June 22, Monday: Rain in the Wilderness

 Kilometer Marker 60 on Highway 40

It is said that into every life some rain must fall.  Today and tomorrow  we received some of that rain.  For the most part I was able to dodge most of the raindrops;  some of the day was in sunshine, some was drizzle, when the rain strengthened, I would take a break inside the car. At this higher elevation we were closer to the clouds and when a dark looking rain cloud would  approach, I would try to speed up a bit, to see if I could outrun it.  Perhaps my imagination, but it seemed that we were able to keep the darkest of the clouds behind us. The clouds would travel quickly, and 30 minutes after a rain shower, we might  see some blue sky.

In the picture above we see the kilometer marker no. 60, and the weather looks nice.  We travelled from km 90 down to km 45  today, saving  km 44 down to km 1 for tomorrow.  My bike is parked by the marker, and those tires look muddy to me.  But the bike worked fine; it had no trouble navigating the sometimes muddy road today.

Indeed it was great to have Audrey always in the near vicinity today; a luxury the typical bicycle tourist doesn't have on rainy days.  The riding  today felt quite remote.  There were few signs of any civilization apparent over the 27 miles we covered.  The map showed that we would have one intersection where a road from the east (in the foothills), would rise up to meet our road Highway 40.  Also the map showed that  we were near the source of the Oldman River, and that it would run along side of the road for awhile.  So it was reassuring when we saw both the intersection, and  then the river running beside us.  

There was only one manmade facility along our route today.  One a rare patch of level cleared ground was a grass field which I think is used as a runway for fire-fighting planes.   It was called Livingstone Gap; one of the mountains along our way was Mt. Livingstone, but I wasn't sure which one.    There was also a landing pad area for helicopters.  I would think helicopters actually use this strip more often than planes.   There was nobody to be seen today. On the other side of the road there were some buildings that I thought might be sleeping dormitories for fire fighters.

We called it a day at 27 miles which left us also 27 miles to go on this gravel road tomorrow.  Almost all of the day today was spent at elevations higher than one mile up from sea level.



Near the source of the Oldman River
Oldman River

Livingstone Gap Fire-Fighting Camp

I believe this is a grass runway for fire-fighting planes



This might be Mt. Livingstone (?)

27 Miles
Starting elevation: 5603 feet
High elevation:  5726 feet
Low elevation:  4613 feet
Ending elevation:  5384 feet

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