Quick summary of our daily miles and over-night locations: Left Anacortes June 20, and rode to Concrete, WA ... 44 miles; next day, 46 miles to Colonial Creek Campground; today, 54 miles to Mazama, WA.
The route we are following is the initial leg of a cross-country route put together by the Adventure Cycling Assn., called 'The Northern Tier". This leg of the route basically follows WA-20 highway ... and we will be following it for the next few weeks as we head to Glacier National Park.
For the most part, the first two days were flat rides, with much in the way of nice scenery. I say, "For the most part", because the final ten miles of the second day provided ten miles of ass-kicking climbing ... ouch to the MAX! But as I said, up to that point blissful riding prevailed. The adjacent photo was taken west of Concrete when we were riding The Cascade Trail. The Cascade Trail is a rail-to-trail hard-packed dirt/gravel multi-use path ... most enjoyable.
What was not enjoyable was today's ride, which included approximately 5300 feet of climbing in the initial 37 miles, which when added to the final ten miles of climbing the previous day resulted in ouch to the ULTRA UBER MAX. Today we made it over both Rainy Pass and Washington Pass. As the old adage suggests, "What goes up must come down." And come down we did! High-speed descent for a majority of the final 17 miles today ... screaming high-speed descent which brings great joy to cyclists who have spent most of the day climbing at 3 MPH.
There will be three or four more major climbs/passes in the next several days. So my guess is that I will either be in great shape ... or ready to be placed in a local Emergency Room.
No doubt I am indeed losing weight, but the ten pounds I referred to in the title of this post has to do with the United States Postal Service and their Priority Mail service. Guess when one waits until the last moment to pack for a bike tour, one is not very discriminating as to what one brings along for the ride. We stopped at a USPS office in Burlington, and I became very discriminating as to what I really need.
Had I not off-loaded those ten pounds then I would most likely be posting this from the local E.R.
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