The first thing I noticed is that everything riding inland, no matter how downhill it appears really is uphill. We climbed to the inner highway that goes from Waimea to Kailua and headed towards Saddle Road.
As the name indicated, Saddle Road goes between the two volcanoes, the Mauna Kea and the Mauna Loa. The Mauna Loa still oozes lava regularly and is part of the Volcanoes National Park. The Mauna Kea is much older, not so active, and is host to a number of research observatories, taking advantage of the fact that there really isn't much of anything out here to create light pollution. The south end of the island was much clearer today and our approach of the Mauna Kea brought us closer to the clouds.
There are a few people who drive the Saddle Road, absolute crazies who have no regard for life, limb, safety and the speed limit and the military. There are a few really, really nice looking ranches . . . cows and tennis courts . . .
As we rode past the cows stopped what they were doing and stared at us riding by. I didn't quite catch it in the picture, but they all stared at us, wondering what the hell we were doing. As the clouds started rolling in from both sides I started wondering what the hell we were doing.
I think we were doomed from the start . . . early on, Will's seatpost started slipping. Ah the joys of carbon on carbon. Every 3 miles he had to stop to yank his seat back into position.
We didn't make it to the turn for the visitor's center, but got in a good 2 hours of climbing. Gotta love it when it takes a mere 40 minutes for the return trip. I'd love to say it was an easy descent, but Saddle Road isn't in the best condition. Much of it is an overlay about a 1/2" thick on top of whatever is down there. You can see this in areas where it has cracked through and you can feel it everywhere when the pavement rumbles and rattles as you move over it.
The best part of climbing that much is that you can do whatever you want for the rest of the day . . .
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