With the arrival of rain and mountain snow, the mountain bike season for us is over, so it’s time for the Cascade Mountain bike wrap up post. It’s been a while since the last post, this post will be mostly the photos since then.
It has been a dry and dusty summer with very little rain. There were no major wildfires in the immediate area, but there were a number of fires near enough to fill the sky with fire smoke for weeks at a time. The fire smoke caused many days with hazardous air conditions and no bike riding.
The long, hot mountain days of summer do a good job of melting the remaining glaciers of Mt. Adams. The mountain snow is long gone with only the dirt covered glaciers among the black lava rock.
In the photo below, you can see glacial ice, which is a bit darker than the newer white ice on top, melting where it meets the sun baked black lava rocks.
With daytime temperatures over 90°, the daily mountain bike ride begins early in the morning. Most of the day’s climbing is straight out of camp so we want to ride that during the coolest part of the day.
With the tall trees and the sun getting lower in the late summer sky, some of the forest trails don’t get much sun and are dark all the time.
Many of the trails we ride in this remote part of the Cascade Mountains are not mountain bike specific and get very little trail maintenance. I carry a small ax in my pack, but this trail needs a lot more than that.
Here are some photos of the late summer riding as we ride around Mt. Adams for the melting glacier tour.
Overnight, the temperature drops twenty degrees and the sunny blue skies are replaced by clouds. The weather changes quickly here and so do the seasons. Just like that, summer is over.
It’s much colder at night and the days are quickly getting shorter. The leaves begin turning colors, which is a signal that the bike riding season in the mountains is over.
That’s going to do it for another summer of mountain bike riding in the Cascade Mountains. I rode as much as I could, which isn’t nearly as much as when I was just a few years younger, but that’s how it goes. This area, like the rest of the country, faces an uncertain future. Will we be back riding here next summer?
Heading south for our annual kayak fishing adventures, we pass Mt. Shasta, which has more snow than any of the Cascade Mountain peaks. Not sure what it means when the mountains in California have more snow than the mountains in Washington, but we’re probably going to find out soon enough.
Stay tuned for more mountain biking.