home safe.

was intimidated from the start,
rightfully so. gizmotic stats,
loose highlights, more later..

day 1:
78mile (70 of it road/pave' to Spruce)
6:45am-7:45pm, 8k of climbing. 3hrs
chill spin to Monterey, then rain for 2ish
hours until the final climb up to Spruce.
$$$$pruceberries were harvested, camp
over on the Allegheny, after that damn
swim hole hike a bike. Build a small fire.

day 2:
7:45 am depart, 2am arrivee', 95+mile.
highlights: Allegheny wake up, brunch
in Seneca following a pesky early morning
flat. Hot climb up 33, Gnarl was bigtime
payoff. Broken rack bolt dropping off the
spine tested the ziptie repair theory.
Follow that directly with a broken band
clamp, ziptie repair #2. Exit the Gnarl
8pm. Find a spring, into the fading light
Smokehole, make Franklin 11:30pm, push
on to picnic table camp in Brandywine, 2am.
18hrs out in it, 10kish climbing.

day 3:
8:30 depart. 60miles covered, 7k climbed,
back at the car 10pm. SMT from HighKnob
to DeathStar turnoff and hiking up TearJacket
were character builders for sure. Autobahn
and SMT to 10.5mile intersection were well
worth the price of admission, as always. Then
it got chilly and rained, from 6:45pm until the
subtle muted sunset around 8ish. Car wash
city down Jerkemtight, I really like my new
rain jacket, that was a looooong hour. Found
the limits of the little EOS light for sure, fog
didn't help much. Warmed up in the car,
drank some beer, ate some food, slept.

236mile loop.
25k of climbing.
78 in 13
98 in 18
60 in 13.5

learned a lot. I'm hungry,
got a few pictures to
sort through.