Last night it rained through the night. Our campsite was pretty muddy this morning as it continued to drizzle. We had decided to get a slightly later start this morning to allow things to warm up and give Sarah a bit more time with Ferit before they left today. We added another hour to that plan.
When I got out if the tent I realized that, like most nights, I had left my shoes outside my tent. They were soaked. I made my way to the campground restroom and dried the a bit and lined them with paper towels.
My tent was soaked on the outside and covered in condensation on the inside. I packed most of my gear and headed over to the camp village to see about the weather. While there, the rain turned to snow.
This is not what I wanted to see
The forecast was for rain until 11. I confirmed that the rain we saw was a full on snowstorm 2000 ft higher where we would have to cross the top of the park. Not good.
We decided to wait for 11 and hope for an improvement. In the meantime, I went to the cafe for coffee and a dry spot to sit and make a plan for storing my wet gear. On the way back to camp I discovered a wall heater in the laundry room and decided I would try to dry out my tent. It took about an hour but I eventually was able to pack dry gear.
Much better than wet and muddy
Eventually the time came to get on the road. The rain had mostly stopped and we still had time to get to our destination. Once we got over the top of the park it would be mostly downhill.
We were leaving cold, wet and cranky a bit before noon. Our latest start ever. Tempers were a bit hot this morning but nothing else was. I headed out early since Sarah climbs faster than I do. We had about 12 miles of climbing to get over the top.
As soon as I got on the road it started to rain again. Crossing a bridge, a car zoomed through a puddle and drenched my left side.
After not quite an hour the rain turned to snow and it was getting colder. I pulled over to pull on long riding pants over my shorts. As I did, 2 touring cyclists pulled up headed the other direction. They were doing a portion of our route headed south and had just come over the top. The information they had was not encouraging: it was snowing pretty heavily further up.
Father ans son bonding
Around that time, Sarah caught up and we headed up the road. We stopped at the Rim Village and had lunch at the lodge by a fireplace to warm up. The view across the lake cleared to the east while we were there but was still socked in with clouds and snow to the north. We were headed north.
Who stole the sun?
We got back on the road after our lunch stop to quite a few odd looks from folks around the parking lot. They looked like they saw something crazy. As I left I was thinking "there are only a few miles left to the top and then downhill. It won't be too bad." It got worse and the visibility dropped to less than 40 yards at points. When people were pulling over in their cars and getting out by the side of the road to clap, I realized that it was really that bad.
Yeah, this is not getting better
We got over the top and started the downhill tentatively. The road was now icy in spots and the visibility was poor. The icy road concerned me more that any of the other conditions.
As we were stopped to put on more layers for the long descent, Sarah asked "is this safe?". My thought was "down is warmer, let's go down".
We eventually got down out of the snow and by the time we were out if the park we were mostly out of the rain. Visibility was good again but we were still very cold and wet. It had been a pretty miserable ride through the park.
Other than one short hill we had downhill and flat to the end of the day. The plan was to stay at a motel in Chemult to dry out. We took photos and left a note for Randy by the summit sign. It was pretty anti-climactic after not having a summit sign earlier in the park.
Odd to ride downhill to this "summit"
It turns out he is actually getting these notes
We got to the motel and after showers to warm up, spread out all of our stuff to dry. Sarah's muddy, wet tent mostly dried out in the parking lot before it started to rain and finished up in the shower. The rest of the stuff was spread all over the room.
Motel room or laundry? Hard to tell.
We got a note from Randy. He had seen our latest note and was only an hour and a half behind us. We thought he was at least a day behind. He is staying at a motel 10 miles back but we agreed to meet tomorrow morning in Chemult and ride together to Bend. We are headed straight to Bend tomorrow on the small highway, bypassing a longer detour that we decided wasn't necessary.
Everything is dry, I get to sleep in tomorrow and we'll see our riding buddy again soon. It was bound to happen that we would have a miserable day but it is finishing much better than it started.
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