65.7 mi / 5:32:34 time / 11.8 mph avg. /4344  ft. climbing
Staying at Boulder Gulch National Forest Campground

I was dumb enough to schedule some stupidly difficult days into this trip, but luckily I was smart enough to surround them with easier days where I could have a chance to recover. This was one of those easier days, so I lazed around and didn’t hit the road until 8:30, padlocking the bathhouse on the way out to prevent the deer hunters from coming by and taking all the toilet paper and stuff (really? Apparently all the people in Camp Nelson aren’t as awesome as the ones I met.)

Ok, so it wasn’t an easy day at the beginning. Of the 6200 foot climb I began yesterday, I had 2300 left to go today. But it’s remarkable how much easier a climb is when you don’t already have 77 miles under your belt, when it’s 40 degrees cooler, and perhaps most importantly from a mental perspective, when you know that you aren’t in a race against nightfall. So I knocked out the first 1500 feet without stopping, and then only took a second break because I saw a pretty meadow.

At the top is Ponderosa, another town-in-a-building that seems common in this area, where a restaurant, bar, general store, gas, and maybe motel are combined in a single complex. It was after 10:30, but the cook was nice enough to still make me some breakfast (the usual French Toast and sausage, which I don’t think I’ve had since Tahoe).

The rest of the day, 50+ miles, was basically a roll downhill. I stopped for a bit at The Trail of 100 Giants to see some more giant Sequoias, and found I could actually ride my bike down the asphalt path which was nice. I didn’t do the whole thing, which is good, because just after I got back on the road, as I passed a cow that I said “moo” to, I saw a road cyclist coming the other way. We gave each other a big wave, but he suddenly slammed on the brakes and turned around. Well, I guess cyclists of any type aren’t common here (heck, vehicles of any type aren’t common!) and maybe he has some interest in long-distance touring. Only then did I notice that he was another tourer! Jeremiah was the first that I had seen in the 12 days I’d been on Adventure Cycling’s Sierra Cascades route. The reason I didn’t notice at first is because his setup is totally different than mine. His bike is a road bike, with tightly stuffed bags suspended and extending fore and after from the handlebars and seat, and a backpack on his back. In all he said his total weight is 70 lbs., so not a whole lot less than me, and he acknowledged that panniers may be in his future. I also wonder if shoes different than the Vibram Five-Fingers are in his future. He’d started 11 days ago at Tecate, Mexico, and it sounded like he planned to do the Sierra Cascades route to Canada, then come back down the Pacific Coast Route. We shared info about the road ahead for each other, he got my photo (don’t know why I didn’t get his), and wished each other much luck! If he has as much as I’ve had on my trip, he’ll be ok.

A bit more screaming downhill, and then I finally crossed into the Kern River Valley. Unlike the other Sierra rivers, which basically flow west into the Central Valley, the Kern goes straight south, and in its upper reaches (which I would not be exploring) are surrounded by some tremendously tall mountains, as it basically cuts the Sierras in half lengthwise. It also must kill a lot of people, judging by all the signs warning of danger (and even the Camp Nelson bartender had mentioned its treachery). There definitely were a lot of rocks and tumbling water, but I managed to find a quiet spot to dip my feet, and wash all of yesterday’s salt out of my shirt.

In Kernville, I reached the destination I’ve been waiting for since Oregon: the Kern River Brewing Company. Kernville is admittedly the largest town I’ve been through since Lee Vining outside Yosemite, but that’s not saying a lot, so it’s still a surprising place to find a brewpub, and I vowed to do my best to support their continued existence. I started with their new Dirty Hippie Imperial Red Ale, and a 3 taco plate, both of which were so good I went with a second round of both, their IPA, and three more tacos (swapping out the fish for tri-tip this time). And lucky for me, Monday just happens to be Taco Special Night! The only thing missing was WiFi, but I had decent mobile reception, so I did some Internetting there while waiting for the afternoon to cool and my wits to re-stabilize.

I don’t think I’ve done an early-dinner-followed-by-short-ride-to-campground this whole trip, and that’s something I always enjoy. Everything seems easier in the cooler weather, after a break, and with a belly and brain fueled by beer. So in another 8 miles I was in the campground, actually going a few miles further than planned for the first time, partly on Jeremiah’s recommendation.

I think I’m going to make it!

94.0 mi / 8:16:21 time / 11.3 mph avg. / 7421 ft. climbing
Staying at Camp Nelson RV Park

Wow, what a morning! Dennis and I were packed up and on the road a little after 7am. He joined me southward for a few miles to go see General Sherman, the undisputed heavyweight champion of the tree world. For the third morning in a row, I felt pains in my stomach, but once we hit the road and started a climb, I felt like I was attacking it with twice the energy and speed of yesterday, so that was a very good sign.

As cyclists, we could pull into the entrance right next to General Sherman rather than parking at a remote lot like all the (non-handicapped) drivers have to. Like yesterday, we were the only ones there, and our timing was even better because we got to see the rising sun lighting the upper tiers of Sherman, giving a perspective you just would never see later on. It still seems odd to me, since most of the campground was awake and moving about at the same time we were, but I guess people just don’t think to go sightseeing right then. At first I was wondering if General Sherman would be just “more of the same” after seeing General Grant, but it’s a very different looking tree, and its positioning lends different perspectives, so I’m very happy that I saw both.

Then it was time for Dennis to turn around and say our goodbyes, as every hill he went down meant a hill he would have to climb on his already hilly ride back. It’s too bad we couldn’t have had more time riding together, but it was great to have him around for even a short while.

Then I had a decision to make. A friend (Laurianne) had mentioned on Facebook that I should take a hike to the top of Moro Rock. It had already been something on my radar of “potentials”, things I looked at during the planning stages of the trip in case I found myself with a surplus of time and energy after the bike riding. Well, compiling that list of “potentials” has seemed quite silly in hindsight, as there has been very little surplus of anything on this trip, and I have frequently given myself a rueful laugh when recalling my pre-ride naivete.  Today was already scheduled to be another really long one, and adding 4 miles of riding and 300 feet of stair climbing would make it even longer. But, if someone calls a place one of their favorite places in the world, that’s a strong recommendation, and I was feeling really strong again, so what the heck.

