Thursday, August 13, 2015

Day 4 Newhalem to Mazama - the endless hill climb

61 miles - 6232 up!
Today, we met the Northern Cascades.
The day began quietly enough...

As soon as we turned out of the park entrance, the climb began.


We passed through two tunnels.

Stopped a while to admire the view...

Then went up hill more.

And more...

We started to worry about running out of water, so we stopped at a roadside stream and used a water purification pump to re-supply.

Then we rode up hill some more.

Finally, we reached the top of Rainy Pass!
We had a short, rewarding downhill, then started uphill again to Washington Pass... for a total climb of about 42 miles! Not steep, just relentless. We were moving the 60-70 pound bikes along at at snappy 3-5 miles per hour for a looooonnnnng time!

At last, we had an 18 mile downhill cruise into Mazama. As we descended the temperature ascended... It was in the high 90s when we rolled into Mazama in the late afternoon.

We found a nice hotel room, had dinner, did laundry and slept really well!
The manager gave us a "pass conquered" discount.








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