Woke had a "continental" breakfast (muffins and cereal) ( and a danish, which was crappy and dry, the decent coffee made up for this).
Got my Mountain biking crap together and hit the road. 15 min from my hotel I was already pointing my bike up. Way up!.
Started my ascent of the "killer climb" at roughly 4000ft I climbed and climbed and climbed.
Hit snow around 7500ft and had to resort to bike some, hike some.
Snow got deeper and the hike part became more frequent. With the high quality fuel in the tank from my breakfast I was focused on my goal.... I guess my 21lb Trek 9.9 may have made things easier... Just a thought.
Around 9500ft the snow got deep enough that I was considering doing some off trail "hikeabike".
20 paces of that and I canned that idea.
Back on the snow drifted trail.
Around 10000ft I decided to maybe turn around....
Just climbed 6000ft vertical off road and if it wasn't for the massive amount of snow I would of loved to make the loop that I had in mind, even though it would have probably been one of the biggest most epic days on my bike I have had.
Who am I kidding? It doesn't end there, not even close.
I had to come down that 6000ft climb, which by the way I spent 90% of the time in my granny ring at "endurance" pace.
Had a few snow drift endo's on the way down which were kinda spontaneous and random. The top 1500ft of descending was on a sun baked snow crust and was seriously fun.
Hit the hotel at around the 4hr mark, re-fuel, ditch clothes, lube chain and head back out.
The Buttermilks is where I am heading this time.
Climb for.... a while.
Climb for a while more.
Hit my destination, take some pics, Ooo and Aww at the rock climbing I wish I was doing, turn around and head back down.
Shower (felt so good).
Get in the car with Fred (who hasn't exercised yet today, yay) and head up to see the ancient pines that are native to this area. Apparently these trees are some of the oldest in the world, some are still living from 2000bc!
Hit snow closed roads around 8000ft.
Start our "hike" up to above 10000ft where these amazing trees are.
Hiking, hiking, hiking.
Finally just as the sun is two fingers from sunset we hit the freaking trees.
We played around the trees for a bit, (fred found some "souvenir wood" for the pocket ride back down to the car.
Back at the car way past sun down, and 15 degrees colder than when we had left.
Grocery store dinner and a muffin that I stole from the "conti" breakfast later, here I am.
Itchy.
1 comment:
you never say where you are
you are very hot in the pic with Fred in the background
big day solid
Post a Comment