Day 4 (47 miles)
Trip Start
Jun 13, 2008
1
6
36
Trip End
Aug 09, 2008
Okanogan,
Washington,
United States
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
the first portion of the day was a gradual descent into a cute little town western-themed town called winthrop. dan, julie, brad, and i pulled in there, and after a quick shop at the local bike shop, we settled in for snack time. there was a combined hot dog/ice cream/mini golf place just at the intersection of wa-20 and the main street where he hung out for an hour and a half. brad and julie were riding sweep (meaning they were the last people so they could make sure everyone was okay), so we were giving the rest of the group plenty of time to get ahead
descending to winthrop
. we all pigged out and ate a combined total of three polish dogs, an apple fritter, a couple of packed sandwiches, and four scoops of ice cream. already, we were noticing that our bodies were beginning to demand a whole lot more food to keep up with the intensity of our activities, and we could scarcely stay full for more than a few hours. being able to eat like a cow is actually kind of fun!after winthrop, we had a couple more miles before the climb. we passed through the town of twisp, and after turning a corner, the road suddenly started going up and didn't let up for the next 10 miles. the ascent was actually fairly difficult because it had continuous steep grade that was equivalent to the hard parts at the top of rainy and washington passes. i had to set my speed at 7 mph (pathetically low, but my legs couldn't do any better that day!) and just keep pedaling... unfortunately, there wasn't a view from the top because it's one of the lower mountain passes, and thus is below the tree line.
after descending from the pass (another fun one!), we pulled into leader lake just outside of okanogan. the campground was a good example of "you get what you pay for"--no running water, stinky toilets, and a bunch of people making all sorts of ruckus...for free
wildflowers
. nonetheless, the lake was quite pretty, and there was a cute mother duck and her seven ducklings paddling around. because we had been camping the last few nights, we hadn't had access to showers, so i jumped in the lake with a bar of soap to clean off a little bit. after that, i took a nap in my tent for a while because i could not keep my eyes open while waiting for dinner.the evenings are getting quite uneventful! most people are fairly tired, and after doing a little bit of bike maintenance and reading call it a night. i've been helping brad and julie where i can, but most of the time, it requires internet access to do so. none of these campgrounds are giving us much in the way of internet or cell phone reception (surprise!), so instead we just relax and get the much-needed rest to tackle the next day.
