Cape Breton Highlands National Park
French Mountain Ascent
8 September 2024
The events in this post took place on August 21, 2024.
I'm wearing a pair of new socks I saved for this occasion. They're f-bomb socks.
The breakfast room is crowded. I find a seat next to Glen. "Hey, stranger. What did you guys do for dinner last night?"
"Pizza," he says. They'd ordered one and took it outside to a picnic table. They set the pizza down. Martin was the last to arrive, and when he sat, the table tipped, hurling the pizza into the air.
"Cheese side down?" I ask.
"Cheese side down."
We get our bikes ready outside. I lead off with gallows humor: “Today is a good day to die.”
Heddy: “My hill display is black. I’ve never seen black before.”
Jeff: “Don’t worry. We’re all thinking the same thing.”
Elaine: “I’ll talk you in off of the ledge,” to which I repy, “I need you to talk me up the ledge!”
Dave S: “You’re all overthinking it.”
Martin: “Anything I should know about today’s ride?”
We leave Cheticamp under cloudy skies. Our first stop is at the Cape Breton Highlands National Park visitor's center. Heddy points out a moose-pun-themed t-shirt. I let her know that I have that on a nightshirt already. I have a collection of bad moose pun nightshirts.
I also have a collection of moose keychains. I find a cheap one that has a photo of a moose and the words "Cabot Trail." It's encased in plastic. I buy two. I fasten one to Janice's pack and give the other to Jeff.
Are we going to get rain again?
We're told there will be two big hills before the first mountain. There's a scenic lookoff before the big hills start.
The van is waiting for us at the top of the second climb. Now the view is misty in both directions.
The hillside across the road is shrouded in fog.
Dave S takes a picture of me taking his picture.
I make sure that Heddy and Elaine have left the stop before I push off. I don't want to pressure myself into trying to keep up. French Mountain is going to be a slog. The profile looks sawtoothed, which means we'll get breaks in the inclines. Because of that, I'm not really worried about this one. All I have to do is keep my back from hurting.
It's not raining, but it's more than cloudy. Heddy and Elaine are both wearing pink jerseys. I'm keeping them in sight. Maybe I'm even gaining on them a little. It's hard to tell. The road winds around for 3.5 miles. There are some grades of more than 15 percent. They don't last long, but as I get closer to the top, my back starts to whisper to me.
When I bought Janice in April 2023, it was with this trip in mind. I got the lowest gearing available, meaning I could get into 36/36 if I had to. I made it a point never to get into that last cog. I was saving it for today. Now I'm in and out of it. I wish I had something in between the 34 and 36. A 35 would be perfect.
I start thinking about the next climb, the 18 percent grade on North Mountain. If my back feels like this now, what's it going to do on the next one? I'm not going to make it, that's for sure. I already know my front wheel will leave the ground on an 18% grade.
I should take the van. Being a grownup means knowing my limits. I'm about to hit mine.
Just a little bit more. Push on. And now that's the song that's going to get me to the top.
I know I've reached the top when I see a van, the electric bikes, Heddy, and Elaine.
There's not much of a view up here.
There are snacks. A charcuterie board! Chocolates! I have my peanut butter bars, but I appreciate the gesture.
I'm not the only one up here who has a herneated disc. "I'm getting a bit of parasthesia," I tell the other rider. That means my leg is tingling, which means my back is not happy. "Me too," the rider says. More reason to be in the van.
Codey has told us that, for the North Mountain ascent, he'll wait in the van at the base for twenty minutes. That gives us time to turn around if we decide not to make the climb. I figure I'll have to set my phone alarm for 15 minutes to make sure I catch a ride if I have to. Or I'll just walk up.
As we get ready to descend, I gesture to Elaine to the right. This does not look good.
We start down the hill. I turn my handlebar-mounted video camera-light on to record the descent.
It begins to rain. We ride into fog.
Heddy and Frank are behind me as I take the road at speed. I can't see much in front of me. I just want to get off the mountaintop enough to be out of the fog.
I'm drenched. My feet are squishing around in my shoes. Water coats my glasses and drips off my helmet. To see anything, I have to look over the top of my glasses, a thin strip of visibility under the helmet.
I'm done. Any thought I had about climbing North Mountain is no longer a possibility. I can't believe they're letting us ride down this road like this.
