Day 4: Jenkinson Lake to Silver Lake

Ride Stats:
Distance - 34 miles
Ave. Speed - 6.2 mph
Elevation Climbed - 5080 ft
Temperature - 61 to 100 F

Okay, so we were up at the crack of dawn, broke camp, went to the Country Store to buy food for breakfast and the rest of the day, since we knew that there was a huge distance to the first sign of any services.

The 1 mile climb out of the campground, up a steep grade, got the heart pumping. Then we chowed down a microwave burrito for breakfast (hey, the options were minimal) and we're off. We set out to try to get to Carson City, which was over 90 miles away. When Karl put our route together, he had no idea how tough the climbing was going to be. He reasoned that once we made it through the first 60 miles of climbing up and over Carson Pass, that the last 30 miles would be easy, since it was all downhill.

(sidebar: nothing could have prepared any of us for what we found going up to Carson Pass...there's nothing around Rochester that even remotely comes close to the magnitude of these climbs)

We turned on to the Mormon Emigrant Trail and started to climb...we didn't stop climbing until 34 miles later, when we cried "Uncle!", and adjusted our plans for the day.

At least today, we weren't giving back very much elevation, like we did yesterday (where we would climb up a long grind, only to go back downhill again and start all over...this can wear you down when you know that you're trying to get to a certain elevation at the end of day). We started at 3500 ft and topped over 8000 ft, before settling down to our campsite at 7500 ft.

We called around to see if we could find a room for the night, but there was none to be found. The only thing available was a campsite at Silver Lake ($27). The lady that helped us with the campsite registration took pity on us and offered the use of her grill behind her trailer, which was near our campsite. So, we quickly bought some hot dogs, bread, drinks and chips (again, the selection of items in these camp stores leaves a lot to be desired) before the store closed. We were literally 15 minutes away from not being able to spend the night at this particular campground.

The surrounding mountains made this a very picturesque location, but the mosquitoes were pretty bad. The lady who helped us out said the temps were getting down to 40 degrees at night! I didn't believe her. After all, we just rolled into town after riding much of the afternoon in 100 degree temps. Sure enough, the temperatures plummeted as soon as the sun went behind the mountain. We got down to 35 degrees! None of us brought clothes to handle this. There was frost on our tents. I huddled in my sleeping bag, trying desperately to get some sleep and deal with a rock that happened to be right where my hips wanted to go. [Note to self...bring a hat the next time I camp out at high elevations.]







Here's our campsite at the edge of Jenkinson Lake. My tent is the green one, on the left. We went to bed soon after getting the tents up. Then, around 9:30, a couple cars full of kids pulled up to the campsite right next to ours. It was a few hours before they settled down. Needless to say, we didn't get much sleep. Karl heard one of the guys say, "hey, let's go through their stuff", referring to the panniers that were hanging on our bikes. They never did...lucky for them ;-).





The sun just starting to come over the horizon, as we climbed out of the campsite, back to the main road.





Karl with his jacket on, at the start of the day. It wasn't long before things heated up.





Another beautiful day in the Sierra's.







This is a view of Jenkinson Lake, as we started up the Mormon Emigrant Trail.







The climbs got steep right off the bat. Here's a nice 9% gradient, to get your heart pumping.







We started the day off at around 3500 feet of elevation. My Garmin (sorry about the sideways view...) shows we're at 4110 feet, at the time of this picture. We would almost double that before we were through today. Notice the "Sunset in 10 hr 50 min" in the top right corner. All the years I've owned this Garmin, I've never paid much attention to that...until last night!







Yes, we morphed into pack mules, with respect to carrying water. With no services available for over 30 miles, we couldn't take a chance on running out of water. I was carrying (2) 25 ounce water bottles in my cages, (1) 24 ounce bottle in one of my panniers, and this 48 ounce bottle on my rear rack. That's 122 ounces of genuine H2O. Ian joked that he was the water-boy, in our caravan, since he was carrying at least 200 ounces!







Here's a map of the course for today. There weren't any tricky turns to be aware of, just a whole heap o' gut-busting elevation.







My bike...fully loaded. This 90-pound monster is hard to balance at low-speeds, especially with all of the weight on the front wheels. Ian referred to my bike as the Big Rig...with the rusty chain. (it's not really rusty, Ian just knows exactly which buttons to press with me, to get me going :)







It's a shame I didn't put something next to this huge pine cone to show how big it really is. These things are huge! This particular one was about a foot long. We saw one on the shoulder of the road, right where we were riding. If you were hit with one of these, you might be in a world of hurt.







Karl and Ian, still smiling! (it's early...smiles turned to tears later in the day :(







The mighty Sierra's. You can still see snow up there.







For those of you who ride bikes, you'll recognize this particular gear combination (small chainring up front, and large cog in back) as the Granny Gear. We were all riding in our granny gears for much of the day. I had some chatter in my granny gear, so I started messing with the derailleur. I ended up making it worse, in fact I threw the chain into the spokes...twice! This could've broken a spoke, had I not unclipped quickly. I told Ian and Karl to keep going, while I resolved the issue. After a half-hour, I still wasn't happy with it, so I had to ride the rest of the day without going into my granny gear, for fear of breaking a spoke.







Pictures don't come close to capturing the beauty of the scenery we experienced.







Yeah, 8000 feet! The effects of climbing at this altitude were very obvious...I felt it in my breathing...like I was never able to fill my lungs...does that make sense to anyone?!







That patch of blue down there is Silver Lake...our destination for today. The driveway into the Plasses Resort was a steep, mile-long downhill run that dropped you 500 feet in elevation...we would not appreciate this climb the next morning.