Day 26, climbing, climbing and more climbing!

Day 26, August 1st, 31.6km and 1504m climb.

Well today we did something we've never done before! Climbed 1500m in 18km. That's a big climb! Not only that, we topped out at over 2000m ASL. That's also the highest we've ever been on a bike!

We were up at 4am and on the road by 5. The climb started immediately and was pretty relentless as you can imagine over that relatively short distance. We had anticipated it being rougher than it was so we were able to ride 90% of it (which I am also pretty stoked about given how much gear we have on our bikes!).

Something odd happened to our watches on the way up the hill though. When we got to the top, my cell phone and Gordon's watch said 1130 and our Garmins said 1230. We're not sure if maybe we crossed time zones. Anyway we won't find out until tomorrow as we are stealth camping in the middle of nowhere. 

We were planning to stay at the Oliver Lake rec site which is at the top of the climb. But when we got there, we realised there was still 100m or so of climbing to do and we couldn't bare facing that in the morning so we kept going. At the top we stopped for a while before heading down about 13km of steep, rough, rutted track to find a camping spot. We were glad we came up the way we did, it was much smoother we think.

We've detoured about a km off the trail to a wee spot next to a river that a chap we met coming down the hill told us about. We've hung the bags and are ready for sleep. Problem is, it's only 6.30pm or maybe 5.30!