As I mentioned in my Day 3 post - with every turn of my wheels, as I coasted for 20 miles down into Cumberland, I was thinking "oh my God oh my God oh my God - I have to pedal up this thing, hauling the trailer behind me, tomorrow!"
Here's what a graphic located at the Eastern Continental Divide scares you with:
And while that portrays the climb as insanely steep, which it isn't (not at all).. it is STILL A GREAT BLOODY LONG CLIMB! It's 20 miles of going UP! Here's what it looks like from my Strava data for this day's ride:
If you click on that image to enlarge it, you'll get the point that this is essentially 40km of long steady climbing. Again, not a bad grade, not steep, but long, man. Yikes it's a lot of climbing.
I was out of the hotel and pedalling through Cumberland by 5:30am... the mist still rising from the forested mountains around the city.. The descent on the previous day had really psyched me out, regarding how long it was going to take me to do the climb, so I wanted to get going early and get the climb over with, so I could get through the rest of the 100km day.
A mother and fawn skittered along some railroad tracks, parallel to the trail, as I was leaving the city, and I would eventually see 5 deer this day, including another mother and fawn combo.
The climb wasn't really brutal. Just long. The stretch from Cumberland to Frostburg was just "head down and grind it out" kind of riding. Luckily the morning dew had firmed up the trail, and it wasn't as loose as it had seemed when I went down mid-afternoon on the Wednesday.
This is a few seconds of what the view is like (south of Frostburg) when the trees on your right side clear out of the way.
I stopped in Frostburg to eat an apple and power bar, and to fill up my water at their free water-fill station. Three guys were there, talking. Two would shortly leave, headed downhill into Cumberland. The third was a gentleman I got talking to for a while... part of it one of those "oh, you're from Canada" talks.
This gentleman was about 60 years old. I'd actually seen him the day before, when I was headed down this climb. He was going UP the climb... PUSHING his bike up the slope. He had a cargo trailer like mine... same company but an older model.. but on top of his trailer he had about another full trailer's worth of stuff bungee-corded down.
He was in somewhat rough shape actually - I'd overheard him, when he was talking to the other two cyclists, mention that he had a bad hamstring and couldn't pedal uphill right now. So he still had the rest of the climb to the continental divide to go, before he would be getting on his bike again. I got the impression he was "trekking" in a spiritual way. He talked about his ministry work in the past, as though he was done with a system that would keep returning the disenfranchised back to their beginnings, despite his best efforts to help them rise to something greater.
Anyway - as I got going, he was lingering in Frostburg at the visitor's center, waiting for some inspiration before beginning to push his bike up the rest of that climb.
From Frostburg, headed north back to Meyersdale, you pass that embarrassment of rich sight-seeing spots again... Big Savage, the view just before Big Savage, the continental divide. I'd even go so far as to say that the rest of the climb... up above Frostburg... became fun. Partly because you've now left behind the railway tracks that parallel the trail on the lower part of the climb, and which really seemed to hem me in somehow.
The view just before you hit Big Savage.
I stopped in Meyersdale and bought a couple of ice cream bars and a ginger ale. Inside the visitor's center they have a map where you can stick a pin to mark your hometown. So I did that, and then got going. I ran into Troy - the gentleman from the KOA - just before I hit the Salisbury Viaduct. That was fun - we'd both been keeping our eye out for each other, and we had a good talk for a little while, before shaking hands and heading off again... me north... Troy south.
Few seconds of the Salisbury Viaduct.
From the Salisbury Viaduct I pretty much hammered right on through to Confluence. Didn't stop at Rockwood, at least not at the trailhead. A mile or so north of Rockwood I pulled over at some benches to have a drink and to rest my butt.
Rockwood to Confluence I had great weather, and I did feel the advantage of the now-downhill grade, though the GAP seems to have a north-to-south wind pattern, so the headwind I was now facing negated some of the advantage of the downhill slope.
Stayed at the Confluence Outflow Campground that night. The place was pretty full. I had reserved a campsite, so I kept it... but in hindsight I might have been better off to switch to the "biker / hiker" free for all area that the lady at the front-desk mentioned. By staying at my campsite I was pitching my tent on hard gravel stones, but I was worried would tear the bottom of my tent.
Outflow does not have wifi, and my site did not have power. So... two strikes there. The lady at the desk let me leave my Garmin and iPod with her, and she charged them for me in her office. After dumping my trailer I had a shower (great hot showers!) and biked into town again, and bought a few groceries at the little store. Then I biked back to the campground, picked up my devices, and then recrossed the bridge to the Lucky Dog Cafe, where I drank a few Coronas, used their wifi, and did my journalling.
Campsite at the Outflow Campground
That's it for Day 4. Longest ride of my trip - and included the long steady climb up from Confluence.
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