Mountains and Los Alamos

Thursday, June 11   Day 5   Albuquerque to Española, NM   103 miles

This was our first truly mountainous day, with 6500 feet of climbing, and the hills were STEEP and LONG. The photo above is when I reached the highest point of the day, at elevation 9000 feet. I am looking northeast towards Los Alamos, which I rode through after a fast descent.

Earlier in the day we rode up Jemez River Canyon, which was spectacular.

That famous New Mexico geology lined our road, and around each turn we had another interesting view ahead.

Here's another view ahead, but I particularly wanted this "Congested Area" sign because we've seen many such signs in the most abandoned kinds of places imaginable. Maybe it's just that we're riding in the middle of week days, but our roads have been the opposite of congested, as you can see in the photo. There were a few trading posts ahead (we were riding on Native American reservation land, as we have been for much of our riding in New Mexico), but it was a quiet spot.

After about 40 miles, we reached the little village of Jemez. It seemed very "New Mexico-ish" - home spun. While there, Neil took my picture:

Once we continued north, the serious climbing began - steep and long. We had gone only a mile or two and came to "Soda Dam":

 

This unusual formation was created by calcium carbonate bubbling up from a spring, over hundreds of years, and hardening into this dam 300 feet wide by 50 ft wide by 50 ft high. The Jemez River flows around and through it as shown by the waterfall in the photo.

We then went up up up, and got our reprieve at the 52-mile lunch stop. We were way up in the mountains by then, but still had about a 1000 feet of climbing to go. There was a walking trail from our lunch stop to an overlook where you could see for 20 miles southward. And if you looked down, WAY below was the road we had been on earlier. It was amazing to think we had climbed from WAY down there to where we were then. 

 

 

After lunch and more climbing, we came to a broad valley, with herds of elk. If you can read the sign, it was the crater/collapse of a huge volcano that erupted over a million years ago. A fellow who also was stopped there offered me his binoculars so that I could see two herds of elk out there.

After a little more climbing, I reached the 9000-ft summit and descended into the Los Alamos National Energy Lab, which was just before the town of Los Alamos. I had to go through a security gate, and then again when leaving. It is still huge (~7000 workers), and active in performing research related to "homeland security".

I departed the bike route and went into the town to look for museums. I did visit their historical museum, and it told the story of the Manhattan Project that developed the atomic bomb in the mid-1940s.

 

This part of the museum was a little replica of a bomb shelter that became somewhat popular during the cold war. I took the photo because there was a canister of Carnation Instant Milk, one of "my" products when I worked for Carnation/Nestle.

This is the historical museum from the outside, and you can see my bike behind the bench. The receptionist inside insisted I put my bike there so she could see it and make sure it wouldn't get stolen. Nice! This building used to be a guest cottage for a lodge dating back 150 years.

I then rode to the visitor center and told the woman I planned to also visit the Bradbury Museum which tells the story of the Los Alamos National Energy Lab. She strongly recommended against it, given that I was on a bike and if I waited any longer, I was going to face "a million" cars all going down the road I needed to be on as they went home from work. I took her advice, but it seemed like the million cars already were there with me, speeding down a steep descent for about 5 miles. It was dicey all right, but I made it.

I needed to continue down a fast descent on what was like a freeway, and the shoulder was full of debris. It was NOT good bike riding. Finally I took the offramp and headed the final nine miles to Española to complete the ride. I was pooped, after being out there for nine hours and had all those climbing miles. I rested, showered, and our dinner was super at a nice family Mexican place. No Internet connection, so I got more much-needed sleep. I was glad the phone at least worked, so I could talk with Janet. I really miss her!