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| Scott, Martin, Les, & Dwaine... |
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| Les, Dwaine, James, & Scott... |
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| Conor, John, & Jim... |
The weather forecast sounded good: a high of 70 degrees for Greenwater with 0%
chance of precipitation. Conor, John,
and I arrived at the Crystal Mountain turnoff from highway 410 (our designated
meeting spot) at around 6:25 AM. When we
arrived, Leon and Rob had already arrived (they got there early and rode up to
Crystal Mountain Ski Area for a little extra training) as well as Rick and
Jim. By the time we were ready to head
out (about 6:45 AM), we had a nice group of riders (John, Conor, Mike (me),
Leon, Rob, Mark, Chris Nelson, Martin, Scott Wagar, Jim, Les, Dwaine, Rick, and
James). As we headed up toward Cayuse
Pass, things split up quickly with Conor, Chris, and Rob riding out of sight
almost immediately.
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| Cayuse Pass: John, Dwaine, Les, & Jim... |
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| View on way up from Cayuse Pass to Chinook Pass... |
We regrouped at Cayuse Pass and headed up toward
Chinook. At this point, it was cool
(maybe
mid-forties) but not cold. Most
of us were dressed warmly based on the assumption that the descent down the
east side of Chinook Pass would be cold.
We made our way up to Chinook Pass in various groups and regrouped at
the summit. At the summit of Chinook
Pass, it was pretty warm. It was clear
that many of us had overdressed.
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| Summit of Chinook Pass... |
At that
point, jackets and layers of clothing started to come off. The problem with the descent down the east
side of Chinook was not the cold – it was the other humans with whom we shared
the road. One of the vehicles that
passed us thought that it would be fun to dump tacks on the road (keep in mind that it was early morning, and we were not holding up traffic in any way). As we descended from Chinook Pass, we
suddenly saw bright shiny objects (tacks) all over the road. Before long, our group had sustained four
flat tires – which slowed us down but did not diminish the beautiful weather
and the fun. We proceeded about 8 miles
down the east side of Chinook, turned around, and headed back up.
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| Our road snaking down toward Cayuse Pass... |
Once we arrived back of the top of Chinook Pass, we
proceeded down toward Cayuse Pass.
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| Heading back down from Chinook toward Cayuse Pass... |
This
section of road is stunning both for the scenery and for the views of the road
snaking beneath you toward Cayuse Pass.
The original plan had been to descend all the way to the bottom of the
other side (south side) of Cayuse Pass and then turn around and come back
up. Unfortunately, the flat tires had
slowed us down enough that we only proceeded part way down the south side of
Cayuse before reversing our course and heading back up.
Once we had regrouped at the top of Cayuse, we headed
down the north side to our cars. This
sections is all downhill, and we flew (unfortunately, no photos as I was busy
just trying to keep up). As usual, Conor
took off like a bullet. Before long, I
found myself following Rob and Rick who were in pursuit of Conor. Rob is a big man, and the draft behind him is
phenomenal. The problem is that you can’t
see the road when you are drafting behind Rob; and – at 40 mph – even little
bumps can be an uncomfortable surprise.
We were slightly below – or sometimes slightly above – 40 mph for much
of the descent. As fast as Rob and Rick
were going, we still did not manage catch up to Conor until the bottom of the descent.
Back at the cars, Leon and Rob headed up toward Crystal
Mountain Ski Area one more time with Martin and Scott Wagar also heading
up. The rest of us headed home. I heard later from Leon that he and Rob went
part way up, turned around and headed back to Rob’s vehicle. Martin and Scott went all the way up to the
ski area.
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