North Cascades NP to Winthrop, WA

The Cascades are behind me now.  Everywhere I looked on today's ride, there were serrated pinnacles and rock spires.  Climbing any of these mountains would be quite a challenge.  There were three passes to surmount.  Rainy Pass and Washington Pass were long grinds.  I was wishing for a bandanna to keep the sweat out of my eyes.  I felt OK, although the bike is no lightweight and takes some muscle to get going.  I drink this salty electrolyte mix and I think it helps.  I switched the back tire from the heavy Marathon Plus to the spare lightweight Kojak.  It noticeably makes the bike more sprightly.

Caked in salt and sunblock and chain grease, I got to the top of Washington Pass.  Sitting there were two young women with touring bikes (heyyy ladies).  They offered me cheese.  I passed eight or ten touring cyclists along the way today; it is a popular activity.

The scenery was spectacular but after awhile I just mashed on the pedals and stared at a fixed point ahead.  Steep climbs are not this bike's favorite, and it takes concentration to go in a straight line.  Eventually I mostly coasted down into Winthrop, which is a tourist joint.  I sprang for a motel since I need to wash and charge everything.  It is great.  I have the A/C cranked up and I am about to eat dinner #2.

Tomorrow I am going to head to Omak, and maybe a bit north of there.



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Everywhere

The face of grime

 The east side of the Cascades, drier and hotter

Winthrop fuzz

I

Marblemount to North Cascades National Park

Rode from Marblemount into the park to the Colonial Creek campground on the shore of Lake Diablo.  Rugged peaks are all around.  It was only 25 miles but it was pretty tough because there were a few hills involved.

Most people are tourists on this highway.  Drivers are courteous.  Hwy 20 has wide shoulders and not too much traffic.  Slow climbing is a balancing act on this bike.  

I stopped for some chow at a park convenience store.  They didn't have much.  I finally settled on some Campbell's Chunky chili.  It was adequate.  The can indicated that it was "Roadhouse" style.  That sounds very manly, and I am looking forward to getting more hair on my chest.  As Crocodile Dundee says, "You can live on it, but it tastes like shit."  But most things taste pretty good when you're hungry.  

Tomorrow I am going to go at least to Winthrop, and maybe beyond.


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Good livin'

 Dinner on the pier

Morning at Colonial Creek campground

Bellingham, WA to Marblemount, WA

Just before sunset, I got into Marblemount.  It was a nice ride, although it was a little longer than I wanted due to a wrong turn and some extra hills.  No matter, it was a pretty day with a tailwind most of the time.  Drivers are polite and seem less redneck-y than other places.  I am staying at an RV park tent site for $5.00/night.  There are showers and wifi.  There is one power outlet for the whole campground, so I got the office lady to charge my phone.  The other electronics will probably die tomorrow.  Three other bike tourists are here also.  Two guys in their fifties from Minnesota who took the Amtrak out and are headed back, and one young guy who looks like Che Guevara and is headed to Mexico.  He seemed like perhaps he was finding himself.  A grocery store a ways back was selling their lunchtime sandwiches for $1 each.  I got a pulled pork and a battered cod.  Both were excellent, although I didn't get to eat them until a couple of hours later when I pulled into my campsite.

I am at the foot of North Cascades national park.  The jagged, glaciated mountains stick up almost vertically to the east.  Tomorrow I am probably going to go for a short ride.  It seems like a choice between a really long ride and a short one.  Since it seems like it will be a really pretty place, I will take my time.



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Picnic Point SP in Mukilteo

Putting the rig together

 Grand sendoff from Bellingham

 Outside Bellingham

 That would be interesting

 Getting close to N. Cascades

 May have to go to the store here and get some stuff

Vail, CO - Seattle, WA

I am currently over Idaho at 35000 feet in an Alaska 737-900.  Planes have wifi now.  Amazing.  I am trying to listen to the live ATC feed for our flight, but can't find the correct frequency.  Currently it is tuned to the Bozeman airport, which is talking about Cessnas.  I don't think that's right.  Maybe when I tune into Seattle Center I can figure it out.

Ugly black cloud below.  Looks like a massive wildfire.  Just double-checked on the NIFC website and there are several in Idaho.  The smoke haze is blowing SE towards Colorado.  Maybe why it's so hazy there.

Anyway, this looks like a really... long... ways to pedal.

Early and nervous

Mt Rainier & Crystal Mountain ski area from the plane window

Vail, CO

Some predictions are in order about this endeavor.  When I'm finished, I can come back and read what I wrote and see where I was wrong.  Basically I think everything will be fantastic except southern WY / NE Colorado.  That empty, hot, treeless, white swath on the map, with no rivers coming out of it, sounds diabolical.  But I won't have to deal with that for awhile.  I can't wait to start climbing into North Cascades National Park, which should be a fine opener.  Nice and steep.  I've been climbing on Vail Pass with regularity, and can hammer up it pretty well on my lightweight stick bike.  Climbing is good.

I'm a bit nervous of course.  I think it will stay with me until a day or two into the trip.  There's a detachment process where at first you're still swimming in the thoughts of the world you left.  Then present realities override whatever you were worrying about before.  That's one of the greatest appeals of bike touring.  Your mind is concentrated so much on your tires, the time, your water/fuel, and your route that it doesn't leave room for other worries.

This pile of stuff has been accumulating for a little while.  Sometimes I walk by and throw something on, or take something off.

These bar exam books are being returned at the end of the week.  Last test is on Friday.  It will be nice to be rid of them.

late start to winter

I am currently at home, sitting on the couch next to my propane heater.  I go through a BBQ-sized tank of propane about every four days trying to stay warm.  It's like sitting by a campfire.  The heat sears one side of my body while the other side is frozen.  Occasionally I rotate.

It's been very slow in Methven until the most recent winter storm hit, which is currently still slamming the island.  It was the warmest autumn here in many years, so the ski areas couldn't operate and people were dejected and unemployed.  After I came back from my tour around the south island, I was expecting to have something to do.  But not much happened.  I finally complained to my boss that I came all the way over here from the northern hemisphere and I was getting restless.  So he found me some jobs.

At first I helped out in the ski rental shop.  I'd never done that before and they gave me a 10-minute course on how to adjust ski bindings before about 200 people showed up at once.  I think I got most of their bindings set correctly.  I didn't hear of any broken legs. 

My next job was to dress up as the ski area mascot for a marketing campaign.  I rolled my eyes when I heard this, but I had to take the job since I was complaining about no work.  So I got into an enormous green parrot outfit and went to a festival celebrating the upcoming World Cup.  My job was to get as close to the camera as possible and draw attention to myself.  It was hot and sweaty inside the parrot suit, and I couldn't see very well through the mesh screen in the parrot's mouth.  I succeeded in getting fairly close to the camera without stomping on any children.  I waved my arms and jumped around behind the newscaster while he read the weather.

Later, a TV producer complimented me on my outfit.  She was very pretty and blonde, so I started chatting with her through the parrot head.  I completely forgot that I was in a parrot suit while I was trying to be handsome and charming.  After about a minute of this, she suddenly had something else important to do.  I was briefly crestfallen until I realized the ridiculousness of the situation.

In the last few days, a massive storm has engulfed the islands, causing tornadoes up on the north island and snow down south.  Finally I was able to go work up on the hill. The winds have howled so strongly that the roof moans on the sturdy three-story base lodge, and the floors vibrate even in the center of the building.  We go out in our machines to try to keep the trails passable.  In the snow-filled gale you can't see anything except white, and often have to stop completely to wait for the next lull in the wind.  Then you can creep forward while staring at the faint outline of the edge of the abyss through the whirling snow.  Then you have to stop again when the gale comes back and hurls chunks of ice and rocks at the side of the shaking machine.  The rocks come from distant pinnacles half a mile away.  They are carried through the air along with roof panels, hoses, pads, signs, and whatever else gets torn away.  The mountain has been closed for three days in a row due to wind, and it's not letting up any time soon.  Luckily the snow groomers are somewhat vital to the operation even when the mountain isn't operating.

