Ride around Mt. Rainier - August 2009
Saturday, August 22nd brought a fantastic ride around Mt. Rainier. Big thanks to my good friend Tom Tracey for organizing this ride - he did a wonerful job of planning and led our pack of bikes like a pro.
The northern half of our pack met up at Microsoft's building 88 (Bing headquarters) and rode down to Tacoma together, where we met up with the southern bikers. From there we headed southeast toward the Mountain with a few stops for fill -or drain- tanks as needed. We hit a bit of precipitation as we started to climb toward Elbe. The wet roads and drizzle only lasted a few minutes and broke through to sunshine and rising temperatures.
The ride up to Paradise Inn for lunch was fantastic and the views spectacular. Here's a video that shows a bit of what we enjoyed.
The entire photo set is here:
Our route took most of the riders in a counter-clockwise loop around the mountain. I had planned to meet my family in Grand Mound after the ride, though, so I broke off at the far southeast point of the group ride and continued south and then back west on Highway 12:
Later in the day, word came in that the leading group of riders had been pulled over by either a state trooper or a park ranger and might have been getting cited. Let's hope they got off with a warning. Tom also promised to make this an annual trip and after the great ride that we had on Saturday, I'll bet the pack grows a lot next year!
