Vic pushing his bike out to the road
Turning north on twisty Highway 79, we headed to the highest point of our two day climb, just under 5000 feet. While I knew it would be cold at night, I never assumed that the campgrounds would be closed due to snow.
According to the volunteer rangers that took pity on us and rented us a cabin with firewood at Paso Picacho, Vic and I managed to bike into the worst snow storm since 1991. Paso Picacho is one of the largest and the highest of the campgrounds in the Cuyamaca Rancho State Park that runs along the spine of these mountains 45 miles out of San Diego. We were the only guests of the park that night. The wood stove almost thawed my fingers.
In the morning there was a fresh inch of snow on the ground. After a bit of consulting with the ranger on the road ahead and trying to figure out how low we’d need to get to lose the snow, I showed Vic my flawless hitchhiking tactics, and we threw the bikes in a passing car for the nine mile ride to Julian and some earlier than expected breakfast and pie.
Cuyamaca Rancho, Snow, and a Gruelling Start
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- Burnt Chaperal
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- Our Cabin at Paso Picacho
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- Vic pushing his bike out to the road
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- Snow with more to come
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- Snow on Banner Grade
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- Hitching out of here!
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4 Comments
Brrrrrr.
You look like you need some soup.
Certainly, this picture could inspire someone to ask, “Why leave balmy Boston?”
I never did go into my bag to get my socks out to wear as mittens, but I should have.
I was starting to wonder if you were completely without connectivity out there! Glad to see you’re hitting some nice biking weather (*cough*), although there’s a certain element of underdressed there! 🙂
Um, I am being a bit deceptive as I arrived back in Seattle on Tuesday, and am just back posting a bit.
Unfortunately, Blogger took out the tool that allowed backposting so it is a bit less than clear.
We found a bit of connectivity, but just like travelling up to Nova Scotia, it the posting of pictures that is the time consumming process and the thing that is hard to do on dial-up.