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North Cascades - Washington Pass ride (Mazama to Rainy Lake) w/Bert

July 19, 2020 (Morning)

Exercise Type: Bike

Weather: 80s, HOT at times

Comments:
Up early to pack out of the amazing Harts Pass/Meadow CG. The plan:

* CA and Courtney MTB'd down hill from camp (12+ miles) on the rugged dirt road
* Bert & I (slowly) drove down the hill (which took much longer)
* We met only a couple miles out of Mazama: a small town on the east end of WA 20.

Our counter-plan: to bike there, west, up the Washington Pass: 20ish miles and 3600+ feet of climbing (2k to 5500'). Bert's equalizer was riding his full MTB, as he's training for a ride all the way across north Georgia!

Interesting nutritional experiment:

1. I believe I'm more allergy sensitive to *peanut butter* than ever. After several weeks of impaired sleep, I stopped eating it...and sleep's been WAY better. I bought "seed butter", which seemed fine. Then I bought cashew and almond butter...

2. I ate two slices of cashew/almond butter & J.

Within a mile of starting that ride (about 90min after eating), I felt TERRIBLE and was breathing super-hard, almost asthmatic. SUCKED.

Altitute was minimal to start and the grade was pretty mild. But I felt ROUGH. And, over the first hour, it only got worse.

Super-frustrating, but good to know. Nuts *do* have high histamine... ( And the weird thing is, my dairy tolerance is improving !)

Took until about the last third/quarter of the ride to seemingly burn off the allergen/histamine. Once I did, the big switchback climb just below the pass, felt pretty good!

Cool ride. The first half was in this valley between the ridges. The final climb was gorgeous. Then we had like a 4-mile bomb descent before a 1-mile shitburger climb to Rainy Pass to meet the ladies.

Rest of the day:
* brunch at Rainy Pass, including pancakes!
* drove down to Ross & Diablo "lakes" (reservoirs). COLD!
* drove all the way west, then south/east to the southern access to the NP, proper. Managed to find a great campsite at Mineral Point CG.
* fun final night of camping (and one more frigid swim/bath)!