As soon as I made the turnoff, it felt like the right decision. The narrow road went through the highest Sequoia concentration I had seen so far, with their rust-orange trunks signaling them out amongst the lesser, drab-brown trees, just in case their immense size wasn’t sufficient to grab your attention and let you know they are the Kings of the Forest.

Moro Rock is a granite dome sticking off the side of the mountain, providing long-distance, 360 degree views, and a staircase has helpfully been laid in it to get you to the top. And those views were tremendous. To the east was the Great Western Divide, a sawtooth line of 12000 foot peaks truly representing the highest wall of the High Sierras. And to the west was the Kaweah Valley, nearly as deep as the Grand Canyon, though much broader, giving a great perspective on the changes in the land with elevation, including the winding road I was about to take down into that valley. So yeah, totally worth it, at least at that point in the day!

Then it was time to head down the giant hill. If the morning wasn’t already great enough, I saw a bear! (sorry Dennis!) Coming around a downhill turn, I glimpsed what I assumed would turn out to be just a bear-shaped log in the forest, but then when that log noticed me, he instantly leaped onto the trunk of a nearby tree! Then a couple seconds later after realizing it was just a puny human, he dropped back down and resumed rooting around on the forest floor, giving me plenty of time to stand and watch (and get some crappy photos) before he moved on. In all my travels and putting food in bear boxes, I’ve never actually seen a bear in the wild before, so it was great to check that off my list, and now interacting with one in real life will probably help reduce any imagined late-night bear-fears.

Then it was time to continue the rest of the 6000+ foot drop. Soon I came to the road construction area, where there was an automated traffic light letting one-way traffic through every 20 minutes. I had known about this for months, and actually saved some journal-writing to give me something to do during the break. After 10 minutes or so, we began the stretch of several miles of rough gravel/dirt/stone road. I was nearly able to keep up with the cars (and the 15mph speed limit) but I have no idea what a cyclist going uphill would do. Maybe similar to what some jackass who had jumped the light going up had done:  pulled over close to the wall, prayed that no one would collide head-on, and then, as I went by, asked “are there any more cars?” Not when I started, but how should I know if any are coming behind me? Jackass.

The rest of the descent was a lot easier, but not a whole lot more fun. Way too many 10mph switchbacks meant that I was on my brakes much of the time. I keep trying to heed the signs that say “Use Lower Gear”, but for some reason that doesn’t seem to have any effect!

Moro Rock

In the final stages, I went by Lake Kaweah, which, as a dammed Sierra river, is quite similar to Pine Flat Lake, but somehow much less foreboding. Maybe it was all the bright green vegetation in the broad valley.

Once past the dam, I was down again at 500 feet in the Central Valley, in the fruit orchards of Lemon Cove. Oranges and olives were also popular choices. I had some long flat sections, making for the first time in days when I could crank along at an easy 18mph, rather than alternating between grinding at 5mph and coasting at 30mph.

I was feeling so strong that I skipped any potential stops in Lemon Cove and headed off onto 27 miles of deserted backroad through the Yokohl Valley. It was mile after mile of sun-parched yellow rangeland, with cattle huddled in the small bit of shade provided by the rare trees.  It was again hovering around and above 100 degrees the whole way through, but I seemed to be tolerating it much better than before. In the dryness, and moving faster than 5mph, sweat works very efficiently to cool the body, which surely helped. Like Lake Kaweah, despite the emptiness, the feel was less apocalyptic than the rangeland near Pine Flat Lake. There were nice gates and fences in this area, and no Nazis. Though at one point I saw what I’m pretty sure was gang graffiti on some boulders in the middle of nowhere, which made me wonder what really goes on out here. The worst part was that I underestimated the 2300 foot climb out of the valley by some 800 feet.

That meant that despite my efficiency, I had drained all my water bottles by the time I reached Springville, and when I stopped at the small diner there, asked them to just bring me a whole pitcher of water. In addition to my sub sandwich, they had soda floats with your selection of retro/bottled sodas, and oh man, was that good (I had a Sprecher Cherry Cola). Going back out to my bike sitting in the sun, its thermometer read 115, and when I poured another pitcher of ice water into my empty bottles, steam came pouring back out the top.

Then I was faced with a decision. Despite how good I felt, it was 3pm, and I had a 3900 foot climb left on my route, in this blazing heat. I briefly considered just taking a motel there in Springville, but that would have left me with a 6200 foot climb starting the next day, or completely giving up on my planned route. So I decided to just go for it.

The route goes up the Tule River, which is more an endless series of small waterfalls than a river, and made me wonder why the hell I calculated the hill as only 5%. Somehow my hill knowledge, which had been right on so far, was way off today. But as usual, I kept grinding, taking breaks, and slowly but surely neared my destination. As not usual, I was half keeping an eye out for pickup trucks and would have jumped at the chance if anyone offered me a lift up.

In the end, it wasn’t necessary, and I made it to Camp Nelson under my own power, only to find that the campground I was heading to was closed. Darn it. I knew there was a motel, so I decided to just go for that, but it was disappointing both because it would end my record camping streak at 21 nights, and because I had read that in the campground you can actually sleep amongst the Sequoias.

I pulled up to the restaurant/bar, where the locals on the porch encouraged me to come up for their tacos. Sounds good, but I first had to ask about the motel. They decided that at $149, it was too rich for my blood, and instead recommended the $15 RV Park right around the next turn. Ha, I hadn’t even thought of that! I rolled over, caught the friendly owner out turning on the sprinklers, he found a nice grassy spot for me, unlocked the bathroom, and turned the hot water back on.

Sleeping amongst the Sequoias, or having a glorious hot shower after a 94 mile ride that I could stand under as long as I wanted? Tough call, but at that moment, the latter totally won. It was late, but I decided to head back to the restaurant to see if tacos were still on. Unfortunately they were closing up, but when I asked, the chef gave me one of the two plates he had wrapped up to take home, gratis. Awesome. The bartender had clocked out 10 minutes previous, but she was happy to pour me a beer and stay open, and we had a nice chat where she learned a bit about my tour, and I learned a bit about Camp Nelson. There was even a paper plate with some salmon on it, and they made me try some of that too. Once again, I got a lesson in how good people are.