There's a van. Jane isn't waving us over. I keep going.
Now I can't see anyone behind me. Should I have stopped? Well, they're going to have to find me one way or another. I guess at the bottom.
S-curves. I knew there would be s-curves. The only way to see around them is to get into the middle of the road.
There's a turnout. I slow down, pull in, stop, and look over my shoulder. Two yellow jackets pop out of the fog. Heddy and Frank.
"I couldn't see you!"
"We couldn't see you!"
I follow them down.
The fog thins as we descend, and we can see the road again.
Codey waves us into a restaurant parking lot.
"I'm done," I tell Heddy and Jeff. They're done too. A lot of us are done.
Linda is done. She asks if I want to use her e-bike to climb the mountain. "No thanks," I reply. "I have specific measurements for my back." There's no way they can set her bike up for me safely.
Before she goes inside, Heddy wrings out her socks.
I leave a trail of water as I enter the restaurant. I'm hungry and thirsty, and I'm cold. I didn't bring a change of clothes in my day bag.
I order a blueberry lemonade. I want to drink it. It looks so good. But I'm too cold.
"Go dry yourself off with the hand-drier in the bathroom," Dave G suggests. I give it a try, but the heat only goes on if my hands are in front of the sensor. My hands get in the way of drying my shorts. I give up. I ask the server for some paper towels.
Our server tells us she climbs North Mountain "all the time. There's nothing else to do."
So that's it. A year and a half of freaking out is now officially over. I spent my last fuck in the rain and fog, and now I'm out of fucks to give. I have failed, yet common sense has prevailed. It's done. I can exhale now.
Jeff is excited. "Linda is lending me her electric bike!"
I'm surprised at how many people are going to try to ride up the mountain. Aside from the six on electric bikes, a handful of people are willing to give it a go. It's not raining anymore, but it's still damp.
I'm with the group who has called it quits. I can feel that my thinking is fuzzy. I don't really want to move right now. I'm cold.
I take pictures while I wait to get into the van.
I'm still cold and starting to shiver. I find my shell jacket in my day pack and take a seat in the van by the door. There are at least five of us in this van and at least one other person in the other van.
I thought we were at the foot of North Mountain, but we're not. I feel stupid. It's five miles to the place Codey is going to park and wait. Too late now.
We turn into a spot marked "Lone Shieling." I don't know if it's a trail, a lookoff, or a building. A few of us get out of the van to look around and, er, use the bushes.
Heddy and I are standing by the van when Jeff comes up the hill on the borrowed electric bike. He's grinning ear to ear and sends us a wave as he flies past. We're too busy laughing to remember to take a picture.
The rest of the electric bikes glide by. A rider or two joins our van pool.
It's been 20 minutes. It's time to get back in the van. Since my seat is closest to the door, I go in last. Others use the seat for leverage.
"It's wet!" someone says.
"Yeah," I say. "That's me." At least it's wicking the water from my shorts.
Codey starts the van and is nearly at the road when Dave S comes coasting down the mountain. We stop to let him in.
"You guys made the right choice," Codey says. "This hill sucks."
We're looking out the windows as we approach the steepest part of the climb. We're trying to identify the riders we pass. Everyone on a mechanical bike is walking*, except for two people: Tom the guide, and Glen.
And we're not even to the steepest section. That's staring us in the face, a wall of asphalt curve. There's no way I'd've been in the saddle here.
After the turn, the incline receeds. There's what looks like a plateau, and then another short climb. Then we're really at the top.
I'm still shivering in my wet seat as everyone gets out of the van. "It's warmer out here," Heddy says. I step down and shed my jacket. The guides take our bikes off the trailer. The moose keychain is half gone; all that remains is the back plastic bit where the photo had been.
Now that the fog and rain have cleared, we get a view from the top.
We cheer each rider as they come in. Glen says, "I can climb anything with this bike." His is a carbon, one-by, gravel grinder. He's a triathlete. His road bike has an Iron Man sticker on it.
Jeff is enamored with the electric bike. He can't stop talking about it. We can't stop laughing at the fact that he can't stop talking about it.
I'm still damp during the descent. We roll into Dingwall, down a long road with a sign pointing to the Markman Resort.
