Lakes in Calderas
· Jul 22, 10:58 PM
Oops, this post is getting a little old. I started it last Friday, but didn’t manage to get it finished. Ah, well…
Two days and two pretty excellent workouts. Thursday we (Marshall, Lars, Kristina, Taylor and I) went for a little roller ski up into Newbury Crater. We were all a bit blown away by the quality of the pavement (worn in chip seal that was more than fine for classic skiing) and the quality of the ski. I think we got close to 3000’ of up in 17 or 18 miles of skiing (map my ride thinks less vertical than my Suunto, but gives us credit for almost 6 miles of sustained 6%). The bulk of the climbing happened from about mile 6 to 13 and was a lot of grinding double pole kick. Except for Lars who out-toughed us all and decided to rest his legs. It was rather nice to find a new 2.5 hour ski here in Central Oregon. I will be back.
Thursday was fun, but I stepped it up a notch on Friday. I rode Crater Lake (the long way round – Diamond Lake, down 230 to 62, up to the South Entrance, then around Rim Drive East (counter-clockwise) and out the North Entrance). Since it’s been almost a week, I’ve forgotten most of the stories I had about the ride, so I’ll just do it with pictures instead. I did a good job playing tourist…
The ride started out with 27 miles of descending. Good for the average speed, then it turned up. About 13-15 miles of climbing to regain the 1800’ I’d lost, plus a little more. Just for good measure…
I took a detour and accidentally climbed up to the visitor’s center on Rim Drive West. It was only once I reached the edge that I realized my turn was at the bottom of the climb. Nothing like a half hour mistake, at least it came with a view, and the switchback climb was the most fun of the day.
Then I turned around, descended back to the start of Rim Drive West and started climbing. I was expecting rolling around on the rim. That isn’t exactly what I got. 3 climbs of 4-5 miles at 6-8% was more like it. After watching today’s stage I think those three would probably all count as Cat 1s. No HC climbs, but still, that was a lot for me, on my own, and starting to get tired. I think at this point it’s probably just best to go with a lot of pictures.
In the end it was 92.5 miles, 7500’ of vertical and 5 and a half hours … give or take.
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