Day 44 - Grants to Pie Town

When we were planning these alternate routes to save some time, one of the stipulations was that we must make it to Pie Town.  Pie Town is kind of an iconic stop for divide riders. It sort of acts as the last stop before the rush to the finish begins.  We had high hopes, but didn't really know what to expect.

The ride into Pie Town was quite beautiful.  It began riding alongside these neat mountains/mesas/canyons to our left, and to our right was dried up lava.  There were ice caves and other attractions nearby but we didn't get a chance to go off route to check em out... next time!  We finished the paved segment of the ride after about 50 miles and then began our 32 mile stretch of dirt. This is when we were introduced to how dicey NM "dirt" roads can  be.  We were basically riding on a narrow beach.  Impossible to go straight or fast.  It was an adventure.  Fortunately the road cleared up a little bit, still having stretches of sand where we were forced to walk the bikes.

Five miles short of Pie Town, a lady in a truck flagged us down.  She asked if we planned on eating in Pie Town and whether or not we had food in our packs. She alerted us that the restaurant was closed for the evening and invited us to take whatever groceries we wanted from her truck.  What a nice gal!!! We had enough food for us so we politely declined.

We made it into Pie Town and were told about the Toaster House - a local spot for through bikers to crash.  We asked for directions, but the man just said "It's the house with toaster's strung up in the trees - you can't miss it". (Helps that its a town with maybe 3 roads). We found it without any difficulty. What an absolutely amazing place.  Heaven on Earth.  This was an old log house that was owned by a lady who had moved out and instead of selling it, donated it to Continental Divide hikers and Great Divide bikers.  It still had electricitiy, cold water, all the amenities, an awesome porch, a penthouse penthouse, a washing machine, and a world of character.

On top of all the housing essentials, it had a number of supply boxes addressed to it for hikers that never made it that far... So Geoff and I treated ourselves to lots of candy bars and dehydrated meals that night. We crashed on some mattresses up in the penthouse and hit the hay around 10pm or so.  It was then when two other bikers arrived.  Mike, a 40ish year old teacher from Vancouver, and Cjell (who we didnt get the chance to meet).

Onyx's poop

The first hint of Pie Town!

What we had to ride through to get to PT