October 24
23mi/37km
+1600ft/485m
It was a cold and damp morning. It didn’t rain on us, but everything was dewy, including the tent. We waited for the sun to rise hoping it would dry everything out but we got impatient and gave up pretty quickly.
We had about 10 miles of climbing before descending into town. It was a little windy, and the wind was cold. As we climbed we rode through a Joshua Tree forest. Toward the top we moved into juniper forest.
We took a long break at a Trilobite Fossil site off the highway. This would be a cool spot to come back and explore more. It looked like rainy weather was moving in so we continued on to finish our climb.
Climbing is nice in chilly weather, but descending is less so. We had to layer up and put our gloves on. As we descended, we realized we are yet again moving into a new landscape. Rather than the usual view of a wide valley that greets us at the top of a climb, this descent brought us down through rocky canyons.
The tan and red rock cliffs look more like Utah and Arizona than the terrain we’ve been crossing over the past week. We are officially entering canyon country.
As we approached the town of Caliente, the manicured grass immediately made me think we are in Mormon country. The first building we passed was an LDS Church, unsurprisingly. We got an affordable motel room and stocked up on groceries. Weather tomorrow will be a little warmer and the wind will die down again. For now, we’ll enjoy being out of the cold.