WA to MT Day 2 - Over the Cascades
Today we rode over the Cascade Mountains. Pictured above is Doug perhaps a mile before the crest of Washington Pass. The day and the vistas were stunning. This post will be heavy on the pictures and light on the text since it is already 10:30 and surprise, surprise, I am tired.
Our route today was about 75 miles with 58 miles of mostly climbing to get to Washington Pass then a 17 mile descent. For me, that was just under 5 hours to go up then 32 minutes to get down. We did end 2000' higher than we started which is part of the reason the descent was so much shorter than the ascent.
Pictured below is the gang as we got ready to head out from our inn this morning.
Fairly quickly, we entered North Cascades National Park.
Initially, we worked our way through forests...
...passed by creeks...
...crossed rivers which often ran down the mountains next to us as we climbed...
As we entered the serious portion of the climb...
...we had nearly constant views of mountains...
...with lakes here and there for variety...
We stopped for lunch at Rainy Pass which is where we crossed the Pacific Coast Trail and about 6 miles (1.5 miles down then 4.5 miles up) before Washington Pass. As the picture shows, we now had snow by the side of the road.
After lunch, we had some more amazing views...
...before reaching Washington Pass...
I do not have any photos after cresting the pass. As I mentioned in my intro, the descent covered 17 miles in just 32 minutes. While I do take most of my pictures while bicycling, doing so at 30+ mph does not seem like such a good idea.
One final note, we went to dinner in the town of Winthrop which is several miles farther down the road. Winthrop is a tourist town with the main street designed to look like a western town from the 1800s. We went to a pub and were seated out back by the river. As we waited for our food, there was live music. You can guess about the singer and the music, but unless you are clairvoyant, you would almost certainly be wrong. The singer was a Cuban opera singer. He sang beautiful renditions of songs like Ave Maria and Cohen's Hallelujah. He was fantastic and certainly unexpected.
That is all for tonight.