On the second day we tackled what would turn out to be the Queen Stage of our route with over 3600' of climbing under a HOT sun as we worked our way around Cow Head Butte, across Hideout Canyon and up, up, up to a sweet campsite under the pines on Fisher Mesa at over 8400'. We'd started the day before along the Colorado River at about 4000' so the change in scenery was drastic. Now we were up on the rim, high above Fisher Valley and closing in on the skirts of the La Sals themselves, none of which helped make it any cooler. Fortunately we were able to filter some fresh water out of Fisher Creek to refill our bottles and bladders and then it was head down suffering up seemingly endless white gravel roads near Polar Mesa and Bull Canyon. At points we were riding 200-300m at a time, seeking shelter from the sun in every roadside patch of shade, counting to 10 and then leapfrogging ahead to the next shady spot. Trout was a real trooper through this section and spirits were kept relatively high by the amazing scenery but we all breathed a big sigh of relief when we finally topped out alongside some dinosaur tracks and were able to roll downhill the last mile to our secluded camp spot at Bull Draw. Trout somehow found the energy to build us a perfect "log cabin" campfire, while singlehandedly protecting our site from all sorts of marauding zombies, and he enjoyed a well-earned dehydrated chocolate cheesecake to wrap up Day 2!
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