Day 15 (Thurs, 10 Apr)

I rode from La Cueva, NM to Taos, NM today.  This was a ride of incredible scenery, very diverse and one of the most interesting I’ve ever done.  The ride was 95 miles with 5,100 ft of climbing starting at an elevation of about 7,600 ft and ending at about 7,000 ft.  For the first time in my riding career I rode about 9,000 ft today (twice, technically) – great!

Weather:  The weather was nice.  It was mostly sunny throughout the day with temps in the 30s in the morning climbing to about 70 in the afternoon.  There was a mild 10 mph wind for much of the day that was typically a crosswind but sometimes a nice tailwind toward the end of the ride.

The Roads: I started out on Hwy 4, then Hwy 501 and 502 around Los Alamos, then Hwy 68 for about 40 miles from Espanola all the way into Taos.

On to the pictures – many very cool things today (I took over 100 pictures – not all shown!!).

Starting out with climbs at mile 1 today and I didn't get pictures of it - but snow on the ground in places...

Zoom in on the picture - about a dozen elk at the far edge of the meadow.  The first I've seen on the trip!

Valle Grande meadow within the Valles Caldera - read up on it here, very cool; a 1+ million yr old volcano - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valles_Caldera

 A little bit more about the area.

A number of great views of the caldera center

Landscape view of the same.

And how about some video!

Plane looked like it was going straight up.  Amazing blue skies today.

Yours truly at 9100 ft - highest I've ever ridden!!!

View looking east after coming over the final pass out of the caldera.  Los Alamos is directly below in the valley and the mountains of the Sante Fe National Forest (snow covered) in the far distance.

Video of the same showing some of Los Alamos National Lab, the Rio Grande valley and mountains of Santa Fe National Forest.  Spectacular!

Los Alamos National Lab - the only picture I took (in case someone was watching out for that...).  More here on this historically notable area: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Alamos_National_Laboratory

The famous city - I saw a few other cyclists out today, including one lady who was riding up into the caldera (sweating a lot) as I was coming down.

This is about 5 miles east of Los Alamos - check out the cool bluffs as I was riding down another 1k ft toward the Rio Grande.

And some more...

Local history

Mountains of the Sante Fe National Forest.

Found the Rio Grande (not that hard - just keep going down hill)

There are cliff dwellings back there - didn't have a chance to go check them out - next time...

Starting my long hike for the day up the Rio Grande.

Interesting history - along the Rio (yes, you guessed it) Grande

The river is starting to get quite small here.

Wide variety of rock formations.

Old Rusty stuff

Wow!

The water is starting to finally look really blue up here.

Local history.

I stopped here - Rio Grande gorge that I had been riding through the past 10 miles or so - very scenic, just like a small version of the Grand Canyon.

Zoom in on the picture.  This is just coming out of the gorge (1k ft climb) onto the plains that Taos is on.  To the far left is the Rio Grande, then Taos in the far distance on the plain and the snow capped mountains behind Taos - I think the one we can see here is Capulin Peak.

Nice view from the hotel tonight.