Over the Cascades

Monday, August 3   Day 2   Sedro Wooley to Winthrop, WA   129 miles, 8000' of climbing

I'm entering the park from the western side, and we biked over the summit (Washington Pass) and ended way down beyond the mountains to the east. It was a another great day for a bike ride, with tons of beautiful scenery. A "highlight" of the day was that I had my first flat tire in over two years. Fixed it in a jiffy and continued on.

The day began in our motel parking lot, as the staff was preparing our breakfast. They serve far more than you'd expect in a restaurant, including lots of fresh fruits and toppings for the oatmeal. This was at 6:20 am! Departure by 7:00.

The ride was flat for the first 50 miles or so. Around every bend I kept thinking it would start to go upward, but it wasn't until our 2nd rest stop at mile 54 that we began our long climb.

During the first 20 miles we came to town called Concrete. It's funny that they put this welcome sign on a huge slab of concrete.

Is this the chapel of the Seven Dwarfs?

We passed so many lakes and rode along so many rivers, I will just post photos without captions most of the time. You can get a flavor for what we got to see as we pedaled along.

I'm on a TALL bridge over this river basin, which enters the lake. If you looked on the other side of the bridge, there was a waterfall (without much water though).

 We rode across that bridge, and then up a long hill.

 It was not long after this I had my flat tire. My CO2 cartridge inflated the new tube in an instant.

 Diablo Lake.

 Looking south from the Diablo Lake viewpoint.

The name of our bike tour is Pacific Crest, named after the actual trail. At this spot, we crossed the actual trail.

Approaching the Washington Pass summit. The steepness of the climb was not as difficult as many on the previous tours I did this summer, but the climb was long - about 30 miles.

And there's the sign for Washington Pass, at 5477 feet. My odometer read 98 miles. After this, it was 30 miles of mostly downhill to Winthrop. The initial 10 miles were through a spectacular valley, as you will see in the following pictures:

 That's the valley we descended.

 Spectacular sawtooth peaks.

After this photo, I took no more until we reached Winthrop. Actually, I had to ride a mile back into town two get these photos because when I rode through the first time, I was in a hurry to meet my massage appointment at 5 pm.

 The town had lots of character!

Jerry and Steve came with me back into town so we could find a good restaurant. I had a new saddle sore, but we had to ride the bikes because the only thing near the motel, south of town, was a pizza place.

 We were going to eat here, but chose another down the boardwalk.

Check out the REAL boardwalk, and it was on both sides of the street. At our restaurant, I had the rib special, and I'm glad I ordered the half rack and not the full rack, because ribs covered the entire plate.

This old coach was right next to our motel. No sign, just sitting there. I tried to get on the Internet, but the signal was too weak. Thus, I'm writing this posting the next night in Leavenworth.