Days 47 through 52
Day 47 - Grants to Pie Town Leaving Grants the 2nd time I decided to take the El Malpais alternate rather than the main route. It goes through El Malpais National Monument on pavement. Although I thought my bike tires could would handle the goat head stickers of road C-42 after being converted to tubeless, I had already seen most of that route and wanted to do something different. The alternate turned out to be far more scenic and is not the official route only because it is on pavement. Traffic was light, so I was quite happy with it. Midway through the day I got back on gravel at Pie Town Road. The road eventually turned to a pretty rough dirt road but nowhere near as bad as others I have ridden. Once at Pie Town I enjoyed a couple of slices of pie in the town cafe and spent the night at the Toaster House. Its a 2nd house that the owner no longer uses and instead serves as a hostel for CDT hikers and Great Divide riders to stay in ...