Despite being at sea level, I was breathless. No, not because of the steepness or the length of the hills. But because of the unbelievable greenery all around. I forgave everything  bad about Seattle, even the busy traffic, and feasted on the marvelous scenery. 

To rewind the story to the beginning, my long term friend Subbu, invited me to Seattle to participate in the  High Pass Challenge, a 113 mile ride that climbs up Mt. Saint Helens. He suggested that I come in a week early and do some other rides as well. I took up the invitation. 

The first ride we did was a casual jog around the neighborhood of Sahalee, WA. This gave me a taste of Washington.  I was mesmerized by the vegetation. It reminded me of Kerala, although the nature of the vegetation itself was quite different. We rode through some relatively quiet neighborhoods, including the nice little towns of Fall City, which takes its name from the beautiful Snoqualmie Falls, and the town of Carnation. 

Island Hopping

On Labor Day, we did a little bit of “island hopping.” Starting from the harbor of Mukilteo state park, we got on to the ferry to Clinton (hmm… which one?). It is nearly a 20 minutes ride on the ferry. We started the ride around 8:20AM. It was quite chilly and foggy. Straight out of the harbor in Clinton, we ran into the first of the many, many hills of the day. We took the highway WA-525 and rode through several small towns before turning to the coastal Bush Point Road. This is one of the little gems of a road for biking — beautiful greenery and frequent views of the Pacific. 

By sheer luck, we got into the port of Keystone just in time for the next ferry to Port Townsend. The ferry ride is about 35 minutes, which gave us ample time to rest. 

Port Townsend is a beautiful Victorian harbor whose history  dates back to 1791.  Subbu and I had an early lunch at the Nifty Fifty’s,  a fifties style “diner” next to the beach. The sandwich and the soy latte tasted great, especially under the warm sun.

The next segment of our ride took us through the mostly coastal Oak Bay road. We had assumed, without any data whatsoever, that since it parallels the coast line, it would be a flat ride. Flat it was, for a motorized vehicle, I am sure. But for the mere mortals, it was one series of hills, many of them very steep, often 10% or more. However, as with the rest of the ride, it was exceptionally beautiful. We had the view of the Puget Sound almost all through this segment.

After crossing the ocean again, this time by a bridge, we headed towards Kingston, not in Jamaica. We also stopped at a picture perfect little town called Port Gamble.

Some pictures from this ride are available from Subbu’s log. 

High Pass Challenge

We left Sahalee around 5:00PM on Saturday (09/06/2008) for Packwood and stayed in a very nice B&B called the Shepherd’s Inn in Salkum. I loved this place, run by an older couple. It is about 50 miles to the west of Packwood.

HPC is a hard ride. We started the ride at 7:07AM. There was a time limit: 5:00PM. The first 18 miles are very flat and we kept a nice pace. The next eight miles covered the first hill and a descent leading to the first food stop. The real climb started straight from the food stop.

I was feeling very good by then. The climb started out fairly steep, but eased out after the first three miles or so. It was a relatively moderate climb for the next four miles, before easing out further, until the turn-off to NF99. 

The climb from the second food stop, which was at the intersection of NF-25 and NF-99, or the turn-off to Mt. St. Helens, is steep all the way until the “gate.” The gate refers to the entrance to the Mt. St. Helen’s National Monument. There was a time limit to this as well: no bicycles would be permitted to enter after 11:00AM. I made it around 10:30AM. 

No need to say that the scenery was very beautiful. But during this part of the ride, I was mostly focussed on pedaling than on enjoying the scenery. I also broke a promise made to Subbu:) 

While traveling to Seattle, I had told him that I was taking the Look 361, which has a triple (52/39/30, with 12-27 cassette) and not the Look 555 which has a compact. He teased me to no end, making chicken sound and what not:) I rationalized my decision by conceding that I don’t have the legs to ride a compact up all those climbs. But I also pointed out that I only had one extra gear ratio compared to what he has (a 50/34 with 12-27), and to create a “level climbing field,” I offered that I will not use the 30/27 combination. This is the promise I, accidentally, broke. At one point during the ride from the second food stop to the “gate,” while switching from the middle ring to the small ring, I came on to 30/27 and, I confess, decided to stay on it for the next half mile.

The ride from the entrance of Mt. St. Helen’s park to the Windy Ridge, the end of the paved road, is spectacular. It reminded me of the Trail Ridge Road in Estes Park, CO and also the Mt. Evans Highway, also in Colorado. But this is at a much lower altitude. The condition of the road, however, is very bad. 

Although the main climb was over, this part of the ride was not easy. We still had several hills to ride over. The beauty of the rugged landscape, however, more than compensated for the suffering.

At the summit, I met a few riders and shared “we made it” with a couple of them. After a short break, I started the “descent,” although the real descent started only from the “gate.”  I also took a short break near the gate to eat a bar. There is one thing that makes me very nervous is descending when I am hungry. It makes me feel cold and I tend to become twitchy on the bike. So I had to eat something.

But that also led to a very interesting conversation with a fellow rider who was waiting for her friend. As I rode out of the gate and pulled over into a shade, she came over and asked if I had seen a friend of hers (she described her friend, I remembered seeing her riding up). Anyway, we chatted for a while and she talked about some of the nice rides around the islands.

It was a fast descent. At one point there was an accident, not involving a cyclist, fortunately, and the EM folks slowed the riders down. I reached the final food stop in a short while, where I waited for Subbu.

The last segment of the ride was more of a chore, although it was very, very pretty. We rode through some very beautiful back roads. Fatigue was catching up, and we still had some pretty decent hills to climb. Subbu and I rode together for most part during this segment. I remember counting down the distance in the last four miles or so. 

I finished the ride around 4:30PM and received my “finisher’s medal.” See Subbu’s log for pictures from the ride.

This was a great ride. One of the best in recent years. But what I liked most about the whole trip was that every ride I did was so beautiful. And, while traveling around Washington, I saw so many backroads that I wanted to ride. That is a wonderful feeling.

Anyway, I am back in Boulder and I am back riding the hills and valleys of algebraic multigrid, Krylov subspace methods and  fast multipole methods in that most scenic playground of all: mathematics:)