Yesterday I had a fantastic and unique ride. Each year Lassen National Park closes the park road due to winter conditions including deep snow. With that they reopen the park in the late spring (sometimes early summer) after they plow all the snow off the road. When they open the first weekend the road is opened to bicycles and hikers only, no cars. I arrived Sunday morning at 7 am and I had the park all to myself, no else was around. It was cold at 5800' elevation and so I waited for an hour for it to warm up a little and also for some club members to show up. At 8:10 I suited up and took off on my journey to the road's summit at 8500'. I had the whole park to myself. It was a fantastic feeling. No cars, no bikes, just quiet, beautiful scenery, unbelievable scenery. I rode down the center of the road without a worry about being squeezed off the road. I never saw another living soul until I was about a mile from the summit, another bicycle rider coming from the southern entrance, I rode in from the northern entrance. When I reached the top there were three bikes parked in the trailhead parking lot, but no one around. Soon after four more riders arrived from the south entrance and then we were treated to the site of three skiers skiing down the the mountain peak. They left the south entrance at 6 am, rode to the trailhead parking lot, hiked to the top of the mountain (11,000) elevation and skied back down to the summit parking lot and rode their bikes back down to the park entrance. How cool is that?
I layered up at the start because at 5 to 8 thousand elevation it can be very cold, when I reached the summit it was quite cold and I was soaking wet from sweat. I knew that the ride back down would be very fast and chilling, so I sat around for a half hour to warm up in the limited sunshine between passing clouds and maybe dry out a little. Finally I mounted up and headed down the mountain, 3000' of descent for twenty miles, whoo hoo!!!!. Going down I passed many riders, including many of the club I waited for at the start. It was an awesome ride, one I hope to do again next year.