I had just organized and completed my first 300-kilometre randonnée—the difficult “Tsunami” route, with 3,900 metres of climbing—so I figured I was ready for the next challenge on the British Columbia Randonneurs’ 2005 calendar: The Mount Baker 400.
Looking back, I realize those two rides were a bold (or perhaps imprudent) way to re-introduce myself to randonneur cycling, after a layoff of more than a decade.
On August 5th, I travelled to the Mainland from Vancouver Island and braved traffic through to Richmond, to stay at the apartment of club-mates Scott Gater and Melissa Friesen.
The event was scheduled to start at Burnaby Lake Sports Complex, at 06:00 the next morning. We feasted on pesto at a local Italian restaurant; back at the apartment, we prepared our bikes and hit the sack.
I’d not long fallen asleep when the alarm went off, at 04:00. Melissa hurried us through breakfast and herded Scott and I into the car. She’d decided to volunteer rather than enter the ride, a decision that would later be appreciated.
Like most brevets, this one started at race pace … except my computer registered “0” km/h. I’d reinstalled my front wheel “backwards,” putting the computer magnet on the opposite side to the sensor.
That was a good way to escape from the “peleton” and ride at a more sensible pace.
With my wheel oriented correctly, I enjoyed the cruise along E. Columbia Street through Sapperton, passing the site of my first job in Canada: Cap’s Cycle Shop. Crossing the Pattullo Bridge on its glass-strewn pedestrian walk also brought back memories. Here was a trip I made daily on my bike commute from Delta to Vancouver, in 1980.
I soon fell in with fellow BC Randonneur David Lach, who had recovered from his run-in with the potholes of Vancouver Island’s West Coast Highway, just 3 weeks before. He deferred to my intimate knowledge of Surrey’s depths, though it had changed plenty in twenty years. We threaded its endless strip mall-lined thoroughfares to White Rock—another one of my old haunts—on the way to the Peace Arch Border Crossing.
In Washington State, we enjoyed forty-kilometres of relatively flat and relaxed riding to the first control in Everson. A quick nature and nurture break and we were back on the road, heading for the turnaround, eighty-kilometres away at the alpine terminus of the Mt. Baker Highway (#542), at Artist’s Point.
We continued for thirty-five kilometres along scenic South Pass Road, with regular glimpses of Mount Baker’s summit, a white beacon above the trees, before turning left onto Route 542, with 115 kilometres in our legs.
We faced fifty-kilometres of sustained climbing to the control, passing through the little village of Glacier (elev. 285 metres/932 ft.) and bypassing the Glacier Creek Road junction, the route to Mt. Baker trailhead and the peak itself.
I knew what lay ahead. With little respite, the road climbs the Nooksack River Valley, switchback after switchback, to the the ski resort at 1,066 metres (3500 ft.) and, just 183 metres higher, one of the most-photographed scenic spectacles in the North Cascades: Picture Lake. It was going to be a long haul.
The day was heating up, and though the newly-paved road surface was smooth, the throat-searing stench of bitumen was making me light-headed. As a survivor of oral cancer, such things make me nervous. The radiation therapy that saved my life (in 2003) also had the side-effect of impairing salivary function. I was down to a swig of water. To stave off heatstroke, I stopped to soak my neckerchief in a roadside rivulet but was reticent to quench my thirst there. David had pulled ahead, disappearing around a distant bend.
I focussed on that turn as best I could through sweat-stung eyes, until a parked car hove into view. There was Sister of Mercy Melissa, dispensing precious water from a huge urn. Never was a “secret” control more well-recieved! David pulled out before me and I let him go.
At last, the climbing eased and Picture Lake in all it’s glory lay before me, mirroring the splendid northwest flank of 2,755 metre (9,038 ft.) Mt. Shuksan.
During the winter of ‘79-’80, I spent every Saturday here, teaching cross-country skiing for White Rock Parks & Recreation. I’d lay out parallel tracks on the frozen, snow-covered surface of the lake and put my students through their paces. The gentler shores offered perfect terrain to teach the rudiments of the telemark turn. Wow! What a great gig that was!
I rolled around the perimeter in a nostalgic reverie, then enjoyed a long downhill ….
Downhill? I awoke from my dream as I gained speed, passing cyclists sweating upwards—cyclists I recognized as it dawned on me that I’d circumnavigated the lake, missed the Artist’s Point turnoff, and was on my way back to Glacier.
It’s better that I expurgate the conversation I had with myself as I came to a screeching halt, some distance below the ski lodge. Anger alone fueled the re-ascent.
