Artists Point

earlier in the week lisa asked me if i'd be interested in riding up to artists point.
we were going to take the same route that the Mt Baker Hill Climb race that is part of the Festival 542.
sure, i said. that looks fun. ok, so i am pretty sure earlier in the year charity asked me if i wanted to do the Mt Baker Hill Climb and i said no way, you're crazy, why would i want to do that. but i am feeling pretty fit right now, and its a 3 day weekend and i was feeling spontaneous so, my mom agreed to watch the kids for the day and eric and i headed up there.
i was supposed to do a hill repeat workout on my mountain bike followed by some hill repeats trail running, so i cleared it with my coach and she said the climb would be fine, i'd just need to do some work rather than just riding up it.
we stayed up waaaay to late, drinking lemon drops and watching the newest star trek movie. next thing ya know the alarm was going off at 5am, we were packing up the kids in the car and were on our way.
with no cell service in Glacier we weren't sure where to meet lisa, so we parked at the ranger station. eventually they came up the road already on their bikes and pulled into the lot to wait for us while we got changed. it was chilly but not necessarily cold. eric agreed to carry up a backpack, so we stuffed it full of warm clothes for the downhill, i mixed up two bottles of LUNA Sport Electrolyte Splash in Pink Grapefruit, even had to crack open the last of 4 cans for this ride. and we were off.
i used the first 25 minutes as a warm up. it was fun and not too hard and just up, but there was some down, and a stop light because they were doing some construction. we got stuck at the light and then after i started my first 30 minute hard effort. quickly i realized 30 minutes was going to be a long long time. the minutes ticked away, and it helped a little that the road levels off for a few miles, but it also made the hard effort harder because i had to shift up and really work hard to keep the effort up there if that makes sense. finally the 30 was up. we re-grouped and we rode together for a while, chatting along the way. it was quite nice to chat and go along, still working of course but social. i was on the fence about doing the next 20 minute effort so i though i'd at least try for 10. i wound up feeling pretty good so i got in the whole 20, but when that was done was when the road turned skyward and went what seemed like straight up. there is this nice little lake with a parking lot, then you turn and there it is - straight up. while it was very daunting, it actually wasn't too bad. at that point.
the switch backs get more frequent, and narrower and scarier. it was getting colder and foggier. i was pretty beat by this time. i had decided that i was too close to the top to just start riding mellow so i kept up a good pace but eventually felt like i wasn't sure i was going to make it. there were plenty of signs point to artists point but NONE of them said how far. eventually eric was headed back down the road and around a corner we went and there it was! the parking lot at artists point. i say it that way because that was all we could see. there was no sun, there was no view. there was a parking lot and cars and clouds - we were in the clouds! we quickly put on ALL of our layers, wishing we had more as the slush began to fall from the sky. we got a quick snack and down we went.
after riding Paradise that first weekend of March i wasn't looking forward to the descent. the first few miles were totally sketchy with the clouds, the slush the no shoulder, the drop offs... heading down in the first part we saw a guy climbing up in just shorts and a short sleeve jersey. HOPING her had someone at the top waiting with some gear for him otherwise, not sure he'd make it down. i was shivering so badly and my hands and feet were frozen solid that it wasn't necessarily the safest trip down. eventually we got below the clouds, there was a tiny bit of sun and i started to thaw out. the first part of the road that allowed for pedaling was painful, my legs were bricks and wow, they were moving slooooow. but it was nice to pedal some. i was starving by the time we got to the construction traffic light but knew we were almost done. the descent overall was way more fun than Paradise. the whole ride was a ton of fun and i'm glad i went.
not sure how i feel about the fact that my descent was only a few minutes faster than Russell Stevenson's winning time UP the same route the year before, but considering when we did the Paradise route his HR never even hit 100, i'm not totally surprised.
at the car, we changed into some running gear, ate a quick 1/2 PB&J and headed out for a 1/2 hr run. this was the best race simulation workout ever - my legs were smoked by the end of the ride and my feet were frozen. the run wasn't pretty and i wasn't able to do the hill repeats i was supposed to do, but i got in a few hills and managed to run, which yeah, well, it was hard to do.



ride profile for the Festival 542 Ride:

photo of the little lake and where the road first heads up into the SKY:

and a view of what we could have seen had the weather been nicer:

and a photo closer to what we actually saw: