The highway to Pagosa Springs followed the San Juan River up the pass to the top of the Rocky Mountains while side streams, arush with melting snow, ice cold to the touch, cascaded down from the roof of the sky, thousands of feet above. He was biking in the forest now, pine-scented and cool in the early morning air, watching more nimble cohorts pedal on by him as if he were standing still. The tortoise and the hare, he kept saying to himself as he checked the number of each rider as they passed. Raucous Stellar Jays squawked their encouragement while buzzards circling overhead seemed to keep out a careful eye for fallen bikers. He emptied two water bottles before 10:00 and replenished them in one of the ice-cold streams, too thirsty to heed the literature of a possible parasite from elk urine or something. What the hell, it wasn't fatal and couldn't be worse than dying of thirst. It couldn't make him hurt any more than he did, legs aching and breath heaving as he struggled higher and higher up the Rockies.
He climbed and climbed and then climbed some more. With each turn in the road he expected to see the summit but was only greeted with another long uphill climb until he lost track of the numbers. In time the trees began to thin and patches of old snow appeared in ever increasing numbers, tucked in dark crevices, left over from winter storms of months long past. The air cooled appreciably and the ever-thinning atmosphere caused Dean to labor all the more as he struggled upward. The roadside drop offs became more and more precipitous, opening on breath-stopping views of chasms so deep they made him dizzy just to look down to the bottom. There was always a river, eating away at the mountain as it had for eons, carrying with it minute particles, piece by piece in its frantic torrents.
It was after 11:00 by the time Dean struggled around the last turn and reached the summit of Wolf Creek Pass. He stood atop nearly 11,000 feet of mountain gazing in wonderment at the spectacular view below him as he strained to catch his breath. He had covered only 23 miles but each mile had given him a sense of accomplishment that astonished him. It seemed every other rider had passed him on the climb until he looked down the mountain and saw hundreds of dots of color still struggling up the incline behind him.
There was a rest area at the summit already crowded with riders. Fred O'Connor, in the company of Emma Blanding, was passing out coffee and hot chocolate to the grateful line of chilled cyclists. As soon as he spotted Dean he came over. The old man held out a cup of coffee to his stepson, who continued trying to catch his breath.