Loup Loup

What a name! Saturday's pass - yes, there are passes just about evey day now - was called Loup Loup. If we weren't so busy riding and eating I would look that one up. For now, though, I'll just have fun saying it.

We liked Mazama so much that we took our time getting going. It was another perfect weather day. We walked around the little lake at the inn & saw all sorts of birds & flowers. There was a washing machine in our room - what a luxury not to have to hand wash our bike clothes! (Your standards definitely change out here.) We went to Winthrop for breakfast since the inn offers only a light breakfast and we were afraid that would not get our legs very far. Eventually, though, it was time to set out.

After the two-pass day my legs were plenty tired and they protested as I began to pedal. Bruce's bike computer didn't want to work right. I had on my new bike sandals in honor of the warm day, and the cleats gave me a hard time at first. It felt like we might have a rough day. Once more, though, the climb was at the end so we didn't have to work very hard. Plenty of warm up time. We got back to Winthrop and stopped for ice cream. We rode on to Twisp, the home town of the Bike Friday guy, where we found lunch at a super market. While we were sitting and eating, another guy came along to chat & was able to describe the climb pretty well. Oh - and we had made a stop in a bike shop in Winthrop and heard about the pass there (7 miles, 7-8% - but again, the arithmetic didn't quite work). It turned out to be a really great ride. It was plenty warm, but it didn't seem to matter. It was never quite as steep as we'd been told and there were plenty of places to stop and look around. One place I stopped was by a creek & a lazuli bunting was singing away from a bare branch. In the sun its colors were brilliant. Towards the top there was a pair of black backed woodpeckers diligently tending their nest. At the very top there was a little bitty rock at the bottom of the pass sign that some cyclist had written on. It was really small, maybe three inches across. It said, "It was worth it, right?"

Yes, it was worth it.