Day 16 – Emory Pass, 8,228 feet

Miles Completed: 52.3

Cumulative Miles: 826.0

Miles to St Augustine: 2233

Today’s ride took us from Silver City over Emory Pass and then to the little town of Hillsboro, New Mexico. Another challenging ride to get to the top of Emory Pass with 4,422 total feet of elevation gain.

We started the morning with a map meeting for the route and a rainbow appeared. You know a rainbow needs sun and rain. Guess what? The rain prevailed. It rained almost all of today’s ride, from a drizzle to a steady rain, to a downpour, but no thunderstorm thank goodness. I was expecting some rainy day rides during this adventure and we got one today.

We started the ride going past the Chino Mine (also known as the Santa Rita mine) which is the largest copper mine in New Mexico. We saw the giant dump trucks hauling rock at the mine.

Then we started the climb to the top of Emory Pass. It took me about 4 and a half hours to get to the top. At over 8,000 feet, it was one of the days I was looking forward to. A challenging ride but worth every minute (including the rain). This is the highest point we’re going to reach and it’s all downhill from here, or so they say.

At the vista point of the pass, we had amazing views. A man drove up in a van and started looking at the mountain sides with his binoculars. I asked him if he was looking for animals and he said black bears. It is bear hunting season and he said there had been some sightings earlier in the day, but he saw nothing while we were there.

After we left Emory Pass, we had a 15 mile downhill ride to Hillsboro, New Mexico. It’s usually fun to go downhill, but in cold rain it’s a different story. The worst part was my fingers were freezing on the downhill. I brought winter riding gloves for days like this, but they were in the trailer (oops!).

Everyone on the tour agreed this was the best ride of the tour so far.