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Thursday, October 25, 2001 - Eagle Flat and Carrizo Mountains
33 miles. Sierra Blanca, TX to Country Inn
Motel, Van Horn, TX
We left the city park in Sierra Blanca at about 9:30,
late for us but we went only 33 miles today, setting ourselves up for tomorrow's
much longer ride thru the Davis Mts.
The weather is really great now with highs of about 80*
and lows of 40-50*. Needless to say it is always sunny with very low
humidity. They have received about one tenth of an inch of rain here this
month.
The first 20 miles were thru the Eagle Flat on a
perfectly straight frontage road paralleling I-10 past very poor rangeland.
Strangely there is no cactus and I learned later that all the cactus
has been taken for landscape purposes. It was common 50 years ago and the
scrubby brush now growing was then absent. Man's hand can have a huge
impact in a fragile ecosystem of a desert.
We then climbed about 500 feet up into the
Carrizo Mts. and began an eight mile descent into Van Horn (Pop.2,930). The
landscape immediately changed into a maze of rugged low lying barren peaks,
arroyos and washes with more ridges, the Davis Mts. far on the eastern horizon.
It apparently goes like this for the next 100 miles. When you think
of mountains you don't always think of this part of Texas but here they are.
This is a very hostile area for humans with no water and few roads. Van
Horn has the best water in the area but wells must be well over 1000 feet deep.
Van Horn actually pipes water to Sierra Blanca. For today's ride cyclo
touring's first and second dimensions, time and distance, took center stage. The
wind was not a factor and the temperature was mild. It was just us and the
road reaching ahead with no exact way for us to say how many miles we had ridden
and plenty of time to contemplate the immensity of Western Texas. There is
a real mental or even Zen aspect to long distance cycling that has to be
confronted because you are out there all day and there is plenty of time to look
around and think. In a car you are thinking in an hour I will be in El
Paso and tomorrow I will be in LA. Your foot will be tired from holding
down the gas pedal.
On a bicycle you are contemplating your next rest and
tomorrow you will polish off another Texas county, and the physical must be
experienced to be understood.
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