Washington State Passes

Today was a long day. We stayed a second night in our hotel in Sedro-Woolley, which was an hour-and-a-half from where I finished yesterday's ride. After checking out of the hotel this morning, we had to make the drive back to yesterday's finish. It was almost 10am by the time I started riding from Colonial Creek Campground. The first order of business was to start the long climb out of the valley towards Washington Pass. Other than a couple short respites, it was a 30(ish)-mile climb up to Washington Pass. It was never all that steep, but it just seemed to go on and on.

After cresting Washington Pass, I then had a 40(ish)-mile, mostly downhill ride through Mazama, Winthrop, and into Twisp. By the time I got to Mazama, the temperature was climbing under full sun. After a cool couple of days, I was struggling a bit. But I finished in Twisp with another 72-miles in the rearview mirror...and one of four big climbs in Washington now complete. Tomorrow will feature another big climb--Loup Loup Pass, topping out at 4020'--and I suspect another warm day with temps in the 90s.

One highlight of today was meeting and chatting briefly with another cross-country rider. I caught up to Dylan late this morning. He's quite a bit younger than me--maybe mid-20s--and he's bikepacking instead of staying in hotels/motels. As a result, his target mileage is 60 miles per day. I wished I had stayed a few minutes more to chat with Dylan and get a picture with him. I wished him a safe journey and we parted ways.


 
Beautiful mountain shots. The carless roads in these pictures are deceptive; there were plenty of cars whizzing by me all day today.

Lailla snapped a picture of me approaching Washington Pass

The summit shot.

Eating a late lunch after I'd started the descent from Washington Pass.


Comments

  1. LaillaAugust 8, 2025 at 10:16 PM

    Lovely two night stay at a new hotel in Sedro-Woolley, but a smoke detector was beeping for about an hour in the middle of the night last night.
    So far, we’ve only spent 3 nights in hotels and 2 of them have involved smoke detectors.
    I will keep score here in the comments and update as it changes.
    Current score is:
    Hotel Knights 3, Fire Brigade 2

    ReplyDelete

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