an apparent desert territory until I reached about 4,600 feet. Then I started my decline through the first city of the day. It was about 45 miles before I reached the first city of the day and before I could restock my water supply. Each stop through this day was much more vital than any other stop so far throughout the trip. I had reached this city after dropping from 4,600 feet down to 1,500 feet. The temperature change at this point was drastic. It was a nice 75 degrees before I went to the city and now at the city it had gone to around 85 to 90 degrees. I thought that it would be okay and all I had to do at this point was continue to go downhill to the Death Valley. Unfortunately that wasn't the way it was at all. I was riding through this part of the ride and although I was in the Death Valley Park, this was only one valley before Death Valley. It plateaued at about 1,500 feet and then rose up to a climb up to 4,600 feet. It wasn't exactly what I wanted to see at this point because it was scorching hot and the climb was very steep. It was only 6 miles to the top of the mountain and with a difference in elevation of 3,000 feet I think that you can understand what I mean. It was one of the hardest climbs through my trip and easily the longest 6 miles. I had just filled up my water bottles and by the time I reached the top of the mountain, 6 miles, they were gone. I had to stop at about every half mile up the climb just because I would start to get light headed. I knew that heat exhaustion couldn't have been that far away. Each time I started to ride on the bike and make another push forward it almost seemed to difficult. It was really way to hot outside to try and pull myself up this mountain. The one problem I had once I made it to the top wasn't that I made it, because that was only the first battle. Now I was 13 miles outside of the next town, and I was all out of water. I had depleted every ounce of the 100 ounces of water that I carry with me, and this was trouble, being where I was. It started downhill to where I was going and I couldn't believe what I was seeing. The descent at this point carried me 13 miles all the way to the next town which was at sea level. I didn't have to pedal the entire way down and felt like I had just floated into where the water stock hold was. It was much hotter at this point. I was much closer to Death Valley and it was about 4 in the afternoon at this point. Even after my last near death experience going up the mountain, I was still thinking that I might try and pace myself to Las Vegas from here. I filled up all of my water bottles at the small town of some 20 people. The water was served at about 80 degrees and they didn't offer any ice. It took only about 30 minutes before the water turned from the 80 degrees it was at to about 90 to 100 degrees. The temperature outside at this point was 100 degrees and didn't feel good at all when staying stationary. The only way that it was tolerable is if I was moving forward to receive some small wind for a breeze. The only problem with moving forward was that I had to consume some of the hot water that I had stocked up on. For 30 miles these were the conditions that I was able to put up with. I saw a lot of amazing things pass before my eyes now that I was down in Death Valley, excluding my life. There were some very cool sand dunes far off in the distance and the mountains with there amazing contours were unexplainable. It was definitely worth risking my life to experience Death Valley and I only wish that I could help explain more of what was all around me. There was nothing living that I could see around me and it gave the entire ride much more of a feel to it. I passed the lowest point on the California state highway system, -242 feet, but after the day that I had endured I wasn't sure if I could handle staying in Death Valley another day to go on a 100 mile loop to the Bad Waters and the lowest point in the western hemisphere, -282 feet. It was getting dark outside and I figured that it would cool down a little. I was surprised to see that I had survived the 30 mile trip from one town to the other and had drank all 5 of the hot water bottles in my supplies. The town I pulled into, had a thermostat hanging outside. Although it was dark at this point and the sun was down, it still registered at 92 degrees. I was thankful to hear that they had plenty of ice cold water and it was a great boost of confidence to keep me on the road. I ate a small spaghetti dinner while I was at the town and stocked up on a couple of gatorades to take with me on my travels. I was ready for my first night ride and although I felt exhausted I was interested to see what would happen. I'm going to say right now that I am glad I went for this climb out of Death Valley at the time I was doing it. It was definitely a much more gradual climb to get out of Death Valley and now that it had cooled down a little, I didn't feel like I was going to fall over and die from the heat. It was an incredible feeling being the only one on the road and looking up to see a sky full of stars. Everything was so open where I was at and all around me I could see an outline of mountains and then stars overhead. A picture could not capture the beauty from the moment, and so I was taking it all in as best as possible. I wasn't moving fast considering the length of day I had gone through already and also being as how I was climbing up a mountain. So given the circumstances, it was easy to take everything in. Each forward move seemed to be getting harder and harder and it didn't take me long to realize that today was not a good day to try and push for Vegas. I had gone about 13 miles East of Furnace Creek, the last town, over a time period of about 2 hours. I had also taken myself from -242 feet to a little over 2,000 feet. I had covered the large portion of the climb out of the valley and had made it much more possible to escape the remaining miles out of the valley. When I noticed a point to pull over, some random place on the side of the road, I did and I set up camp for the night. I was out in the middle of a desert and for the past two hours I had seen about 5 cars. Nothing and no one were coming through here and it made me feel fairly safe with where I was. My idea of going all the way through the night had been put to rest for the night and it would have to be some crazy idea that I might have to pull off at another point.

Daily mileage: 118.2 miles
Average speed: 12.0 mph
Total mileage: 3,727.5 miles