Fellow Adobos, WMD (white mountain double) is tough double. on paper, everything looks
Doable but when you are at 8000 ft altitude and you are about to climb another 2500 ft to
Reach 10,000 + ft of elevation, I questioned Myself. What were you thinking before doing
This. Is there air in here. It felt that my pulse ox was only 40%. I stopped for a while pretending
That I was enjoying the scenery, but it was double take for the color of my nail beds to see
If they are blue now. Suddenly I hear my heart beats, not necessarily that fast but bounding
Really strong, Luckily I was only a couple of 100 meters away before we head down to the check station at the end of white mountain road.
OK the idea was to see this this "ancient bristle cones" trees that is about 4000 years old
And some that are almost 5000 years old. That went into a flash drive in my head including
A scenery upon descent, where I thought I saw switchbacks reminiscing Alp de Huez.
All above action was for the first 38 miles only of our journey. El and Joe Leon were
Descending from this mountain as we(Jess St Maria, Tisoy Adeva and yours truly) were
Just ascending. we started 0515 and Joe and El started an hour earlier.
Tisoy and Jess were at different zone. they kept waiting for me at each stop and I ended
Up playing catchup. Seeing that their momentum must go on, I just told them not to wait for me anymore. We regrouped and rode together again from Boonies mile 89, where we had
Our lunch to mile 143 and to my surprise I see them again at mile 163. They were having noodles. By the way along the way we had the chance to ride with TROPA guy name Ken B. From bay area But he needed more rest than we did. Back to mile mile 123, Priscila, the
Wife of the organizer Jim Cook, is of Philippine decent and she was very helpful and attentive
To our needs. I ate the killer PBJ sandwich , she made and her brother James fixed us also
Killer smoothies. I believe I had two cups as well as Jess.
All of a sudden at mile 163, we noticed this ominous cloud coming towards us. Lightning,
Thunder is happening along with strong wind. Only thing we did not know where the wind
Is blowing to. So we scrambled to leave at around 1900 and within a mile I got dropped
From strong pace of Roy and within two miles rain started pouring. so I stopped to put
My jacket on. My lights were working but my cyclometer ran out of battery, so I am guessing
My speed while enjoying the strong tailwind. I managed to turn on my cyclometer and actually saw that I was doing 26 mph, then it died again. Then the road just turned pitch black and I
Noticed hail slapping on my left face, so I fixed my helmet and rode with my head cocked
To the left. Then I kept hearing like it was a big creek filled with water just about to cross the road.I don't know, may be it was my mind playing with me but I suddenly got sacred but not
Panicking, yet. looking for signs of city lights. Nothing. I started to shiver from cold. Then a big
Sign at the side of the road Bishop 10 miles, so I guess I am on the right direction, route 6
heading south. Then a pick up truck stopped and offered me a ride to town. I guess Even looked crazier when I refused his offer. A couple of miles after that, the road is dry
And now I can see the beacon light from their airport, what a relief. Rolled in at 2105
And went directly to tub bath to reheat my self and got out just in time to join everybody
At Denny's and relived our adventure.
Congratulations to all my buddies and strong performance Roy for your first finished dbl.
Louie R.
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1 comment:
I'm glad we finished a little earlier. We were briefly with El off and on through the day, last saw him just outside of Bishop. As he told you, I'm sure, we had very little rain, just the luck of the draw.
Len
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