"get higher on your hill so your big black cloud will come"

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Day Two (6/15): Diablo to Winthrop. 71.1 miles. 5:28 in the saddle.
2 passes: 4000 vertical feet climbed.
Day Three (6/16): Winthrop to Wauconda. 95.6 miles. 7:52 in the saddle.
2 passes: 4600 vertical feet climbed.

Right out of Diablo we were climbing. With little let up it took 31 miles to reach the summit of Rainy Pass, which is aptly titled as the drizzle began 5 miles in.

By the top, it was snowing mildly, with a fair amount of wind. We were fighting with Canadien Jays for our sandwiches (shielded by a sign) when an elderly couple yelled from there RV to come inside. Generosity seems to boundless among fellow travellers (we've had people check on us as we were taking breaks as well). The couple said they grabbed an extra pot of snow for us from the side of the road since they had just passed us as we crested. Coffee coffee coffee. So simple, yet really made the chill a bit more bearable.

Rainy Pass is a fake out though. You have to bundle up in preparation for the windchill of a descent, but it only lasts a few miles. Disappointingly at the road's sternum, we stripped back down (well, I did...Dave doesn't have the natural blanket that I carry) and started up another 900 vertical feet to Washington Pass. I was having a blast: singing, catching snowflakes on my tongue, bare chested, cape/jersey flapping. The snow was heavier, but we were grinning wide; this would be the largest downhill we'd ever earned.

15 miles of white knuckles later, it was pesto chicken pizza, another rain storm, a clothes drier, and the luxury of a KOA Kabin. Yeah yeah, we didn't rough it again. Whatever, we were done arguing with the clouds.

NEXT DAY.

We knew we would have to push stupidly hard on two days this week to catch nightfall in Sandpoint, Idaho on Friday (family time). This was one of them.

Winthrop lies 10 miles from the base of another pass: Loop Loop. (I should also plug Winthrop here because it's such a cute town with covered wooden walkways instead of sidewalks, all done up western style.)

2100 v.feet on this one, mostly rainy, and with decent sized shoulders for the majority. BUT, the closest we've come to being hit was here. The shoulder had thinned, and we were tucked nicely against the metal guard rail, lets say 6-8 inches off. BTW, we both have mirrors to see when we should tuck in, and make a habit of doing so. Anyway, an ambulance comes up on us (without sirens, mind you) and makes no attempt to move a over (no oncoming car either). I've come ot expect the burst of wind and spray, but seeing that his fat vehicle was riding the white line another 6-8 inches off my shoulder sort of gets at one's nerves. I guess the EMT response time would have been excellent though.

40 flat miles and a footlong sandwich later, we went for pass number two: Wauconda. This one climbs 2500 v.feet over 24 miles in a stepwise manner that allows for a little flat cruise here and there. Again, this was with a constant rain (I'm trying to stay posi about it..but as I write this 24 hours later in a thumpthipittip tent...its getting old) . When we reached the almost top (to the camping/grocery on our map) we found a building a month from reopening.

After a short talk with a guy only present at the empty shop for the phonebooth, we were unfurling our sleeping bags on a dry surface: in the house he was building (roof and four walls were solid, inside just framed). We ate another dinner of salmon and cheese (more on this later), chased a bird out of the rafters and collapsed. I had only ridden this long once before, and that was without mountain passes.

Drinking coffee in the morning in Diablo:


Dave Rides:


Sweating in the Snow:


testing gravity:


Our shelter for the night: