Tell me about it! I was cycle-touring in the USA many decades ago and maps back then were Rand McNally, not Google... So it was always a matter of guessing where the hills were. So, I get to Colorado, cycling down through Four Corners with the 'Mittens' etc, hope to get to the camp sites in Grand Canyon. So I follow the 'Little Colorado'. My geography skills told me that the road going next to the river would be going downhill, but I wasn't thinking properly!!!
So I follow the Little Colorado expecting an easy drift into camp but instead I have a gale force headwind and serious bits of uphill. So I didn't get there and I had to sleep in the tent held up by rocks with no let up in the wind, with an electrical storm to follow, one where I was the highest metal object around...
Next morning I woke up rough and set off on my bike, literally 1/2 mile away up the road were a group of cycle tourists from Yugoslavia and they pitched up in one of the roadside stalls. Had I not given in so easily the previous night I would have had a fun time meeting up with them and drinking properly... I was also oblivious to the time zone change so the next day came with a 'free' hour too.
I did go down to the very bottom of the Canyon and up the other side to continue my cycle tour of the wonderful U.S.A. These crazy dams (every river is dammed) were a huge part of my time there, riding across them and camping by them.
So I follow the Little Colorado expecting an easy drift into camp but instead I have a gale force headwind and serious bits of uphill. So I didn't get there and I had to sleep in the tent held up by rocks with no let up in the wind, with an electrical storm to follow, one where I was the highest metal object around...
Next morning I woke up rough and set off on my bike, literally 1/2 mile away up the road were a group of cycle tourists from Yugoslavia and they pitched up in one of the roadside stalls. Had I not given in so easily the previous night I would have had a fun time meeting up with them and drinking properly... I was also oblivious to the time zone change so the next day came with a 'free' hour too.
I did go down to the very bottom of the Canyon and up the other side to continue my cycle tour of the wonderful U.S.A. These crazy dams (every river is dammed) were a huge part of my time there, riding across them and camping by them.