Looking to escape the smoke, I found some green air quality indicators over the Olympic Peninsula on Thursday and decided to make a one-day trip to Port Angeles for the big climb up Hurricane Ridge. Leaving the town, the climb starts almost immediately and only relents a couple of times. Knowing it would be around 17 miles of straight climbing, I tried to settle into a rhythm and pace I could maintain.
As the road climbed higher, the views started to open up on my left and they were thankfully pretty clear up high, with smoke clearly filling the valleys below. I could eventually see the Mount Olympus massif in the hazy distance. With few cars on the road and little smoke, it was a pretty nice day for the ride despite the heat and I saw a couple of other cyclists on their way down. I started to fade a bit at the end but was pretty happy with the effort overall.
I arrived at the main parking lot just shy of two hours after I’d left Port Angeles and decided to continue on to the end of the road. I must have done a pretty good job emptying the tank because the short climbs on that last little bit were really tough and I felt myself bonking hard. I stopped at the end of the road for a massive dose of sugar before turning around, soaking in the views at the visitor center, and then barely touching the brakes on the way down. Great climb!