The guide Tom sits at the picnic table and hands out keys. There's not enough space in the dining room to seat all of us at once for dinner, given that there are others here as well. I end up in the 6:30 group; the rest are to go in at 7:00.
There are two long buildings where some of our group will stay. I'm in a cabin behind the swimming pool, past the laundry room. I'm not sure why this is a resort. Because it has a pool? Because there's a small beach on the property? Because it has a laundry room?
Of course, there's the obligatory fake lighthouse.
I wheel Janice through the grass to my cabin. This is especially cumbersome because I'm still wearing my wet road shoes.
We're going to be here for two nights, which is a refreshing change of pace. By now I'm used to living out of my suitcase with minimal spreading around of stuff. Now I can settle in a little more.
My cabin has a full-size refrigerator, a microwave, a coffee maker, a sink, and a stove. It has a small table with chairs, a sofa, and room for Janice. The bedroom is in the back. There's a standing fan. The bathroom has a hair dryer hanging from the door.
There's dish soap at the kitchen sink. I can wash out my bottles, my helmet, and my gloves properly. I aim the bedroom fan at the helmet and gloves, which I hang from the light fixture by the bed. I take the hair dryer to the shoes, then stuff them with newspaper I brought from home, a last-minute addition to my packing after Heddy said she was bringing some; a brilliant idea on her part.
After a shower and half a protein bar, I carry my bag of dirty clothes to the laundry room. It costs $5 Canadian to do a load, payable to the front desk. I'm in line behind Elaine and Jackie. There's time for me to take a walk down to the beach before my turn comes up.
I think this seaweed collage might be my favorite picture of the trip so far.
I'm in the cabin when Glen calls. "What's our return schedule?" he asks.
"They're getting us back to Baddeck by 2:00 and then we drive to Yarmouth. Why?"
"I burned out my brake pads. We're working out picking up new ones in Halifax on our way back."
I see them on the grounds a few minutes later; their cabin is near mine. The guide Tom is on the phone with a bike shop in Halifax. Glen says, "We're not gonna get there before they close. We're trying to work out if they can leave them outside the shop."
"What happened?"
"I was nearly down to metal on metal." I know nothing about disc brake wear. I had my pads changed before the trip.
"Front and back?"
"Front and back. I can't ride it until it's fixed. They're going to give me one of their extra road bikes." There have been two on the trailer all this time.
There's a bit of time before dinner. I upload the day's pictures from my camera to my laptop, but there's no WiFi in the cabin. Some resort this is.
I get my clothes in the wash minutes before we're supposed to be seated. The menu is vast and fancy, with exactly one dish, a salad, that doesn't have some member of the animal kingdom in it. I order that and a side of roasted potatoes. They bring corn bread. We go through basket after basket.
Something on the menu confuses us: halibut cheeks.
"Fish have cheeks?"
"Hali butt cheeks?"
Someone at the other end of the table orders the halibut cheeks.
[Added 15 September 2024: Malcolm says, "Sometimes the brain wants to do more than the body can handle."]
I leave briefly, halway through dinner, to move my clothes to the dryer, with Malcolm behind me to get his clothes into the washer.
After dinner, I fetch my laptop to upload the photos to Blogger. I sit at a table in the main room, laptop on top of an incomplete jigsaw puzzle. Across the room, the evening's entertainment, a man with a guitar, is just finishing up.
While I haven't had time to write anything, I have been able to rename each photo with the date and location, and to upload the pictures. I've given up on writing anything. That will have to wait until I get back to New Jersey. The connection here is slow. I barely have time to finish the upload before the workers start shutting off the lights.
I make it back to my cabin without opening the wrong door or being locked out. I set out my bike clothes for tomorrow, change the newspaper in the shoes, and leave the helmet and gloves by the refrigerator so I don't forget my water bottles in there.
I lie on the floor, on a towel, between the sofa and Janice, to do PT for my back, which has felt completely fine since the rainy descent. I call Jack and we fill each other in. I lie on my back to listen, staring at the reddish wooden beams of the cabin's ceiling.
Before bed, I read a bit more from the book of Micmac legends.
Life is good, now that I don't give a shit about anything anymore. More hills tomorrow? Whatever. I don't care.
For the first time in months, I sleep through the night.
(*I was informed today by Martin that he did not walk. He had stopped to, er, use the bushes, as we were driving past.)
No comments:
Post a Comment