Monday, May 12, 2008

Three Pass Photo Preview - Part 2

Here are some more photos I snapped this weekend on our car trip our to Twisp/Winthrop.
Another view of the I-90 shoulder at Keechelus Lake - no line, but there's a rumble-strip at least:

On the way up Blewet there's this crazy little shack-looking thing - all rusty inside, looks like a large pipe inside actually. We stopped to get a close up of the thing, but you can see this from the road, it's on the left.


Close to the mine shaft thingy is this abandoned house in Liberty, an old mining town of 10 or so houses. We'll see Liberty Road on the way up Blewett, and this is what it has to offer:

Blewett actually has a great shoulder the whole way up and down, it seemed. And great views too!

There's another abandoned place just off 97 that you can see on the left - we stopped and checked it out - it even had bones in the yard! More great photos of abandoned stuff we found along the way (and the bones) on flickr.




Didn't realize it at the time, but this was probably a SiR rider doing the pre-ride! Heading up the big "hill":




More of 97, going up:

The summit at Blewett - 4102 ft/1250 m - wow. Just before this peak there's a ~1-mile stretch that looks much steeper than the rest. That'll be tough, but rewarding for sure.



Now the fun part - downhill! Get ready for 30 or so miles of this - perhaps I can finally hit 100km/h out here?


I believe this was SiR's very own Mark Thomas, enjoying the descent down Blewett.

More great views, still going down Blewett - this side of it seems much steeper - seems like this route in reverse would be even harder!

Coming down (or was it up?) Stevens Pass - lots of snow, but the roads were bare & wet:

This was coming down Stevens, close to the summit. The clouds/mist made it look like the end of the earth was just around the corner. There was a light snow/wintry mix coming down - would make the descent cold! Actually the air seemed much colder atop Stevens than the other two passes.

Now at the more-or-less bottom of Stevens, on Highway 2. This tunnel is short, but will still take a careful cyclist to make it through unscathed.

I took a bunch more photos, but these were the highlights. This weekend's forecase is sunny & warm (hot even!)

1 comment:

Mark said...

Yep, looks like me. Hours behind the others by that point, but enjoying the descent. I had no idea I was being stalked by a deranged fan in a car. And I thought the bear was scary.