Let the hills begin!
We loaded up on water and gatorades across the street from our park and got riding at a decent hour. For the second day in a row, we met another cyclist going the other way. He was also riding solo, but was on a recumbent.
Eventually, we stopped in a town called Hatch. Apparently this town is the chile capital of the world.
We got some breakfast burritos here and then continued on.
There was a nice tailwind up until we had to turn west. This was also the point when we started climbing up.
The first bunch of miles up were across a wide open plain and we gained elevation very gradually.
As we got closer to Hillsboro, the climbing became steeper.
In Hillsboro, we met a pair of cyclists riding East. They had just crossed over the pass and ridden downhill 17 miles. We had all of this 17 mile climb ahead of us. They informed us that a guy was in town looking for us.
This guy would be Shipley, our host for the night. We met him a little further up the road and he excitedly began chatting away. "Only 9 miles and 1000 feet of climbing to Kingston" he said assuring us that the climb was gradual the entire way. The gusting winds that we encountered on the plains were significantly reduced as we climbed into the valley.
Sure enough, he was right. The hill was constant but not too terrible. We were told that the village of Kingston had 16 permanent residents, and once we got there, it seemed about right.
We also saw some ominous signs of our climb ahead.
Shipley cooked us an amazing salmon dinner and we chatted the evening away talking about bikes and touring and adventures in general. We went to sleep early knowing that our biggest climb of the ride was set to begin first thing in the morning.
Day 59 - 73.34 Miles
Trip to Date - 3261.17 miles
Coast to Coast - 2258.72 miles
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