A Monster Hill a la L'Alpe d'Huez

LiveStrongrrrrl and I were looking at the map of the San Juans and came across Mt. Constitution on Orcas Island. It's a 2400 foot climb on a paved road to the top of the mountain! We decided to give it a try and took the 11am free cross-island ferry from Friday Harbor to Orcas.

The route to Mt. Constitution started of with an immediate climb of maybe 3/4 of a mile. As we proceeded north, the route was mostly rolling hills as on San Juan Island. We passed through the small town of Eastbound which had picturesque "old-style" houses, shops, and restaurants. We got to Moran State Park, of which Mt. Constitution is a part of, after about 12 miles. We stopped at a snack bar next to Cascade Lake and had an energy bar. That was a very good idea because a mile or so down the big hill started. A sign read 5.7 miles to the top with probably about 2000 feet of climbing left.

I told Livestrongrrrl I wasn't going to stop until I get to the top, but I did so less than half a mile into the trip to put the GPS receiver on top of the shoulder pad of my backpack to get a better signal (which didn't help much, but I was able to get a clear signal on the way back down). At that point Livestrongrrrrl passed me, said "I thought you weren't going to stop", and kept going. I caught up with her and passed her. This wasn't a contest at all. I would ride with Livestrongrrrrl if I could--in fact, it would be better for both of us to pace each other. The problem was that I have two front chainrings (compact) and Livestrongrrrrl has three. We were both on the smallest ones, our cadence was the same, but my speed was higher because mine was a little bigger than hers.

So, I kept going until I got to the top. It was painful and difficult, but I have to admit that I thought that a couple of spin classes were actually harder, probably because there wasn't enough air flow in the classroom as I mentioned before. After maybe 30 minutes of climbing, I passed two bikers who were on the ferry resting at a lookout point. I kept going and thought that I was almost at the top, but I soon found out that wasn't the case and it took me another 15 minutes or so to get up to the top. The last mile was mostly flat, but still very difficult because there were a couple of really steep inclines.

I was completely drenched when I got to the top. The view there was spectacular and I felt some sense of accomplishment. BTW, the weather was perfect: upper 60s and sunny. I waited for Livestrongrrrrl but she didn't make it to the top. It was a valiant effort however--she did make it to the lookout point where I saw the two bikers.

The way down was very fast and I was at Cascade Lake in 20 minutes or so. Livestrongrrrrl waited there for me but we missed each other and ended up meeting back up at the ferry landing only a few minutes apart.

What else can I say? The San Juans are spectacular--the views are amazing, the natural environment is clean and vibrant, and activities for the traveler are almost limitless.

Total: ~40mi Bike Ride

[Backdated on 06/26/2006]