When I'm not working, I've been entertaining myself ont the homemade climbing wall at the company warehouse.  I've never done it before but it's a fun challenge and hopefully will build my core strength a little.  I'm a complete novice and can hardly tie a knot that's not on a shoelace.  There is a guy there who is very experienced, and is sort of the instructor.  He halfheartedly tries to conceal his disgust at my complete ineptitude.  It's OK though, I'm not out to prove anything to anyone.

Scorpio from the observatory at Mt John near Lake Tekapo.  I went on a nighttime stargazing tour there and there were astronomers and astrophotographers there to guide us.  A photographer put my camera on his equatorial mount, the kind that slowly turns with the earth so that the stars remain in focus.  This was taken on my camera, 5 minute exposure, ISO 800, aperture all the way open.  The red star above and left of center is Antares.

TV show getting people excited for the World Cup.  I am the fellow with the beak.

Looking up from the plains at the windstorm on the mountain.  The ski area is in the bowl on the top left, behind the top ridge in the foreground.

west coast nz

No stories of narrowly averted disaster in this one, just scenery.

The snow hasn't arrived to the South Island yet, although conditions have become a little more promising in the last few days.  I suspect the ski mountain will be open by next weekend.  I will enjoy getting back to work because I love the job.  I have intermittent feelings of guilt since I've been traveling for almost two months, seeing so many amazing places.  But I try to shelve those feelings, and I'm getting much better at it.

Since the company doesn't have work for me yet, I decided to get out of town.  I hung around in my little village of Methven for a few days, but when you're not working, there isn't that much to do.  So I fueled the car I hired for the winter and sped off to tour around.  

This car is a 1996 Toyota Corolla, and it gets 35-40mpg from its 1.3 liter motor.  That's all it has going for it.  The stereo is broken and the seat won't go back, so my legs are at an awkwardly splayed angle to work the pedals.  It's slower than molasses and lunatic Kiwi drivers can't wait to pass me.  And they are indeed lunatics.  For such a peaceful, well-behaved society, when these people get on the road it's a free-for-all.  The roads are often pretty scary too, which adds to the ambiance.

I drove across the island to the west side and then down to Franz Josef, where there are some big glaciers that extend almost to the sea.  The climate is much different than the dry plains of Canterbury.  It's a temperate rain forest here and the jungle looks like it would swallow you and eat you if you walked ten feet in.  

Today I left there and came down to Wanaka, where I am staying at a hostel.  The drive over the main divide back inland was really something else.  I had to stop thirty times to take photos.  I almost swerved off the road numerous times because the scenery is so jaw-dropping.  I don't think there is an unattractive corner of this entire island, except perhaps some alley behind a tavern in Invercargill.

These mountains are a different breed than what I'm used to.  The landscape is in such a rapid pace of flux, geologically speaking, that things get pushed up and eroded seemingly overnight.  Apparently, without the incessant ferocious wind and rain and ice, the Southern alps would be 30,000 feet tall.  The highest, Mt Cook, is currently about 11,000 feet and rising.  The mountains are maybe 30 miles inland from sea level and rise almost vertically.

Not to try to sound like John Muir, but I was thinking about the contrast from the Colorado Rockies, my stomping ground for the last few years.  The mountains there are big and wide and old and grandfatherly.  They have majesty.  They say "come here, come sit on my flanks, and we'll gaze out across the vast open spaces together."  The Southern Alps of New Zealand are far more severe and jagged and brutal.  They say "You looking at me, you little gnat?  I would very much enjoy kicking your a**."

Tomorrow I'm going to go for a hike and try to salvage what I can from the lack of daylight around here.  It's only light for about nine hours a day at the moment.  One more night in Wanaka and then south to Te Anau maybe.

looking seaward from Fox Glacier

Mt Cook and Mt Tasman

Tasman Sea

Haast Pass

ordinarily this would be much snowier.

Lake Wanaka