2400ft of climbing in the first 14 miles brought me to the top of Cameron. From there it was almost all downhill or less. Nice to reach the small town of Walden after two days climbing Poudre Canyon. I’ve been here before at least half a dozen times but usually going down the canyon instead of up.

Last night the cabin was snug. Sportsman’s was a nice place for overnight. No phone or Wi-Fi service.

This morning I was surprised the temperature was 52F since I expected it to be closer to 35F-40F (Fort Collins forecast of ~50F and then 5F per thousand feet cooler). That made it easier to get started by 7am.

One mile of relatively level and then 13 miles uphill. My odometer briefly listed 7% grade but most was less. Not sure if it was altitude or being tired or not enough breakfast but the last five miles I alternated some walking with riding on hills as steep as those I cycled yesterday. However, slow and steady and up the hill.

The road mostly followed the Poudre River including the falls in the photo. I passed at least three campgrounds and didn’t see “full” signs so likely available yesterday where the lower canyon was all full.

At the top, hooray!

From here the initial descent was not very steep. Nine miles from the top was the small settlement of Gould with a country store where I had a snack.

After this a steady ride further downhill.

Not happy with a state vote to reintroduce wolves.

The clouds were threatening but stayed dry until I was in Walden. The forecast called for upslope conditions which means more rain on the east side of the mountains than the west.

Moose capitol of Colorado.

Also seems to have more liquor stores than I would expect…(also noted the motel included a 10% off coupon for the nearby liquor store).

Downtown Walden. Stopped in for lunch since I was early to check into the motel. Otherwise happy to get here from Fort Collins.

In the two weeks I was on intermission from my bike trip, we had a Celebration of Life service for my father. Despite the occasion, it was nice to see family and friends who gathered.

My father often had a smile like the photo. He enjoyed taking photos and videos so we have a lot more where he was thecphotographer than the photographed. One nice thing he did in past few years in scan slides, photo albums, super8 movies, DHS movies into digital format and share with his four sons. So we have a lot of these from before.

One thing I did during intermission is collect together files from computers and backup disks into a larger archive. Still need to sort through things but nice to have these together.