2019_06_15 Sunrise Visitor Center Triple/Quadruple Ride

Author:  Mike Hassur

This ride is always a little "strategic" (i.e. we try to pick a date where the road will be open to cyclists but not to motorized vehicles - which, usually, means the middle of June).  We had picked June 15th as the date for this ride, and the weather forecast looked pretty good (no rain and decent temperatures at both the base and top of the climb).  The weather forecast turned out to be correct as it was perfect weather for our ride (and for taking photos).

The plan was to be on our bikes and ready to be heading up this climb at 6:30 AM which meant that I was up at 3:50 AM and leaving the house at 4:45 AM.  I planned to stop along the way to take some photos on the drive up:

I arrived at the turnoff from highway 410 toward Sunrise at about 6:00 AM.  Adam and Dwaine had passed me not long before the turnoff, and I followed them past the Sunrise Ranger Station (no Ranger was on duty yet).  We stopped at the facilities for a quick bathroom break, and I was surprised to see Scott Larson as I headed back to my vehicle.  Scott and his family had just returned from three weeks in Australia, and he was the last person that I expected to see that morning.  Our small caravan headed on up to the base of the Sunrise Visitor Center Climb which is located at the turnoff to the White River Campground.  Soon, we had a small crowd of riders getting their gear ready:

We got started around 6:40 AM and made our way up the climb for the first of three or four repeats that we had planned for that morning.  When we got to the Sunrise Lookout, there were some spectacular views to be had:

From there, it was a short and easy ride up to the Sunrise Visitor Center for a quick group photo (at least, some of the group...

Tristan approaching the Sunrise Visitor Center...

The descent, again, yielded some nice photos at the Sunrise Lookout Hairpin (always a good place for photos):

From there, it was an eight mile, fast descent back to the vehicles.  We were pleasantly surprised as we neared the bottom to see two of our Puyallup Cyclopath buddies from Seattle, Jim Wilcher and Chris Fox.  We hadn't seen them for a few years, so this was sort of a "reunion". 

The second trip up was uneventful, and we found ourselves - once again - taking some photos at the Sunrise Visitor Center:

The second trip down the mountain was fast and uneventful (thankfully).  There were no photos taken on the third time up and down this climb as the photographer was getting tired.  He had just enough energy left to snap a few photos at the end of the ride (though a few of our group had enough energy to make a fourth trip up and down the mountain)...

This was a very enjoyable experience.  It's pretty extraordinary to convince fourteen people to get up early enough to make a 1.5 hour drive into the mountains and to be on their bikes starting a ride at 6:30 AM.  In addition, the weather was about as good as you could hope for when riding in the mountains in mid-June.  Looking forward to our next adventure...

Click on the following links to see the entire photo album and video associated with this ride:

2019_06_15 Sunrise Visitor Center Triple/Quadruple Climb (Video)

2019_06_15 Sunrise Visitor Center Triple/Quadruple Climb (Photo Album)