The boys were climbing today in the Vuelta — oy, were they ever — so I felt obliged to do a little vertical my own bad self once we wrapped the coverage at Live Update Guy.

There’s a nice, steep grind not far from El Rancho Pendejo, the 2-mile climb to the La Luz trailhead, but after running for an hour on Tuesday I thought that might be asking a bit much of the old legs. So instead I hung a right and did the 1-mile climb to the La Cueva campground.

The surface is what we Phlegmish types call “heavy,” the chips in the chipseal being slightly boulderish, so I was glad to be riding the Soma Double Cross with its Little Big Bens. Quite a view from up there, but the helicopters were something of a nuisance, harshing my mellow and distracting me from the view.

Turns out it wasn’t just flyboys logging flight time. Some poor dude turned up dead in the Sandias, and I’m guessing they were part of the search. Me, I got to come down the easy way.