I got back into camp, and once again knew immediately that the journal writing would have to wait until the next day!

29.8 mi / 3:08:03 time / 9.9 mph avg. / 2971 ft. climbing
Staying at Lodgepole Campground

After getting back from dinner last night at 9pm, I crawled into my tent and knew I didn’t have the energy to finish my journal entry, but since it was still relatively early I thought I’d lie there and listen to some music. Well, I didn’t even have the energy for that. I got my headphones out, but for a good 45 minutes could not even summon the motivation to put them in my ears and select some music. I would have quite liked to tune out the raging drum circle going on somewhere else the the campground, and I had the solution a foot from my head, but I just couldn’t do it. Eventually I just rolled over and fell asleep, and slept pretty soundly.

Today’s early-morning trek was to Grant Grove to see the 2nd (or 3rd,depends what sign you read) largest tree in the world by volume. Unlike the Coast Redwoods, which can be seen everywhere from the road, Sequoia groves are a lot more isolated, at least the really big boys. As hoped, I was the only one there, and I sat on a bench, ate some breakfast, and tried to comprehend the size of this 273 foot high, 40 foot wide tree. It really needs a house sitting right next to it to give you a sense of scale. What finally helped was imagining how much of an effect I would have if I spent a day whacking it with an ax. The answer I came to was “no effect”.

Today was to be short day, so after returning to camp and finishing up last night’s entry, I finally rolled out at 10am, but then to only use the WiFi at Grant Village. My stomach still wasn’t feeling quite right, but it was better than the day before. And all of today was between 6600 and 7600 feet, so heat would not be an issue. Nonetheless, I still felt tired and slow for the 30 mile ride.

Part way through, at an overlook revealing distant peaks of the High Sierras on the opposite side of Kings Canyon, I met a guy who, shortly after asking about my ride, immediately offered me one of the jelly donuts from his bag of donuts. Um, sure, I’d be a terrible touring cyclist to turn down a donut! Then he even supplied a wet nap, and when I was about to leave, went back in his car to offer a peach and plum he had just bought. After he insisted, I took the plum, but left him the peach. It was really good later on.

Most of the way through the day, I noticed that I would be fitting 3000 feet of climbing into this 30 mile day, so maybe I wasn’t quite as tired as I thought I was. But I still think I’m not at 100%. Like yesterday, there was nothing flat, but at least there were downhills mixed with the uphills. And the National Park/Forest land at this elevation was far prettier than yesterday.

I got into camp at 2pm, left a note for Dennis, and went back down to the market to do laundry and eat some food. What? A note for Dennis? Yes, he was going to be joining me in camp tonight! He is out in Milpitas for two weeks for work, and brought his bike with him. Originally he was planning a weekend overnight down to Santa Cruz, but changed his plan to join me here, driving and parking at 4000 feet, then riding up the rest of the way. Isn’t that cool? Thinking about seeing him tonight definitely helped during the ride when I was feeling most worn-out.

I finished my load of laundry (a mere $1.75 for the whole wash-and-dry), and 3 slices of pepperoni pizza (an outrageous $17, they must figure people will do their laundry after seeing the low price and then get some pizza while they wait!) Dennis hadn’t found me yet, so I went back to the campsite, only to find that he had arrived, which was good, but he was nowhere to be found. So back again to the village where we must have just crossed paths the first time, I found him just wrapping up some snacks. It was great seeing a familiar face. We got some provisions (including beers!) and headed back to the site.

By that time, the campground was full, so it’s a good thing I got there as early as I did! The park newspaper actually says that the campgrounds rarely fill, which, if they printed it, I interpreted to mean they never fill. And this was the end of the season where things have already started shutting down (including other campgrounds in the park, which is part of the problem, of course). Even an employee at the store remarked that it had been dead up until this weekend when it suddenly got crazy. I wonder if the hantavirus scare at Yosemite has ended up redirecting traffic to the next closest park?

When I arrived at our site initially, a family at the next site over was walking right through the middle of ours to get to the bathroom. Okay, they’re used to having no one here, that’s fine. But then even after I set up my tent, defining our site a bit, they kept walking right next to it. So then when Dennis arrived, and set up his bivy sack 5 feet from my tent, and I saw them walk right between our tents, I mentioned this odd/funny behavior to him. To put a stop to it, he sort of positioned his bike to block that path. So then later on that night, we couldn’t stop laughing when, while sitting at the picnic table, we watched the woman avoid the bike, but nevertheless walk by within a foot of Dennis’s bivy sack on the other side! Some people! Otherwise they seemed quite normal, and I’d even talked to them a bit  about my trip, but somehow they had no campground etiquette. It wasn’t even that much of a shortcut vs. taking the road like a civilized person! Someone may have even walked right by Dennis’s head later on when the he was inside his bivy, but I forgot to ask him in the morning.

51.86 mi / 6:10:2i6 time / 8.3 mph avg. / 7487 ft. climbing
Staying at Azalea Campground

The picnic-table sleeping worked just fine, I got a good sleep though it did get cool enough that I had to use my sleeping bag and not just the liner. Unfortunately I woke with a bit of an upset stomach, which was distressing because it brought back memories of food poisoning on my first tour and how swiftly and utterly it decimated my perfectly-running engine. I definitely don’t have time for any engine breakdowns; on the contrary, today I need my engine running almost as strongly as yesterday!

The first 10 miles wound me around all the branches of Pine Flat Lake, mostly keeping me some 1000 feet above the water level. The whole stretch was again devoid of nearly all traffic. There are people who live in this area, though I’m not really sure why. It’s not like they live “on the lake”, they live on some dried-out hill way above the lake. I did pass one property with a pen of black pigs in the front, two vicious black dogs that luckily were held by the decrepit fence, and a black pickup truck with a swastika proudly painted on the door. I guess I know why they live here.

First breakfast went down fine, but as I rode along it wasn’t pleasant to think about what I wanted to eat for second breakfast. But I knew I needed the calories. When I arrived at Doyal’s Store in Piedra, there was a pow-wow going on out front. It turns out the guy who leases the building is being evicted, and they were in the process of shutting down the store. Luckily for me half the shelves were still there and they were still open for business, but it might be trouble for a touring cyclists who comes by on this route next week, because there just aren’t many services in this area. The milk and granola bars and Rice Krispie Treats I got went down ok, so that was good news. Next to the store is the library, and together they comprise the only two non-movable buildings in the “town” of Piedra. It looked like it was open about 8 hours a week, but their WiFi was open and worked from outside so that was plenty for me.

Piedra was at 540 feet, and I basically had to travel down and west to it just so I could cross over the river draining Pine Flat Lake, and then I would head back east upstream on the southern side. That “easy” climb of the day might have been as hard as the one 4 times bigger. 1200 feet at 8%, and since it was still a local backroad (with more free-ranging cattle), the grades were much steeper than on state or national highways. It seemed to achieve that 8% by alternating between 6% and 10%, which at least gave me a chance to “rest” on the easy sections.

Coming down the other side, I went a bit off-route to Squaw Valley, because I knew I would need to refuel for the big climb. It was only 11:30, but my stomach seemed ok, and the pastrami sandwich I got at Bear Valley Pizza went down fine. The problem was the 3 glasses of Pepsi I had, which tasted so good in the already-hot morning, but would keep me filled with bubbles for the rest of the day.

Then I started the 5200 foot climb up to Kings Canyon National Park. Unlike the backroad climbs, this was a long, steady, 20-mile mid-grade (5%) climb the whole way, much like my climb up to Lassen. Except here, my thermometer hovered around the 100 degree mark and the pine-tree shade didn’t appear to cool things down until I got well over 1000 feet. With the heat, the climbing, the load of Pepsi, and probably my continuing stomach issues, it was difficult to be consuming the calories I ought to for such a climb. I was lucky to be able to refill my bottles at the Snowline Motel, one of the only places along the upper stretches, because I definitely was going through the water.

In short, it was brutal, and at least as hard as the day before, even though it was only half the distance. And that doesn’t even include the gnats. Ohh, you little fuckers. For hours they swarmed my head as I toiled on at 5.5 mph, buzzing around my eyes and ears and nose and mouth, making me jerk about, close my eyes, change my breathing, and expend even more energy than I already was. After half an hour of that, my clouded brain finally remembered I had insect repellant, but if anything, that just seemed to attract more of them. I tried to cut them a deal: if you want to eat my sweat, have at it! Land on my face, and suck away, I won’t even try to slap you! But no, the little assholes in their evolutionary idiocy just keep flying and circling and buzzing for no purpose but to annoy me. I unintentionally tried inhaling/eating them as a method of control, but that was ineffective against their numbers and just made me cough and choke. When I finally reached the park entrance station, I mentioned them to the lady taking my money, and she said “hold on” and ran to grab me a dryer sheet from her pack, which she said seems to have some effect on them. They had mostly gone away at that elevation, but I likely will have another chance to see if it works.

I was pretty beat, so I slowly set up camp, and then went back out to Grant Village to get dinner at the park restaurant. It’s a relatively fancy place in terms of menu, and I got the braised short ribs with cream of asparagus soup. I was still feeling bloated, so it was hard work and took a long time, but it tasted really good and I finally got it all down. A German couple at the next table, Walter and Elizabeth, who had seen me on the road up (a whole lot of people mentioned that!) started asking me about my trip and eventually invited me to pull my chair over and join them at their table. They got me another beer (I was drinking Sierra Nevada and the Germans were drinking Budwiser!) and we talked for probably an hour about traveling, politics (American and European), and various other topics. So that was a nice end to a rough day, and even gave time to let my food settle a bit.

This shirt was clean yesterday

100.4 mi / 8:10:56 time / 12.2 mph avg. / 7618 ft. climbing
Staying at Trimmer Springs Campground, Pine Flat Lake Recreation Area

Yeah, so that’s why I needed to eat and rest yesterday. A fully-loaded century, through the Sierra Nevada mountains, with over 7500 feet of climbing. Riding from sunrise to sunset. By the numbers, it should have been one of the hardest days I ever did on a bicycle, but surprisingly, it wasn’t. Apparently all the hard work of the past 3 weeks made the hard work of today easy.

Well, “easy” is a bit of a stretch.

Since I knew today would be a long one, I was on the road before 7am. I got to see the Yosemite Valley softly lighting up, and got some different views because the one-way roads through the Valley take you on a different path on the way out. Tunnel View was the last sight of Half Dome and the rest; it’s sort of supposed to be your first view, as you emerge from a long tunnel and go “whoa”. But I was heading the other way. Cyclist tip: one-third of the way west into the tunnel, there’s a shaft that shoots off perpendicular, and leads to a rocky ledge where you could have your own, personal Tunnel View. It’s something only a cyclist would ever see, because you can’t stop your car in the middle of the tunnel!

So leaving the valley was a 2100 foot climb, and after that, they threw in another 1400 foot climb for good measure. All before 10am. After leaving the park, the route went down local backroads for almost the entire way. Traveling along the southwest shore of Bass Lake was the first of these, and it was in fairly bad shape and constantly curvy with lots of smaller ups and downs despite following a lakeshore.

In North Fork (the exact center of California, according to them), I got a grocery store lunch, but since the grocery store had no hospitable area outside, I went a few blocks down to the library and sat and ate it on some steps across the street in the shade, along with an old dude smoking a cigarette. He gave me some info about the upcoming route, and generally helped define the huge contrast between the rich Bay Areans populating Yosemite, and the survivors hanging on in these small beaten-down towns of the western Sierra foothills. Let’s just say that the 2013 Ford Mustang Convertible is not the Official Car of this area. The library had good Internet though!

Leaving North Fork, I bombed down an insane twisty hill to the San Joaquin River at 1000 feet, all the while being assaulted by a blast furnace wind flowing up from the valley. Unlike his Central Valley twin to the north, the Sacramento, there was no town like Redding at the San Joaquin crossing. There was basically nothing but a power generating station and baking sun. Oh, and a palm tree. Some contrast from the morning pines of Yosemite!

