Day 44: Hartsel to Frisco (54 miles)
7/09
Last night was pretty chilly. Due to the rain and the elevation, it got down to 45 degrees. The night was alive with the hoots, hollers, and belching of the denizens of the bar behind which we camped. A couple dogs sniffed around the campsite. I, however, was safe from the cold world cocooned inside my long johns inside my sleeping bag inside my tent.
At about 6:30 am I got a text from Lila saying she was inside the breakfast spot/bar/only restaurant in town/the jewel of Hartsel getting coffee.
I had forgotten the bar opened at 6 am!
I jumped out of the safety and warmth of my sleeping bag and dashed through the cold to the safety and warmth of a breakfast of biscuits and gravy with coffee. After letting our electronics charge and getting fully hydrated we packed up camp and hit the road.

We would continue to take highway 9 all the way to Breckinridge. It would be about thirty miles of climbs until we crossed over Hoosier pass, the highest point of the entire TransAmerican trail at 11,539 feet (or 2.19 miles) above sea level.
The road to Hoosier pass was mostly gradual but steady incline. I didn’t know if it was the altitude, my imagination, or the beers I had the night before but I definitely felt short of breath. My mother had tried to scare me about altitude sickness the night before. Her warnings weighed on my mind like a high altitude cerebral edema. Despite the challenges, it was a beautiful ride.

Eventually we came to a flat plane right before the town of Fairplay. The wind there was monstrous, worse than anything we had in Kansas. Aaron far behind, Lila and I struggled to pedal 3 miles through it.

Our hard won miles were rewarded once we arrived in Fairplay. A nice man with a peach stand outside the gas station saw our luggage and gave us each a palisade peach.

Apparently Fairplay has a part of it known as South Park city. I’m fairly certain that this is the South Park upon which the TV series is based. We rested, drank water, and braved the next six miles to the town of Alma, the highest incorporated town in the United States at 10,578 feet.

We went to a general store in Alma to get some electrolytes. Walking through the chips aisle I noticed that all of the bags were fit to burst. Normally this would signify to me that there is some sort of fermentation going on in the bags. As it turns out, Alma is so high that they have to get their chips packages in Denver (somewhere around 5,000 feet) because the atmospheric pressure is so low, if they were to be packaged elsewhere, they would burst.

After Alma we only had 4 miles of steep climb to Hoosier pass. It was a weekend and Hoosier pass is the way to Breckinridge, a popular tourist town and ski resort. As a result, the roads were very busy. It was a punishing but beautiful climb.

At mile 2 of 4 Lila overtook my lead. She got to the top before any of us. Eventually I lost sight of her so I just decided to stop and take more pictures.

After about 15 more minutes of climbing, I saw a car dip over the horizon. It was the top! I used up whatever energy I had left to power up the hill where I saw Lila talking to a nice Wisconsinite family. They took our photo once Aaron got up the hill.

After some celebration and relaxation we sped about 2000 feet downhill. It was quite the reward to speed so freely with such beautiful scenery.

It was an effortless 13 miles of downhill to the town of Breckinridge. Breckinridge is nice but a little bourgeois. It’s exactly what you’d expect a skiing town to be.

We had dinner there and decided to go to a campground a little past Frisco called the Heston Bay campground. Lila had a milkshake at dinner. Milkshakes always make Lila feel bloated and gaseous and we have known this since at least Kentucky. Nevertheless she will always get one of its available. After we let her digest and release some gastrointestinal air pressure, we took a bike path all the way to Heaton Bay.

We arrived at about 7:30, just in time to grab the last available campsite and to see the sunset. Our campsite had a 360 degree view of the entire park!

After we set up camp, Aaron decided to go to the Starbucks in Frisco to charge his devices while Lila went on a beer run. When she got back we went down by the lake, drank, and talked. Aaron returned a little after nightfall and we all went to bed not long after.

