I'm sitting beside a campfire writing from Bromley Park on Thursday evening. We don't have reception here so this post will show up when we get to the next town in the morning. Sorry for the delay.
Today was a bit of a roller coaster. We started the day with some major descending to do after our Allison Pass climb but the Cascades weren't finished with us yet. We only reached about 950 metres before we were climbing again, this time to Sunday Summit. It kind of felt like a kick in the knees to climb a summit in the middle of a descent but at least we weren't starting from sea level.
The first few kilometres up were really, really steep and we were not happy. Flashbacks to our Allison Pass experience evoked our worst fears that Sunday Summit would be more of the same. Thankfully, it was not. The grade mellowed out and became, not exactly enjoyable, but doable. We reached the summit with relative ease and couldn't believe that the wonderful summit sign appeared so early. After the summit there were still a few shorter climbs to cover but we started to refer to them as "baby hills" (I think this is only because we knew a descent was coming up).
The descent took us through some of the most gorgeous scenery that we've traversed yet. We're happy to report that our wildlife encounters today were strictly deer and none of them seemed interested in eating us.
The descent itself was fairly treacherous, on single, narrow lanes with no shoulder or one so washed out we couldn't ride it above 20km/hour. Unfortunately we had to hold the brakes tightly the whole way down so we could be prepared to skid off the road every time one of the many vehicles whizzed past.
It wasn't until we approached the valley that we were able to enjoy some smooth riding on a less intense down grade. We pretty much coasted right into Princeton, picked up some groceries, and sailed out to our campsite. The cycling became infinitely more enjoyable once we reached the lower elevation, both because we finally had some warmer temperatures and because we no longer had to fear being edged off a cliff.
The mountain riding brought out all kinds of emotions in us and was a serious physical and mental challenge. All of your encouraging comments and blog visits have boosted our spirits, knowing you're out there following along and supporting us. Thank you everyone!
We've been finding it fascinating that within a day of riding we can see so much variation in landscape and ways of life. We can't wait to ride through our next leg through the Okanagan valley.
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