Are You Living It?

We made an attempt at Angel’s Staircase last weekend.  Angels Staircase is the highest legal mountain bike ride in Washington State topping out at about 8000 feet.  I know all you of you Rocky Mountain folks are saying…ahhh that is nothing.  Well in an altitude sense that is true but in Washington 8000 feet is high and you climb nearly 5000 feet on all singletrack to get there.  If the trail is tacky enough this can be one of the best rides ever.  I had done this ride a few years ago when I had ridden more (This was my fifth ride out this season after breaking the old collar bone last fall) and I remembered it being not quite so difficult.  Here you can see Ryan on the beautiful trail in perfect condition:

After climbing for a long time but enjoying the scenery we started to get into some mountain meadows and what do you know, it started to snow:

It was very strange to see snow in August.  There was sun, wildflowers and snow all at the same time.  We finally made it up to Cooney lake:

Here we ate some food and got some warmer clothes on.  Unfortunately our next step was to get up towards that ridge and closer to 8000 feet.  Neither of us had come prepared for any really severe weather so we thought about it for a bit and decided to turn around.  The combination of a late start, lack of snow clothing and my lack of fitness contributed to the decision.  That said it did not take away from the incredible singletrack on the way down:

Post By: Josh Mather