I had to take a whiz at the side of the road, and when I hopped back on my bike, suddenly I couldn’t see what was behind me! Ack, what’s going on?! My helmet mirror was missing! Nature had done its best to fight back against my desecration, and a prickly tree branch had ripped it from my helmet. It actually took a good five minutes of searching to find it, and it’s a good thing I finally did, because there were no shoulders today, and this doesn’t seem like a place with a lot of bike shops!

The climb back up to Auberry, some 70 miles in, went a lot better than I expected. It seems like I again have my body tuned to the point where the engine can run all day long. The tradeoff is that it can’t put out a ton of power, but that’s okay, because in a power struggle, these mountains will always beat you. In Auberry a guy mentioned that this was the coolest day they have had in some time, so my amazing weather-luck continues. I was expecting the last 30 miles through the heat and the hills at low elevation to be a brutal death-march, but it was surprisingly pleasant, and the fact that it was only 90 degrees instead of 100 probably had a lot to do with it. There were a lot of small ranches and farms, most of them for sale, but the people seemed friendly, waving from their cars as they passed carefully on the narrow twisting roads. And everything just had a golden glow in the late afternoon sun. The whistles from football practice at Sierra High were a comforting sound. I wish I could have stopped for some pictures of the landscape, but I was racing against the sun without a minute to spare.

The final 5 miles got less and less comforting. Traffic on the roads began to dwindle, the centerline eventually disappeared, and I entered an area with free-ranging cattle as the day’s light began to fade. I had to pass some cattle on the road, including little ones, and I was just hoping the bull was nowhere nearby. Because they threw in some 10-15% grades just for fun in the last couple miles, so I wouldn’t be outrunning anyone.

It’s exactly as I expected, but the campground on the man-made lake is desolate and isolated; figuratively, it feels more than 100 miles away from Yosemite Valley, and literally, it’s miles away from anywhere and anything. It’s nowhere anyone would want to stay, but today was all about staging for the climb back up to Sequoia. The lake water level is really low, which certainly adds to the desolation. But they have a free shower, woo hoo! I expected there to be no one here, but there is one other couple, which is kind of nice even if they aren’t social.

I took a shower and ate dinner in the moonlight, and am going to try my old trick of skipping the tent and sleeping on the picnic tables. It’s really quiet. About 10 cars have gone by on the road above in the 2 hours I’ve been here, and you can see and hear them from far away, and repeatedly, as they then wind along the twisting lakeshore for miles. Some yahoos on the other side of the lake just discovered the incredible echo, let’s hope they tire of that soon.

Day 16 and 17 now have photos, so go back and look at em again if you’d like!

10 mi / time / mph avg. / ft. climbing
Staying at Lower Pines Campground

Today, the first and only off-day scheduled in the trip, was a day to rest. And a day to eat. Maybe the latter being more of a priority than the former. I put down a quick 1600 calories before I even left the tent in the morning. Apple juice, banana, yogurt, 2.5 bagels, and a frosted cheese Danish.

Most of the campground seemed pretty accustomed to the “rising with the light” thing I’m used to, and if they weren’t, the explosive slams of all the dumpsters being emptied by the garbage truck woke up any stragglers. But hardly anyone was out in the park when I hit the trail at 8am. Which was unfortunate for them, because the temperatures were perfect, the light was beautiful, and there was hardly anyone else out there.

Yosemite Falls, the spectacular waterfall seen from the valley floor, has stopped running by this time of year, so I went to see two year-round waterfalls, Vernal and Nevada. Vernal is a thin ribbon that drops right down the face of a sheer cliff into a round pool, as if it wasn’t expecting the road to end. So it’s a bit similar to Yosemite in that way (but not in scale). Nevada is more of a gusher, falling wildly and then splaying out on a granite slope halfway down. The trail gives a view of both falls from below and at the top, so you definitely get your money’s worth on the loop that hits them both. Vernal had this really cool Emerald Pool at the top, and then a Silver Apron, which is basically the world’s most-tempting, all-natural Slip’n’Slide flowing across a sheet of granite. There are signs all around warning that swimming isn’t allowed there, because of course this Slip’n’Slide ends in a fall to your death.

At the top of Nevada Falls at 10am I took a break for 1000 calories of 2nd breakfast, consisting of the last 1.5 bagels from the 6-pack, some mini-donuts, and a can of sliced peaches in heavy syrup (and that’s the key, the store almost tricked me with some “lite” garbage!) The trip back was via the John Muir Trail, and luckily the stupid mule train headed down another branch just before I caught up to them. Around noon I rejoined the section of trail I started out on four hours earlier, but this time, it was crammed with people heading up, in the full heat of the sun, with the harsh light not doing Yosemite’s crags any favors. Maybe that’s why, yesterday, I felt like a lot of people I saw coming off the trails in the late afternoon had pretty grim looks for people hiking in such an awesome place. Start earlier, people!

So a 7 mile hike that took me up (and down) 1900 feet might not exactly be “easy”, but I was done 5 or 6 hours before I’d normally be done riding. I lazed in my cool, pine-shaded campsite for bit, then hopped on the unloaded bike to see if there was anything interesting at Yosemite Village or the Lodge. There really wasn’t, and surprisingly, the lodge isn’t quite the architectural centerpiece that it is at many other National Parks. But I picked up some groceries for another 2000 calories back at camp. Ham sandwich on ciabatta, hummus, carrots, a load of chips, and a Limited Edition Mammoth brew featuring wet wild-grown hops.

Eventually the sun moved around a tree and began shining on my picnic table, but I wasn’t done eating yet so I grabbed my beer and bag of donuts and walked down to the river, found a nice rock to sit on, and put my feet in the cool, clear, flowing water. Ah, now that’s the stuff. When I finished my donuts and eventually mustered the energy to haul my ass off the rock, I took off downstream, just tromping right through the shallow water. I climbed on top of a big old stump, I walked down the length of a huge fallen tree and discovered at the end that it bounced like a diving board, I walked under a bridge and listened to my voice echo with a little girl playing there, and on the other side found a deep emerald pool where I finally couldn’t resist anymore, took off my shirt, stashed my phone on a rock, and dove in. Oh, so cold. And the sun so warm. And Half Dome watching me the whole time. It was perfect. It seems kind of dumb that my best memory from Yosemite will be not some epic climb up a cliff, or visually soaking in an otherworldly scene, but simply playing around in a river. But that’s what it is!

