Sonora Pass, June 24, 2001
I am not hung up on Sonora Pass. Never mind that it's the only ride on our website that gets four separate web pages. Never mind that I'll eventually end up with as many photos of this mighty beast as there are feet of climbing. Never mind that I wonder, each time I ride up this thing, why I'm there...and yet I do it again, and again, and again.

This was the first time I brought my high-resolution digital camera (an Olympus 3000Z) on the pass, so I've hyperlinked each of these photos to a much larger image that shows off the beauty of this ride much better than small thumbnails. Just click on any of these photos to pop up the larger version.


That's Wayne & Liz, who found out about our ride from a "friend" and decided to come up and find out if it's really as much fun as I've said it is! At left we have the obligatory photo underneath the 26% grade sign, and on the right is the approach to the dreaded "window" (location of the 26% grade).

Above is a 3D map showing the west side of Sonora Pass, with Kennedy Meadows at the bottom, and the road snaking up the mountain away from it. The fuzzy red area is the location of "the window" and its mercifully-short 26% grade. The actual lead-in to that section is about a mile of 14%, and, further up the road, is a 1km stretch of 20%.
	Well past the Window, we're now in Chipmunk Flat, looking towards the end of the canyon. Cool shot of the road as it does a couple whoop-de-doos (which will be much more fun coming down than going up!).
Here it is- the Window! Actually, I've had a difficult time each of my trips capturing the steepness with a camera. Your legs capture it just fine, though. What makes the Window so tough is that it comes very early in the ride, within the first mile or so of the real climb, so you have no sense yet as to what sort of sustainable effort you can maintain.

Another shot (above) approaching the end of one canyon, and the beginning of another...the dreaded, but spectacular, Blue Canyon. This is the location of the Golden Staircase, a series of very steep pitches that quickly take you from 8000 to 9000 feet. On the right we find Richard Brockie, officially the first of our group to reach the top. But if that's the case, how did I get a photo? Easy...I had a 26 minute head start, and arrived at the top 20 minutes before him! The head start wasn't intentional though- we'd decided to bring one of those super-duper water bottles with a built-in filter (so we could drink creek water, if need be), but it developed a split in its side just three miles into the ride, so Richard and Brian Krause, the other member of our party, headed back for a spare.
	Going down the backside (east) of Sonora Pass is quite the experience, especially after having survived the climb up the west side. It would be incredibly fun if you didn't have to wrestle with the fact that you would be shortly trying to climb back UP it! Road surfaces, by the way, are generally very good (but how do they pave at such a steep angle? What keeps the asphalt from sliding down the hill???)
We weren't the only ones out riding the pass today! Here's three cyclists who are just doing the west side today. Three smart cyclists.

You've got to see the bigger version of this photo. You just won't find scenes like this anywhere else, at least not so close to home!	Approaching the Marine Winter Warfare Training Camp, our traditional turnaround point for this ride (near the 395 junction). For some reason, we've never seen a single person at this facility!

Out of water? Looks for the Marine encampments near the road. They'll have large mobile water tanks you can use. Best to scout them out on the way down, so you know for sure you'll be able to fill up.	Heading west...and into the nasty stuff. Doesn't look too bad from here, but the road quickly curves up to the right and will get very, very steep. Fortunately, not a cloud in the sky, very much unlike last year!
	Not sure what this place is called, but Shangri La it's not. For a brief time you're rolling down this pleasant little valley, but at the end you see the wall. There's a diagonal scar (diagonal is being kind...it's closer to vertical!) that represents the final assault on this climb to the stars.
While the climb on the west side is pretty much one continuous grunt, the east side is, thankfully, broken up by a couple of plateaus. On the left we have Brian approaching the end of one of the nastiest of the climbs (OK, not quite right...they're pretty much equally nasty, each in their own nasty way!), maybe halfway to the top.

That's Brian, trying to convince his legs to cover those last few feet to the top. The west side eases off a bit during the last mile or so, while the east side just gets nastier. (This is a mandatory photo found on nearly all of our Sonora Pass ride pages)	Finally, a halfway decent photo of Blue Canyon! This is the most spectacular scenery of the ride, as you plummet towards the Golden Stairs. I've always wanted to get photos on the way up, but it's seemed like survival was more on my mind that photos.

The end of Blue Canyon, and one of the steeper sections of the Golden Stairs. Difficult to do justice to just how steep this section is! It's almost all downhill to the finish, although I did get to take an unscheduled stop when a yellow jacket stung me through my shorts (pretty exciting at 40+mph).	And here we are, back at Dardanelle, and feeling quite a bit better than on previous trips! The all-important showers are still there, but they now cost $3 in quarters (used to be $2), and the smart money says to skip stall #2, which has erratic water temperature, and go for stall #3. Based on a usenet posting of Jobst Brandt's, we decided to try the local restaurant and try their burgers. Funny thing happened there. The combo cook/manager/etc came by and asked what we'd been up to, and when we told him about our bike ride, and how much better it was than last year's effort (when we got hit by a nasty thunderstorm and couldn't finish), his eyes got big and he asked "You're not the guys from Chain Reaction, are you???!!!" Turns out he'd looked up Sonora Pass on the 'web before deciding to head up there for work, and was fascinated by our website!
That's Brian Krause on the left, Richard Brockie right.
Don't know if that was the reason for the special on a side salad (just $1) or the free refills for our drinks, but all in all it seemed a great way to finish the ride. By the way, the waiter looked for all the world like Leonardo di Caprio (and someone at another table commented on that), while the cook/manager/etc was a pretty good ringer for Kyle McLachlan (the FBI agent in Twin Peaks). Which makes it appropriate to add that, after a great ride like this, it was a damn fine burger! Oh, the all-important matter of gearing & equipment. Brian, after riding Ebbetts Pass, decided that maybe it was time to switch to a 12-27 (from his 12-25) for this ride. He still insists that Sonora Pass didn't live up to the hype, yet I never heard him suggest that he could have used a smaller cluster! Richard used a 12-28 and, while he's in good enough shape that he probably could have muscled his way up with a 25, he was quite happy to be in the 28 on many occasions. In my case, I decided I was feeling better than last year so, instead of putting on a mountain bike derailleur and 11-32 cassette, I stuck with my 12-27 and only a couple times wished for a bigger cog. Looking back on the ride, this was definitely the easiest of my three recent outings over Sonora Pass. Partly due to the perfect weather (65-82 degrees), but probably mostly due to getting in some good rides beforehand, like the Santa Cruz Mountains ride, Sequoia Double Metric and Ebbetts Pass. This will be the best year for me, in terms of "quality" miles, in a very long time! --Mike--

Last updated 10/27/05

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