Cyclopath Ride: Cayuse Pass (Early Season "snow ride")
Author of this post: Make Hassur
5:00 AM: It was supposed to be a low to 46 degrees today – NOT!! It was 38 degrees, and that was in Puyallup (we hadn’t even hit the mountains yet). John Winter arrived at 5:15 AM, we loaded the bikes in my van and got on the road. We arrived at our destination (the Crystal Mountain turnoff from Hwy 410) at 6:15 AM. Leon’s car was already there, but Leon was nowhere in sight (he got there early to do some extra climbing before we arrived). Pretty soon Les rolled in, and then Mark and Dan.
We were heading toward Cayuse Pass on our bikes by
6:40 AM. We ran into Leon about 3 miles
into the climb. He had already done
4000’ of climbing! It was pretty cold,
but the sky was clear and Mt Rainier looked amazing (as usual). The climb to Cayuse Pass went by quickly, and
we stayed warm because Les was pushing the pace (damn you Strava) which made it
feel like the third time up instead of the first.
It was sunny at the top and felt pretty good
temperature-wise; but, as soon as we started down the other side of Cayuse at
20-30 mph – IT WAS COLD! Not so cold
that it was completely unenjoyable, but cold enough that Les’ water bottle
became brittle and broke open when he squeezed it (picture Les going down the
road at 20-25 mph and holding a water bottle that is hemorrhaging Gatorade
through a big crack in its side – the look on his face was like “I can’t
believe what just happened”). A couple
of miles from the top, you pass through a short tunnel on this descent. It’s always spooky because your glasses are
dark and you can’t see the surface of the road in the tunnel. We always slow down, and no one has hit any
debri in the tunnel so far, but … By the time we reached the bottom of the
descent our faces were frozen and felt like they might have achieved the same
level of brittleness as Les’ water bottle.
We were ready to turn around and start climbing back up Cayuse so that
we could generate some warmth.
As we climbed the south side of Cayuse, it didn’t take
long before we were ready to start unzipping/taking off our jackets. The climb went smoothly with lots of
conversation. Mark and Dan had started
climbing before the rest of us, and we didn’t see them until we reached the top. Once again, at the top of Cayuse, the
temperature felt comfortable. Some of us
even toyed with the idea of not zipping up our jackets on the descent down the
north side toward Crystal Mountain. That
would have been a mistake. Almost as
soon as we started to descent, the cold became evident made more noticeable by
the sweat that we’d generated coming up the south side of the Pass.
We descended 3-4 miles to the turn off to
Sunrise. We, then, turned and went back
up Cayuse one final time. This ascent
was short and quick. We were back at the
top by 10:15 AM.
John Winter and I headed back down to the cars (time
constraints) and were soon followed by Les, Mark, and Dan. Leon stayed to get in a little more climbing
(Leon’s never met a mountain pass that he doesn’t like to beat into complete
submission).
Not as much snow as last year (maybe 7-10 feet in
places near the top of Cayuse), but everyone seemed to agree that we love our
Cayuse Pass early season “snow ride”.
Looking forward to next week’s Alder Lake Loop Ride.
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