I dried up, did some bike maintenance, then headed over to Curry Village’s Pizza Deck (which seemed to have an even higher German percentage visiting than the rest of the park that already seemed half-German). If I lowball my 8-slice sausage/mushroom pizza (plus yet another Mammoth beer) at 2000 calories, that puts me at 6600 calories for the day. The crazy thing is, it probably still wasn’t enough! I noticed lots of people with their phones out sitting on the deck at the building across the way, and hey, it’s because they have open WiFi! And the only power outlet I’ve seen in the whole park, and shockingly, no one was using it. I totally didn’t expect it to work, but it did. Service was a bit dodgy, which meant my return to camp was a bit longer after sunset than I wanted, but I managed to upload the last couple days’ entries. Back to work tomorrow! (no, not that work, the work where no one pays me and my accomplishments exist only in my memory!)

58 mi / time / mph avg. / 2500 ft. climbing
Staying at Lower Pines Campground

Last night I attended the Park Ranger Campfire Talk, because the amphitheater is right down the hill from the hiker camp, there’s a fire, and I still had a quarter of a beer and a bag of chips to put down. It was all about the history of climbing in Yosemite, and was really well done, even if the topic isn’t explicitly interesting to me. But one of the themes running through the talk was “why do we climb?” Even though they were talking about climbing with hands and feet rather than with a bicycle, a lot of the answers to that question were surprisingly applicable. I particularly liked the reason given by the junior ranger participating in the talk. She explained that she does it for the uncertainty. When climbing a challenging rock, she inevitably finds herself in a place where she’s uncertain how it will end. So it’s the journey to that uncertainty, and the satisfying return from it, that draws her to climbing. I don’t think that’s all of the reason for me, but it’s definitely some of it. It helps explain why I have generally designed each tour of mine to be more challenging than the last, which is a question that’s been percolating in my head as this trip has continued to push me to my limits.

But today was not about climbing, because it was another “easy” day. Starting at 8500 feet in the high country of Yosemite, I would bomb down into Yosemite Valley more than 4000 feet below. Only trouble is, they somehow still make you work in 2500 feet of ups and downs before you finally hit the real “down”. I had to fight the urge to do a hike up in the high country before heading down, but I knew I needed to keep the day truly easy, to allow my body to rest up. And I don’t know of anything that’s a threat to Yosemite in the next 20 years, so I can do that next time.

Since I knew it would be easy, and also cold in the morning, I took my time rolling out of the tent. Which meant that I was still inside when a couple rangers came by asking to see the tear-off flap from my self-registration. I’d never had that happen before, but I can imagine they get a fair number of people not honorable enough to play by the honor system here.

The best part of the ride through the high country was in the beginning, when each turn or rise in the road gave a view of a new granite peak slamming into view from nowhere. At Olmstead Point, I got my first view of the iconic Half Dome, rising high enough above the Valley to be visible some long before I dropped down into it. At one point I saw a deer leading her two small fawns through the forest beside me. A minute later, a car came up from behind, just as they decided to bound across the road. I didn’t know to make some sort of signal to the driver, or do nothing to make him notice the deer rather than me. I chose the latter, and luckily he was able to get on the brakes quick enough, avoiding disaster. But only one fawn made it across with her mother; the other made a horribly pained cry as she was left behind, and kept bounding through the forest alongside me, afraid to cross in my presence. Finally she dropped behind and I assume safely rejoined her family.

Later on the route hooked further north of the Valley, and essentially became a nice forest ride for 20 miles, but nothing particularly dramatic. The road surface was pretty dodgy and had no shoulders, and there was a fair amount of traffic; athough it moved slowly and carefully, those two factors combined meant that most attention had to be on the road, even though I was taking it pretty easy. I noticed that the 2013 Ford Mustang convertible must be the Official Car of Yosemite. I saw at least 20 of them before I started counting, and by the time I got to 40 realized there must be some explanation for it, but unfortunately I never ran into one of the drivers to ask. All I know is, better it’s that than the 1996 5th-wheel-towing F-350 diesel!

Finally I hit the real downhill, which I knew was the real one because it suddenly got hot, I went through the a tunnel, and then whoa, there is Yosemite Valley. I knew the cliffs would be huge, but they were even more massive than I expected. Even a FedEx truck that had passed me earlier was distracted from his mission and stopped at a viewpoint.

Once down in the bottom of the Valley, it’s a surprisingly long way to get to the end, much of it under a canopy of trees, where the mountains loom above you in secret. But then you hit the clearings, and there is El Capitan, and the is Half Dome, even more dominant from this vantage point. Rolling into my reserved campground at a nice early 3pm (which I was pretty proud to reach today considering I booked it 3 months ago and have been through 17 consecutive days of uncertainty-turned-to-certainty since then), I had a nice long chat with the woman working the entrance booth, who is an aspiring bike tourist. She mentioned that the crowds are suddenly down due to the Hantavirus scare, which I expected, but still, people are dumb. Oh well, more space for me!

I set up camp for a couple nights, then cruised over to check out Curry Village. They have essentially a mini-REI there, and yay, the first place in 200 miles with CR2032 batteries for my cyclometer! It essentially stopped working today so my stats are estimates; hopefully the new batteries do the trick. A shower there would have been nice, but not for $5! I got a late lunch at the cafe, and then rode around the east end of the Valley, both on the roads and the bike paths. I did a short hike to the currently-dry Mirror Lake, at the base of Half Dome. A woman told me they had just seen a bear there, but no luck for me.

