O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!

This post got a bit long, there are photos after the words that have captions for the quick readers. click on the photos for a larger view. As usual comments are encouraged and welcomed! Thanks for reading!
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I've got an obsession for using holidays as an excuse to get on my bicycle for long periods of time. Oh yes, I'll use any holiday, and it doesn't have to be Ameerrrican! You got a holiday and a bicycle? let's roll.

It started some Wednesday night over three weeks ago! One of my great friends, Matt, was over enjoying a meal and company. We'd both been really busy with different aspects of life and hadn't been riding together in too long! I had a couple races coming up and we set a date for October 31st to get on our bikes and pedal around for a while. We sketched up a "treasure Map", complete with six different inter-locking pieces that we could separate out and distribute to different places for safe keeping.


The routes inception

The route, dubbed "circa the towers", included 5 of the areas biggest climbs, all accessible by some form of trail, gravel road, dirt road, with only minimal pavement work. Up and over Galbraith mountain, then up Lookout Mtn., down Lookout and up Alger Alp, down to Alger, then a quick fuel up at the Shell Station/Blanchard Mountain Coffee Company. Up Barrel springs road to Blanchard Mountain via Lily & Lizard Lake trail, up to Oyster Dome, down British Army Trail and up a gravel road climb called "sick joke" that takes you up behind Pine & Cedar Lakes in the Chuckanuts, then down Hemlock trail, down to Arroyo park and back to Matt's place where we would find a crock-pot of goodness welcoming us upon arrival. We were guessing, over 50 miles and 10,000 feet of climbing? Galbraith, Lookout, Alger Alp, Blanchard, Chuckanut would be the climbs.

The anticipation built up over the weeks and we just talked about how great the ride would be, it was awesome. About a week to go we acquired a worthy accomplice in Chris. Chris and I got to know each other working at the bike shop together, but we spent hours training and racing together on the Western cycling team when he lived in Bellingham. He's since moved to the big city south of here.

The very day before the ride was scheduled, Bellingham was hit with a pretty serious wind storm, followed by torrential rains through the night. I love waking up and hearing the rain on the roof, but I have to admit I was just a little bummed. We were suppose to meet at the local coffee shop at 7am for an twilight departure. The rain was not letting up. Chris and his girlfriend Katja were asleep on the futon downstairs when I got up and called Matt just after 6ish. All I said was, "It's raining hard." We didn't talk much, just mumbled things about pushing back the start time an hour or two, hoping for a break in the rain.

Chris was up shortly after that and we set about making some morning coffee and a larger number of gluten-free pancakes. They were delightful. Between Deanna, Chris, Katja, and myself, we made easy work of the pile.

The rain started to let up and we even started seeing patches of blue! Phoned Matti... Meet at the spot at 10am.

We departed Tony's Coffee shortly after ten o'clock.

Climbed up and over Galbraith to Sudden Valley, then started the 6 miles of climbing to the top of Lookout. About 21-2200 feet of climbing later we emerged on a windy mountain top! We ascended through some clouds on the backside but the there were plenty more above us at the summit!

We set out towards the south tower of Lookout in search of a road (that was marked on a map) that would connect us to another "roadshed" that would save a bunch of time. We reached the South towers and never saw a road or anything! Lemons! Time to try and make some lemonade. We pulled up a satellite image of the area on Chris' iphone, bah, technology saves the day... this time... We saw an impression that looked like a road/trail that was close enough to the road we needed to get to that we could at least trail-blaze our way there. It was perfect! A 5 minute hike-a-bike lead us to another forest-service roadshed which allowed us to save probably 30-45 minutes of descending/traversing. Lemonade!

We ripped the gravel road descent, enjoying the views and skidding a whole bunch, when we ran into a nice Law Enforcement guy. Matt actually knew him, he was up checking out the hunters, making sure things were ok. We rapped for a bit then continued down the hill. At the bottom we emerged from behind a yellow gate, we had been recreating on Trillium Corporation's land. It's private land, but they also own Galbraith Mountain and encourage recreation on their land. (They primarily use the land for timber harvesting, but they also sell small portions to the private home/land owners.

