It took a week or so after I was done with the ITI, I was starting to get ancy to get back on the bike. Tom M. suggested that we get do a trip in the whites, and after booking Cache Mountain cabin plans were made for an overnight cabin hopping trip. We ended up being joined by Josh S and Laura G, and of course Remus the Wonder dog. We left town early, and were on the trail in time to appreciate the wonderful early morning sunshine. Josh and I zoomed off, leaving the skiers to enjoy their trip in, and after checking the trail at the junction with the trail creek trail, decided to head in the “long way”, over Cache Mt divide, in the opposite direction from how the Whites 100 race course is run.
The weather was fantastic – warm and nearly calm. The trail was in great shape, and the riding was fast.
It was great to see the trail in a direction I don’t normally travel it. It was nice to be on the bike, though parts of my body (mainly my butt) hadn’t really recovered from the ITI, and were not happy to be going for a long ride. Fortunately we were not riding fast because as Remus’s speed was limited by the warmer weather, so I got lots of photo breaks.
Once we got past Windy Gap cabin there was 20 miles of trail I had never been on heading this direction, and it was fantastic to see the trail from a different perspective.
The weather was pretty hot, and Remus was overheating, so we biked at a very mellow pace. I felt a bit guilty slowing Josh down, but he seemed to be enjoying all the extra time to snap photos. The ice on the river near Windy Gap cabin a bit gnarly, but there was a nice (but soft) trail around it. The icelakes were wet and in a couple of sections very smooth and slippery. The ice had some fantastic colors, and in one place there were some little icebergs, something I had never seen before.
A short (and bad) video clip from the icelakes from JayC on Vimeo.
Remus enjoyed the nice long ride up the divide, and got his bounce back for the 10 mile descent to Cache Mt cabin.
Josh and I arrived at the cabin hours after Laura and Tom, and Tom was super excited, as I had half of his dinner. After a couple of hours of socializing, we hit the sack. In the morning, Laura and Tom headed out a bit before us, while we mellowed out for a bit, then headed out. Overnight it snowed a bit, and the trails had a light dusting of snow for the first 20 miles, but it was still quite fast.
By the time I reached the parking lot the skies had cleared up, and I was enjoying the sun again.
Thanks to everyone for making the trip happen, it is always fun to escape to the Whites!
PS: Alas, Google seems to be slowly killing off Picasa, and I have now switched to Flickr to host my photos. Hopefully that works out – I would love to hear suggestions as to good replacements for Picasa Web Albums.
PSS: I now have ~200 miles on a 1×10 setup with a Wolf Tooth components 42t cog. I am really loving it so far – if it continues to work as well as it does now this is a great setup for snowbiking.
Tags: biking, cache mt cabin, mellow, mondays, snow biking, white mountains
Good times Jay!
How much longer do you reckon you’ll have good conditions for?
The whites should be good biking for at least another 2 weeks, possibly more depending on the night time temperatures. The whites 100 is next week, so I hope that they are good at least until then. Last year the biking was great well into the middle of april. I hope spring is treating you guys well in Whitehorse!
Fantastic, Jay! Such a great trip and, yes, I loved going at our leisurely dog pace! Thanks again.