Angeles Crest Highway extends from La Canada (near downtown Los Angeles) to the Mojave Desert, crossing the San Gabriel Mountains. It's a playground for motorists, motorcyclists and bicyclists alike, and the springing off point for a lot of other outdoor adventures.
A bud of mine wanted to ride across the entire length ... all the way to Highway 138. That's about 130 miles. It sounded like a good training ride, so I was in. With all the climbing we had to do (it ended up at 14,300 feet), we thought an early start was a good idea, so we clipped in at 6:30 and took off.
Nothing on Angeles Crest is steep ... it's pretty much 3-7% the whole way. And it's not one of those simple up and down routes. There are several ascents and descents to get to the high point at Dawson Saddle (7900 feet) from both directions. The weather? Frankly, it was perfect. And as it turns out, almost NO traffic all day. I have no idea why.
Here is the route:
http://ridewithgps.com/routes/2822957
We got to the top of the first big climb at RedBox pretty quickly.
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From there, there is a lot of up-and-downing, but mostly up ... until we arrived at Newcombs. God, I love this place. It's one of the few places along the Crest for food and rest. It came this || close to burning down in the Station Fire a few years ago. Pete doing the dog thing at the faucet:
From there, there is a longish climb up to Cloudburst Summit. Great name.
From there, there is another short downhill, then a longish climb up to Dawson's Saddle. We stopped for a photo op:
Great view of the desert on the descent:
From there, a longish descent and another climb to Grassy Hollow at about 7100 feet, where we met some friends:
And from there a loooong descent down through Big Pines, Wrightwood to the desert floor at about 4500 feet. Ugh ... now time to turn around and head back up over Dawsons ... that was gonna hurt. And it was HOT.
We stopped for lunch at the Grizzly Cafe in Wrightwood ... that was fab.
Check out the burger. Yum:
Long climb back up to Big Pines and eventually Dawson's Saddle.
And from there, a lot of up and downs (but this time, mostly downs) to the bottom. The roads were EMPTY, so we really enjoyed the descents.
In the end, we did about 130 miles and 14,300 feet of climbing ... more than enough for this old man, but what a great day!