Horses grazing with the Cascade Mountains looming
Amy with her Winthrop College shirt in Winthrop. Not the same places
An early morning sight, beautiful!
4,020 feet. Glad to be at the top!
Morning wake up
Our night in Tonasket was extremely noisy. Trucks roared by all night long and then we were rudely awakened by the park’s sprinkler system. Some riders’ tents were completely soaked. Not a good start to a 73 mile hard climbing day. The climb started at mile 28 and ended up being a 20 mile, 4 to 7 percent grade challenge. After climbing 4,300 feet I met Amy at the top of the Loup Loup Pass and we rode the 12 mile descent together. Again, the beauty of such a climb is the exhilarating downhill. After the descent into Twisp, WA, we had about 13 miles to Winthrop. Winthrop is a tourist town that looks like an old western movie set. However, instead of a dusty saloon and a general store there are trendy boutiques and a number of good restaurants. As Amy and I entered town a slew of fire trucks and emergency vehicles were speeding through town on their way to a large brush fire burning just outside of town. We could see the smoke to the west of town. I believe they were able to contain the fire in a few hours. People get nervous in this area after the massive fires they experienced in 2017. We saw much of that devastation earlier on our descent into the valley. Tonight we’re staying in a very nice campground just above the town. I believe we’ll all be in bed early because we have our last day of climbing tomorrow. After tomorrow it’s all downhill to Seattle, at least that’s what I’ve been told.
