Monday morning, I was up early as usual. It was cold- 38 degrees F. After hiding under a blanket with my coffee in the yurt, I made my last few trips to the car to load everything up to head north to Colorado for the next part of my trip. That was a gorgeous drive…

I’m not sure what this was, but I really wanted to participate…

First on the agenda was to get to Durango to pick my buddy Lauren up from the airport. She wasn’t arriving until nearly 10:30, though, so I figured that after some lunch, I’d head out for an afternoon ride on one of the 50 zillion trails in the area. Luckily, after a quick tweet wondering which one I should choose, I got a reply from Allison Mann to try the Dry Fork trail:

Just a few minutes after that last one, I had the first near-death experience of my trip…Â I’d just topped out over a climb that had made my heart feel like it was about to explode when I startled a baby black bear. It ran along the side of the trail, crossed in front of me, then darted up a tree overhanging the trail. From the top of the tree, he started calling for help. In my mind, I pictured the momma bear flying out of the bushes and mauling my brain out of my head. I resisted panic and rode as fast as I could under the tree and didn’t stop until I was far away…

Other than that, it was a great ride. I cleaned up, had some dinner, picked Lauren up, and headed to her place in Dolores.