Day 4
From Leavenworth, I headed west up Chumstick Highway to visit Lake Wenatchee, another place I hadn't been to in a long time. Here's a view along Chumstick:
The little shop on the beach at Lake Wenatchee apparently still exists, so I grabbed some ice cream and enjoyed the view for a while.
But this was a side journey. To get back across the mountains, I was going to take Snoqualmie Pass, which meant heading back to Leavenworth and then heading south. After stopping in Leavenworth for lunch, I took off south over Blewett Pass:
After Blewett, I headed into Cle Elum at the base of Snoqualmie Pass, where I spent the night.
Day 5
Snoqualmie pass is a pretty low-altitude pass, only 3000 feet, and Cle Elum is at nearly 2000 feet. So crossing the pass from the east side barely feels like a pass. But, they decide to throw one challenge at you to partially make up for it: eternal construction along Lake Keechelus requires that bicycles be diverted from the highway. You have to take the Iron Horse Trail instead. It's gravel, and too loose to handle comfortably on 28mm tires. Eight miles of constant fishtailing aside, it was nice.
After getting back on the highway, it's a short climb to the top. The top itself was raining, but the descent dried me off:
I potentially had enough in me to make it home after the pass, but I instead decided to spend the evening checking out the town of Carnation.
Day 6
Now I had just a pleasant 50-mile ride back home. I got up early, and headed out along the beautiful Snoqualmie Valley Trail.
Halfway home, I'd reached a city I frequent, and I was about to stop for coffee... when I saw a group of 3 cyclists going by, one of whom I both knew and had chatted with the day I took off. He saw me too, and stopped. We were all going in the same direction, so I hopped in.
Along the way, we came across a
further two cyclists we knew, also heading in the same direction. One of them was on a loaded touring bike, headed for the North Cascades Highway to start on a ride very similar to one I was just finishing!