NEMY, NICOLA, HYLA, PAUL. MONITOR PASS. CYCLING THE SIERRA CASCADES. CALIFORNIA. U.S.A.

September 4, 2016

Day thirteen

It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves

Edmund Hillary

Oh what did worry me?

The road below.

Most trips I've  taken seem to have at least one defining moment or event that will still stand out years later.

A circumstance, event, day, a night that I look back in delight and even occasionally wish to forget.

Today's last ten kilometres will quickly come to mind when I recall cycling the Sierras.

Less than ten miles that I firmly believe that when I'm possibly in somewhat stage of old age dementia where my only rambling that makes sense to me is:

"no shirt, no pants , no service".

When the world don't make any sense anymore

I stare off in the distance and endlessly blurt out:

Monitor Pass.

Monitor Pass.

Monitor Pass.

My unknowing resolve will be that if the girls should be with me, they will turn to each other and without a word they will understand the often misunderstood.

We have already put over eighty kilometres in our legs when we arrived to the foot of the climb already a little too hot, a little too thirsty and a little too tired.

We knew what lay ahead and being the industrious gang that we are we decided to load up with water from the only source around, the friendly local fire fighters and forge on.

What one does today is all the less to do tomorrow.
Where one will hurt today will be the less for tomorrow

Going to sleep somewhere up the climb is all that less of the climb one wonders about falling asleep at the bottom.

Forged ahead we did.

Not quit summiting today, our next 10k's will take us a couple hours.

Life @ 5kph 

Fighting to limit the stops.

Mostly fighting to limit the restarts.

I come on these trips for some adventure and challenge.
As I believe for all of us, we will go home well rewarded. 
Here, as in other parts of this trip, rewarded in finding something within ourselves that we normally don't call upon because perhaps we didn't know we had or could achieve.

This is a test.
A test of our personal survival system.

A fight.
A fight for every metre as much as with ourselves.

Earlier today we crossed Devil's Pass.
This is just plain "evil" pass.

It pays to stop often. Here Nicola tops up her wardrobe with a random, quit appropriate, find.

One would like to picture a pro cyclist descending at 100kph with no time to transfer unwanted clothing to his or her's team car. thusly throwing all at will.

But we will never...

To be modelled later.

We were resigned to a stealth camp at the departure up the pass.

After coming out of the brutally steep canyon at the start our collective decision to keep pushing on in search of a reasonable spot was received with equal portions of 
"I'm good to sleep RIGHT here" 
and.......

Many times in my life I'm told to look up and its a good thing.

Not for both Nicola and I here.

Here a little of the road is visible on the false flats.

Further off is the canyon cut where we first came out of the high plains.

Things are looking much better here. This somewhat treeless terrain allowed for a view of high switchbacks from far below. Climbing in a forest at least hides the road(climb) ahead.

The shadows are starting to indicate that the day will soon be done.

Perhaps we are finding a Spirit of the West.

Here at one of our more modest camps, one of our simplest meals turns into one of our best. 

A quiet celebration of just being where we are.

A quiet celebration of being who we are.

A celebration of achievement within the strength of three. 

This is about as full of a day as we would want.

The result of a setting sun is all ready indicating it's going to be a cold night.

We will dine and dash into our sleeping bags.

Sometimes we find something we hadn't even been looking for.

A resolve, a confidence in ourselves that goes far beyond a bicycle and a mountain pass. 

Sweet dreams are made of this
Who am I to disagree?
I travel the world and the seven seas
Everybody's looking for something