Day 4, The Donner Pass, 8,000+ feet high

I’m tired. But very happy. Today was one of my most challenging days of cycling- strike that, THE most challenging day. We rode 75 miles and had an elevation gain (i.e. we peddled up a hill that high) of 8,590 feet- that’s a mile and a half upward! Typically the grade was 9-12 %. Remember, the teacher in the Zendo and the stick? It was like that. The highest grade I ever cycle at home is 6 or 7%, and to be frank, I try to avoid those hills. Today, there was no avoiding it. Most of the day was just plain hard work, 8,900 calories of expended work (remember, a calorie is a unit of energy). Our route wove in and out of the path of I-80. It was mostly through pine forest with babbling brooks and magnificent rock falls in the middle of the gushing waters. It reminded me of a place near his boy hood home that my dad used to take us to skinny dip. The environment helped keep my mind off the climb. At one point, however, there was no way around it, we had to climb on I-80. The shoulders were wide and in good repair, and the grade was only 7-8%, but cars really wiz by the entrance and exit ramps. ABB is very safety conscious, they pulled us off I-80 for half a mile where there was construction and absolutely no shoulder. We had to walk on the grass beyond where the shoulder should have been. We passed the Sugar Bowl ski area, where there was still snow on the ground. The ski runs where still etched in white. But there was nataural snow beyond some parts of our riding shoulder. We had to add clothes as our height increased. ABB had a van ten miles from the top with out bags of heavier clothes. In the morning it was just cycling tights and a jersey. At the top I’d added a skull cap, a fleece vest, and a wind jacket.

The top of Donner Pass was spectacular. The view of the mountains and the lake made me mist up to realize the beauty of the country. (It’s corny, but it’s true). We stopped and took lots of group pictures. I’ll have to figure out how to put more than one on the blog. The ride down was kick-ass. But we’d been admonished that it was a very technical down hill (steep drops into hair-pin turns) and this was not the place to go for a new personal best speed record. I heeded that advice. A few miles past the bottom, there was a state park with a museum chronicling the travels of the immigrants from the east to California,

Imagine the year 1846, when 89 people in the Donner Party (named after their leader), coming from St. Joseph, MO (where we’ll be going) set out for a new life in California. They made the mistake of trying to take a short cut through what is now the Donner Pass. (It may have been shorter, but it was 8,000 feet up. Guess that didn’t register.) The Donner Party had to disassemble their wagons and drag them over the mountain. They got caught in the pass during a historically bad snow storm. Some starved, there was talk of cannibalism, ultimately 49 people made it. We get to do it on paved roads on bicycles!