Lord Hill was packed yesterday! Didn't even stop. But since I now have a legit excuse to avoid the crowds, and with another nice afternoon in the forecast, I decided to take a break from my never-ending search for toilet paper and head for the hills. Mt. Elwell to be exact. Loaded the bike in the van and headed for Marckworth Forest. (the topo just says "Elwell", so I added the mountain part.)
Here's what I've discovered about e-bikes : First - they're freakin' heavy. (This comes into play later when you're pushing them.) Second - you now gotta watch just how much juice you have left. And it eats it up incredibly fast on a steep logging road. Those little bars begin falling like tin soldiers. In fact, the tiny 500w motor doesn't help at all after much of an incline. So you hop off and end up pushing the stupid thing. (most of the way to the top, it turns out. It was splendid on the way down, though.)
Anyway, I successfully navigated the maze of roads, and arrived at the top of Mt. Elwell without even realizing it. Checked my map to be sure my scale wasn't off by like, 100%, and decided this was it. Well. Umm... yeah. Just a tad bit underwhelming, if you know what I mean. But I decided since I'm here, I might as well find the true summit so I can cross it off the list. So I stumbled uphill through the clearcut and thrashed around awhile, until I found a spot that seemed to be at a point where everything went downhill. It's a stump, actually, but I figured this must be the top. Searched a bit for the summit register, but there was none to be found - so I built a small cairn on the stump to mark the spot. This will have to do until it is officially recognized.
Had my sit looking through the haze at downtown Seattle on the horizon, and contemplating the events of recent weeks. I pictured myself playing the harmonica like Nero as I watched the city below crumble into chaos, the smoke from the fires rising to blot out the sun. Civilization as we know it reduced to fighting over toilet paper. Who would have thought that a tiny virus would lead to an absence of this common commodity, and the demise of humankind?
Oh, c'mon. Y'all need to calm down. Nero didn't have a harmonica, and Seattle is not on fire. That didn't happen - just Elwell and the e-bike.
P.S. - Well, damn. This is a first. No pics for you! Seems all the pics I took are too many MBs, so you'll just have to imagine it. Picture a logging road that ends at a slash pile, and a clearcut filled with scraggly young firs. (I'm not selling it very well, am I?)
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