We had a slightly leisurely morning at Goldie’s place, enjoying the novelty of waking up in beds and having river views with our coffee. We went up to Bode’s which is a grocery/breakfast place/everything store masquerading as a gas station in Abiquiu that is definitely the center of town. The breakfast burritos were top notch and we resupplied for our trek back into the hills. Alyssa had had enough of the mud with her super tight tire clearance so she opted for a road ride-around, but Megan and our trail friend Jeff and I decided to take our chances with the caliche. The climb out of Abiquiu started on mellow gravel, but the road slowly got chunkier and chunkier until at the top it could hardly be called a road at all. We started in what was distinctively red rock desert country and ended up in an almost Oregon-y pine forest at 10,500’. Aside from a couple trucks early on, we saw absolutely no one all day and it really felt like we were out there, which is not something you get often on this route- we liked it. We ascended for a total of 5,000 feet over about 27 miles- on rough roads, it sure felt like a heck of a lot of work. Fortunately we only got sprinkled on (which prevented caliche formation) and the overcast skies kept things cool, so really it wasn’t a terrible experience. I stayed on my bike almost the entire time through some really chunky stuff, and I think 31-days-ago Stephanie would have had a much tougher time. Turns out if you spend a lot of time doing something, you actually get better at it- who knew? We regrouped at the summit and continued along the ridgeline in search of a running stream for our camp, which unfortunately we did not find. We filtered some water from a puddle (a first for me) to supplement what we had and then made a nice camp in the pine forest.