I checked out the Ahwanee Hotel, where an older couple, impeccably dressed, stared grimly out of an enormous picture window while seated for their high-class dinner. Yeah, not the place for me. Instead, I stocked up on a boatload of groceries and brought them back to camp. I think tomorrow will largely be about refilling calories. Tonight, only 2 hours after my chicken panini and sweet potato fries, I put down another giant plate of pasta with the rest of that sauce, most of a big bag of chips, a quarter pound of baby carrots, and another bomber of that still wonderful Mammoth Lakes 395 Double IPA. I looked closer at the label today and saw that it’s brewed above 8000 feet with juniper berries and sage, and wild hops (when available), which goes a good way to explaining its awesomeness.

If there weren’t a couple trees in the way, I would have a perfect view of Half Dome from my picnic table. Instead, as it got dark, I walked 50 feet down and sat on a log in the middle of the Merced River, watching the last of the light fade on its ashen face.

Oh, and while there, I finished my beer and half a bag of mini donuts. While writing this entry I grabbed a bagel to munch on as I typed and thought, but suddenly I had finished the entire bagel before even picking up my tablet again. So I grabbed another one, and finished that about four paragraphs ago. I’ll see if I can save the rest for tomorrow.

No dramatic scenery, but if you’ve seen Ken Burns National Parks, you might understand why this was one of the most moving sites of the whole trip for me.

67.3 mi / 6:08:42 time / 10.9 mph avg. / 5964 ft. climbing
Staying at Tuolumne Meadows Campground

At 6 am on this Monday morning, 6600 feet up on the eastern slopes of the High Sierras, it was 36 degrees. I had a thousand foot climb to start the morning, and the mountains that yesterday were shielding me from the hot afternoon sun had implored their twins to block the warming rays of morning, so it eventually got as low as 33 as I rode. But once the mountains finally relented and let the sun pass above, it quickly warmed.

I rolled back down that climb into Bridgeport, where I stopped at the 1881 Coffee Cafe for three baked goods and (eek!) actual coffee (they weren’t doing smoothies for some reason). I spent a long time there Internetting and charging, since it was likely my last chance to be on the grid for a couple days unless I give in and pay Yosemite’s exorbitant rates for WiFi.

Then it was time for climb #2. When a 1600 foot climb that takes you above 8000 feet gets mentally logged as a “minor climb” for the day, you know you’re in the groove of playing with the big boys. In this section I began to see the true High Sierras rising to my right. I knew I would be spending a lot of time high in the mountains on this trip, but didn’t know how much of those mountains I would actually see rising high above me. Today I saw those mountains. And they made what I have seen before seem like molehills. I don’t know why, but it’s somehow counterintuitive to me that the Sierras get higher as you go south. But they do. And this was also my one chance to see them from the Eastern side, where they rise the highest and fall the fastest. The slopes are more gradual from the West, which is what I will return to after crossing back over through Yosemite.

The downslope of that “minor climb” brought an expansive view of Mono Lake far below. The low point of an endorheic basin (water comes in, but can never leave) it has these bizarre salt pillars growing out of it and generally seems like a place you really wouldn’t want to go for a swim.

Just past it is the town of Lee Vining, last stop before Tioga Pass, the trip’s biggest climb. That’s where the sequence of extraordinary events began. Actually, the chain began yesterday at the top of Monitor Pass, when the blonde with the calves recommended that I stop at the Mobil Station there for their amazing food. Say what? Apparently there is some high-end chef slumming it in a gas station in the middle of nowhere. She even mentioned fish tacos, which I may have mentioned are my food obsession of the year. Count me in!

Without that recommendation, there’s no chance I would have ended up there, since it’s actually outside the town on the south end (though directly on my route), and I surely would have stopped at one of the several restaurants in town and then never even noticed the gas station on my way out. The fish tacos, one with mango/pineapple topping and the other with some sort of coleslaw, served on a china plate at a gas station, were truly incredible. Even the beans were amazing. And the Mammoth 395 IPA (the US Route I’ve been on for the last day) was damn good too.

While I was eating at a table outside, a young guy, Colin, with an unloaded Trek, asked if I’d watch his bike while he went in. Sure thing. When he came back out, I found that he was staying at Tuolumne Meadows, in the Yosemite High Country, had just ridden down the 3000 ft. hill, and was about to ride back up it. My original plan for the day (and up until now I have nailed every destination exactly on plan) had me stopping at a National Forest campground just outside the Yosemite entrance and 10 miles short of Tuolumne. But already with my morning Internetting I had decided to shoot for Tuolumne (most of those 10 miles are after the pass), with the National Forest as a bailout. I said I might see him up there.

Just as he was rolling out to start the climb, he stopped, having a problem the the toe-clip on his pedal. A nut had come loose and gone missing. Well, I have nuts, and bolts, and all sorts of hardware and tools. So I gave him a nut and bolt and helped him install it, and then got him on his way. We talked a bit about good deeds, and I told him I was happy to have a chance to work down the debt of good deeds people have done for me on the road, even if just a small one like this.

So then it was my turn to start the climb, and that’s when I discovered that the Gods of Karma, ever-vigilant, are inexplicably determined to not let me get into the black in my Good Deed Account. Three pedal strokes out of the Mobil parking lot, a covered pickup pulls over in front of me with the driver motioning me to stop. Maybe he has some info about the climb? Out steps a blond surfer-looking dude, and he asks if I’d like him to haul my bags to the top. For real? His name is Erik, and he works for the park at, you guessed it, Tuolumne Meadows. I quickly ruled out the possibility that this was some scam to steal dirty camping gear, but I was more hesitant about “cheating” on the climb. Then I remembered that I had already done the same “cheating” with my parents hauling our stuff on the coast, so, yeah, awesome! But, for real? Turns out he’s a tourer himself, and his parents are even moreso (taking him on tours that he can’t even remember), so it was some generosity spanning generations. Literally no more than five minutes after my good deed, I was in debt again.

Even unloaded, the climb to Tioga Pass was still hard as hell (there were still points I was going less than 5mph), and I have no doubt I would have rated it harder than Monitor Pass. But oh was it awesome. Right at the beginning, in the hot sun, I got chills as the road pointed upward straight at the biggest mountain face I had seen so far. And then, unlike Monitor, this road is visible miles ahead of you as it curves around the wall of mountains, cutting into them like a belt. A belt with distant glints of sunlight reflecting off the ant-cars inching their way up.

