jbsaulog

Another "What Were We Thinking?" moment

We're on a 700-mile bike ride out in some of the most remote areas of three Western states, where cell phone and Internet service is spotty at best. And what is the other activity besides biking to fill my days? Keeping a blog.

What were we thinking?

So the posts have been sporadic at best, and my performance has been inexcusably poor. Once again, no posts sent via email made it onto the blog. So I checked everything again, and guess what? I was still sending to the wrong address. I'll try again tomorrow, except that we are riding over the North Cascades Highway and for the first 50 miles there will be not a trace of cell-phone or Internet coverage. I'll take pictures and try again to post them via email when we are having lunch at the Mazama store.

That assumes I will make it over Rainy Pass and Washington Pass, 4,800 and 5,400 feet respectively. The last seven miles of our ride today gave us a taste of what we are in for tomorrow, and I'm nervous about it.

But we will face that day when we come to it. Here's what happened today:

We woke up to a beautiful, clear morning at Lake Cavanagh. Carbed up on a breakfast of blueberry pancakes and ham slices.

Kathy trucked the riders down to the Oso store in time for us to get riding by 8:30. What would we do without out SAG support? We had a taste of that today, too.

Soon after Oso we rode through the site of the slide in March that left 43 people dead. Mostly it now looks like a giant's very bumpy plowed field. No sign of life in that stretch of highway.

We had planned a morning stop in Darrington but felt great after the day's first 16 miles and kept right on going north toward Rockport. Much of the ride was comfortable in the shade and along the Sauk and the Skagit Rivers. Slight uphill, but mostly flat. Love that.

We had planned to have lunch just past Marblemount, but our SAG team was nowhere to be found. Were they ahead of us? Behind us? Had something happened to them?

They were way behind us. Cleaning the cabin and getting all our stuff back in the truck took longer than expected. Gas for the truck had to be found (no services for the next 50 miles ahead of us).

We tried to call the SAG team. No cell service. We decided to move on to Newhalem, where we hoped there would be cell service.

But before then, Mary Jo suddenly started yelling that she was going to stop. She pulled off to the side of the road, John and John avoided a rear-end collision with her and turned around to see her pouring water in her eye and fumbling through her bike pack. Turned out that a bee had flown under her glasses, become stuck and stung her on the eyelid. Mary Jo had insect-bite wipes in her pack and we applied several.

Just before we got to Newhalem, Mary Jo's cell phone rang and we got the explanation for the SAG disappearance. Mary Jo ran into the Newhalem store to get ice to put on her eye, and soon the SAG team and lunch was there.

Here's John Barrett in Darrington with Whitehorse in the background

Just another seven miles to the turn-off to the North Cascade Environmental Learning Center. But like I say, that seven miles was a taste of the climbing to come. And as I sit here, I'm having cramps in my legs. Yikes.

The rest of the party is now out on guided hikes around this great facility, and I'm resting comfortably -- sort of -- in the atrium area in front of the Learning Center's office.

The accommodations are dorm rooms with bunk beds. Bathrooms and showers down the hall. Nothing fancy, but clean, and all the learning activities make up for the lack of luxury.

Here are some other photos from today: