Day 3 (58 miles)

Trip Start Jun 13, 2008

Trip End Aug 09, 2008

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Flag of United States Mazama, Washington, United States
Tuesday, June 17, 2008

in preparing for the trip, i would look at our itinerary and cringe at this day's challenge. although it's a mere 58 miles (how quickly 58 comes to seem like a short ride in comparison to an average day of 80!), we were looking at crossing two mountain passes (rainy pass followed quickly by washington pass) with a combined ascent of over 6,000 feet. since we're on wa-20 and trucks have to be able to make it up the grade too, the ascent to the passes is spread over a 40 mile stretch. at times, we were traveling as slowly as 7-8 mph, and the average speed was closer to 12. quite a long day indeed! our camp in newhalem was just at the foot of the cascades, so the climb started right away and didn't let up until we hit the passes.

the day started off with an interesting glitch: all three keys to the van were accidentally locked inside. brad, julie, dan, velva, and i waited for AAA to break into the van for us, and then we were able to eat our breakfast and pack up the van for the day

morning fog in newhalem

. the other folks were concerned about leaving late due to the difficulty of the day's ride, so although they were given money to purchase breakfast, the only store between the campgrounds wasn't open when they passed it, and they ultimately had to flag down the van when it passed to get some food. interesting times...

if the coastal region of washington felt like switzerland, the cascades were much more like norway. we awoke to misty almost-rain, and there were foggy clouds hugging the tops of the mountains, and shortly after leaving camp, we passed a huge lake with that unique turquoise hue that only glacial/snowmelt waters get. and even though it was the middle of summer, there was still tons of unmelted snow at the passes.

while on the bike, we were introduced to a very strange optical illusion: a slight uphill stretch can look like it's going downhill. on the road, we would be climbing, climbing, climbing, and suddenly we'd round a corner and start pedaling hard to get the most out of a small descent only to find that we're still going quite slowly. we would wonder: are our tires okay? are we really that tired? but whenever we'd stop for a snack or a stretch after one of these segments, we would realize that we were still going up. we came up with many suppositions about why such an optical illusion would exist

road crossing diablo lake

. we eventually settled on the idea that it's either the grade of the road is less than the grade of the surroundings and/or the vantage is slightly changed because of the posture when riding the bike and that we are looking up instead of straight on. either way, it's evil!

the descent from washington pass was sooooo much fun. to get to camp from the top of the pass, we had about 15 miles to ride, but it went by quite quickly because it also involved an altitude loss of close to 2,000 of those hard-earned feet. with the freewheel (the ratchet in the rear wheel that allows the wheel to spin freely of the chain) whizzing at an insanely high pitch and my speedometer approaching 40 mph, i tore through those miles in about 30 minutes. since time flies when you're having fun (or maybe due to some loophole in special relativity, when you're flying too), i would have thought it was closer to 10 minutes.

we finished up our ride at the early winters campground just west of mazama. the campground was another winner, this time situated on the banks of a swift-moving creek. the environs were quite lovely, and i took a short hike along a trail that was "paved" with sanded glass fragments that glittered in the sunset. the fragments must have come from recycled bottles because they were almost exclusively brown, green, or clear.