I might have made it fully-loaded, and it might not even have seemed much harder in the moment, but I would have been ripped to pieces by the end. This way, it was one of the most energizing experiences of the trip, and after getting my photo taken by a park worker at the top, I actually found myself pedalling on the fast downhill. Grinning and pedalling. 9945 feet, the highest I’ve ever been on my bicycle, and more meaningful, I got there entirely under my own power after starting from zero, eight days ago, when I withdrew my hand from the ocean for the last time.

The truck was parked exactly as Erik said it would be, in front of the Tuolumne Meadows store. I grabbed my bags out of it, left a note of thanks, and then grabbed myself a bomber of that 395 ale along with other groceries. The campground has a “hiker” section rather than a “hiker/biker” section, but they let cyclists stay there too for the same $5. I found Colin there, we shared a high-five for a mutual job well done, and then I explained how I was able to get there not too far behind him.

The hiker area is huge, with probably 20 specific individual tables/fire rings/bear boxes, and it’s at least half-filled. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a hiker in a hiker/biker site, but here it’s nothing but hikers. Largely because it’s right on both the Pacific Crest Trail and the John Muir Trail. I chatted with a few, and they seem just as social and friendly as bikers. I cooked up some pasta (including a giant heavy glass jar of pasta sauce), popped open a bag of Kettle chips so taut with pressure I can’t believe it hadn’t exploded already here at 8500ft., and found that 395 to be the best beer I’ve had on the whole trip. Then again, my taste buds may be a bit biased on a day like today, with life being as good as it is.

74.4 mi / 6:55:58 time / 10.6 mph avg. / 6729 ft. climbing
Staying at Chris Flat National Forest Campground

Now this is why I came to the mountains!

After an “easy” day yesterday, I was up early again. On my way south out of Tahoe I stopped for real breakfast at Burt’s Cafe shortly after their 6:45 opening. Shame on them, they had neither WiFi nor electric outlets, but at least their French Toast was good and their milk nice and frothy. I tried finding batteries for my new cyclometer at a few places (which has intermittently stopped operating), but it seems if you need any kind of coin cell in this area you need to drive 100 miles to some big city.

Ten miles in I began the first big climb of the day, 1300 ft. of 6% to Luther Pass. So not a whole lot of work, and it had the unusual feature of a perfectly flat top for a few miles before the descent appeared, as the road passed along a beautiful alpine meadow.

Then came the big one, Monitor Pass, 2500 ft. of 7%. I had read some people who called it the toughest climb on the route, even though tomorrow’s climb into Yosemite is taller. In the tiny but busy hamlet of Markleeville, between the two passes, I overheard a few local women determining that the sirens and helicopter from last night were a medivac operation for a couple of motorcyclists who had gone off the edge up there. “Usually there’s no medivac when that happens because no one survives.” Gulp.

My plan was to break it into 600 foot sections, with breaks in between. Unfortunately the road designers threw in a section of 10-12% right near my first stopping point, so there was no way I could stop there, though continuing on was extremely difficult too. That put some serious fear into me.

Once I restarted it flattened a bit, but I kept the speed at 4-5mph, in my lowest gear, always waiting for the next section where I would need to give it my all to maintain forward momentum. But luckily, it never really came, and the top came before I was even expecting it. What a great feeling that is.

Usually on a climb like this, I need to constantly give myself fuel at every stop to maintain my energy output, but somehow on this one I got through it with only a Clif Bar and a fruit cup. Perhaps my spirit was being fueled by non-food sources, such as:

– The two young bald eagles crying out in their nest, as their parents, white heads and tails sharp against the clear blue sky, wheeled above them.
– The single bright yellow aspen leaf that fluttered down from above, tracking my 4mph movement before settling on the black road just in front of me.
– The mountains. Oh my god, the mountains. The climb is quite exposed, which means that once I got up there, I could see dramatic peaks all around me. Some of those giant peaks even seemed to be of a similar height as my vantage point, which is a feeling so powerful it led to trumpets playing in my head.
– The cute blonde girl with delicious calves and a British accent saying “thank you for inspiring us!” as she and her boyfriend cranked ahead of me on their road bikes. If there are more like her in that tribe, I may reconsider joining!

I actually met them again at the summit (they said I was only 10 minutes behind, which was probably a bit generous), and we had a nice chat after they took my photo with the impressive summit marker.

The dozen or so cyclists I saw today climbing the mountains seemed generally friendlier and more independent than the sub-tribe around Tahoe, though I’m yet to see another loaded tourist since leaving the coast. I’ve been on Adventure Cycling’s Sierra Cascades route for the last four days now, so I figured I’d have seen at least one, but no luck. The few people I’ve asked (like campground hosts) haven’t seen any either. So I was happy to meet these two, and as a bonus, have them lower my prejudices of my two-wheeled brethren!

We parted ways down the mountain with them going back the way they came, and me continuing onward; that’s part of what inspired them, they’d like to tour sometime because that means never having to turn back from where you came.

The descent was a thing of equal grandeur, but quite different character. 10 miles long, it got me a top speed of 45mph, way above my normal max. This is now the dry side of the range, so the view down from the top was limitless and breathtaking. Seeing the valley below from so high made it feel as I was flying above in an airplane. Or more appropriately, perhaps E.T. had taken a seat in my handlebar bag and we were flying through the sky together.

The bottom then was nearly desert, and reminded me of Arizona, but with bigger mountains. The next services were in the small town of Walker, where I stopped for a late lunch/early dinner at Walker Burger, a place that far outclassed the town it was in with its cool, shaded outdoor garden eating area.

The burger and fries and big Pepsi and big chocolate shake were really good, but they made the final 10 miles pretty tough as all that stuff was busy getting reorganized in my stomach. Oh, I guess it was also another 1200 feet to climb. But by that point the once-wide arid valley had become quite narrow as it went up the Walker River, making for more dramatic scenery, as well as an ever-present sunshade. The river- and road-side campground isn’t that great (especially for $20!) but I was happy to arrive with all my body parts still working after one of the toughest but best days so far.