So we cruise around the gate and roll down the hill towards Manley road, a paved road that will see us a mere couple hundred yards to the turn off to Squires Lake and Alger Alp from there. The mood is bright, smiling and warm.
We roll past a compound looking estate, huge white box building, kids kicking a soccer ball at the side of it! Awesome, kids know. We wave, and keep rolling down the hill.

There is a big truck, it looks to be hunters, stopped, talking to a man and a woman who are standing on the side of the road. The mood soon turns to lemons. The lady puts up an aggressive hand movement signaling we should stop. It is instantly clear these people aren't going to invite us cold cyclists in for some hot cider and corn bread with honey. Weak. Sour lemons. We were hit by a barrage of attacks about trespassing, private road this, take us off your websites that. Take us off your websites? We don't even know you. Ego's were so enormous they were clinically psychotic. It's incredible how when this happens, a part of you just wants to engage and become crazy with them. I think we tried to reason with them for about a minute? Maybe more? When the man said with quite venom to Chris, "I'm gonna call you a lier.. You're a lier." It struck me we were wasting our time. Matti had the right idea, he lead the way rolling down the hill saying, "We're leaving, we're sorry."

I'm not going to get into the details, but basically the people had no leg to stand on.

On with the lemonade! We pedaled up the road towards Squires lake, the sound of thousands of big leaf maple leaves rustling quietly under our tires. Aside from winter hibernation I'd like to think that the trees know the amount of joy others get from treading through their fallen leaves and are smiling down on the passers by. Lemonade.

The climb up to Alger Alp is great, first some nice single track courtesy of the Pacific Northwest Trail, then a short but steep pitch up to the top where you're treated to a view of Blanchard Mountain and Skagit Valley.

The next stop was the shell station in Alger and the Blanchard Mountain Coffee Co. Coffee and sea-salt vinegar chips were just what the body needed. More water, some juice and we left towards Blanchard.

It was just after 3pm when we left for Blanchard, Sunset at 5:52 that day we had no choice but to skip big mamma Blanchard. Lemons. We raced up to her foot and motored along stunning gravel roads, so smooth and clean it was as if everything was indeed how it should be. And it was! lemonade!

The last climb of the day is called Sick Joke. It starts out pretty mellow and then steepens gradually, until you reach a pretty tight switchback filled with huge baby head rocks and the grade instantly kicks up to around 25-30% Steep as poo. Lemonade. There is something amazing about digging into the body after 5hrs of pedaling, asking for a bit more - unless you haven't eaten/drank enough.

The twilight cruise down Hemlock trail was icing on the cake. Pedaling into Matt's driveway with the sky burning a brilliant harvest pumpkin orange was the cherry on top! Then the crock-pot surprise at Matt's house was the licking of the icing off the bottom of the cake box. Awesome.


We were treated to stunning fall colors all day long.


Cyclists sure seem to like coffee...


Adam and Audrey saw us off from the shop!




Rolling up to Galbraith


Others have been here, way up on the climb up Lookout. There was little/no water in this stream a couple weeks ago.


gleaming the cube


nice spot for an evening fire pit


Looking out


The hike-a-bike sweet as lemonade


Chris, showing how to properly crawl under a fallen log with bicycle in tow


Hang glider envy


a Matt in the woods


Someone's helping with the route up to Alger Alp.


Looking South-Southwest from the Alp, I-5 snakes into the Skagit flats


Slingerland


Velcro, the doug fir looks small from up here


perfect medium for blissful pedaling


Can anyone name the tree these leaves and cones belong to?


standard americana petrol stop


standard PNW petrol stop


Matti and the stumpy


velcro trying to throw down an spirited attack


a nice view of Alger Alp, from the base of Blanchard. Anderson Mountain is the slope to the left. In nice weather, Mt. Baker and the Twin Sisters are nicely framed by the foothills.


Starting up Sick Joke


Quality air in these parts


it's all downhill from here


three big bike dorks, stoked on life


cameras rarely do nature justice, good thing being there is always the best canvas


about 46 miles and just over 9,000 feet of climbing for the day! Too bad there wasn't daylight for Blanchard. For now, time to rest, lay down roots, energy to the base, then when spring comes again, energies will again rise earlier with the Sun.
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The title of this post is from a fantastic poem, 12 thousand snicker-snacks to who ever knows the name of said poem.