If the final five kilometres, on Artist’s Point Road, were part of a Tour de France stage, there’s no doubt they would rate hors categorie. I focussed on the next rock outcrop or tree that threw a shadow, crawling between each momentary break from the heat. The suffering ended at 1,566 metres (5,140 ft.) on an exposed, not-very-artistic patch of blacktop, enclosed by the summits of Baker and Shuksan.
My quads were done. Toasted. Fini.
Merciful Melissa reappeared through the haze with a chicken sandwich. I sat on the tarmac, though I could only manage to choke down half of the meal. Thank goodness Melissa was here. I’d catch a lift back.
David arrived. He’d taken a nap in the bush. We squinted up at the great white bulk of Baker’s volcanic cone, blinding against the deep blue sky. More memories. I’d climbed the peak several times, telemarking down its northwest flank in 1983. I didn’t remember being nearly so exhausted by those adventures. And I was barely over a third of the way through this one.
It occurred to me, however, that the next 50 kilometres were downhill. We rolled out of the parking lot, swooping into the switchbacks with whoops of delight. Unknown to us until later, an overconfident motorcyclist was not so lucky on his descent, plunging 100 metres to his death over one of the unprotected switchbacks, just after we began our decent.
The Mt. Baker Inn, back at Glacier, became the next goal, with deep dish apple pie as the holy grail. The historic pub, built in 1906 by George McLaughlin, regained fleeting fame as a set for the 1978 movie The Deer Hunter. It was my obligatory post-climb/ski watering hole at the time and the site of many tall tales.
Lach and I rolled out of Glacier with Ben Von Den Bosch and Graham Willoughby in tow. This four-man paceline rode through the afternoon to the third control, at the general store in Acme (245 km). The apple pie had worked like rocket fuel for a while, but now I was hungry and in need of liquids, lots of liquids.
As the red sun hovered above the tree-lined shore of Whatcom Lake, we passed by cottagers barbecuing burgers and splashing in the shallows along the shoreline. Were we mad? We pushed on into the night, heading for the Ferndale control (296 km). The Denny’s Restaurant was a surreal intrusion after the dark rural ride, but the hot chili and french fries were divine, sating appetites whet by the burger chefs of Whatcom Lake.
Now it was my turn to value David’s local knowledge. I clung to his wheel as he threaded the dark labyrinth of Whatcom County roads, up to the Sumas border. The Maglite I’d zip-tied to my helmet required dangerous cranial contortions to focus on my route-sheet.
The Canadian border guard waved us through with the kind of bemused pity reserved for imbeciles and cyclotourists. We had one more stop: the Mission control, a 7-11 convenience store just shy of 352 kilometres. We may well have been lost in space. A portly alien arrived in a muscle-car to deliver the message “You should be out drinking, picking up some chicks.” I had the impulse to challenge him, to see who’d attract the first babe down at the local—me in my sexy lycra, or him in his misshapen muscle-shirt.
But then something reminded me of the attractions ahead: fifty kilometres of inky darkness along the busy Lougheed Highway. My teeth chattered on the downhills as we endured the long re-entry. I held David’s back wheel again, feeling guilty. But my headlight batteries, not to mention my own physical reserves, were dying. I was afraid if I called a halt, I’d never get going again.
Along the way, we caught Sarah Gallazin and John Little. At 03:21—21 hours, 28 minutes after we left—our little group rolled over the finish line. We had survived one of the most difficult 400s to grace the BCRCC calendar.
Brevet results at BC Randonneurs
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Raymond’s belated story of his 2005 Mt Baker 400 engenders some BCRCC history.
What became the BC Randonneurs, started life as a sub-section of the Vancouver Bicycle Club. From within that club came one John Hathaway (deceased; 1997-06-06). His ride around the World Map (1974-1976) inspired Gerry Pareja to iniate plans to tackle the next Paris-Brest-Paris, in 1979.
Gerry, Wayne Phillips, John H., and Dan McGuire all entered, qualified and completed this (in)famous 1200km Randonnee.
But there were doubts about some of the ride’s contents. The “normal” secquence of requiring qualifying rides of 200, 300, 400, and 600 km events was topped up with a 1000km event with its 75 hour time limit.
At one point, during the 300 km event Dan McGuire wondered why he was doing this. Hathaway had designed the 300 route to turn round at the top of Mount Baker! In those days riders used capes (ponchos) in wet weather drapped over the bars. The middle of the cape sags, creating a pocket. Dan’s pocket was filling with snow, causing Dan to question why he was doing this!
HJB
Ha, ha! That’s a great snippet of Canadian rando history. Thanks.
As I’ve recounted, I met Gerry et al. in 1978, as they were preparing to tackle PBP. I thought they were nuts.
I’m sure, however, they didn’t actually scale Baker itself 🙂 … unless they had spiked tyres. Do you know if they rode right up to Artist’s Point, as we did?
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