Birthday Ride!

It just so happened that some friends mentioned a few weeks ago that they were riding Mount Hamilton on April 29th.  And since that happened to be my 35th birthday, I added a note on my schedule and begged Coach to let me do the climb as part of my long ride.  Lucky me, she said GO CLIMB YOUR MOUNTAIN!  

As I linked to in my previous post, Mt Hamilton is the highest peak above our valley and the observatory at the top is something I've visited a few times growing up in the area.  But I've never gotten to go climb the mountain on my bike so I was super excited to do that today! It's never especially steep but just a long steady climb, punctuated by a couple of short descents into beautiful valleys along the way.

Mt Hamilton Elevation Profile (begins around the mile 7 mark, the rest was our warmup route)

Sara, Chris and me before the start

Warming up in the sunshine!

Everything is SUPER green after the last round of rain we had!

Beginning to climb up the foothills

First look down at the valley and we still have TONS of climbing to go

Going up and up and up and up

Another valley view

First peek at the peak! The little white bumps at the top of that highest peak are the domes at Lick Observatory

Water stop at Grant County Park - I was ridiculously hyperactive for this entire ride (good fueling!) 

More green stuff

Pretty little stream I crossed over

The top looks so close but it's still 5 miles away!  The road gets very windy with switchbacks at this point.

Again - SO close but still 1.5 miles of road to go!

I made it!!!  What a FUN climb!

Hamilton was SUCH a fun route - challenging but beautiful and do-able! I had an unbelievably good time through the whole thing.

Neat to be so high that we were above this hawk.

Victorious!

One last peek back at the top of the mountain during our descent

In all, it was everything I could have hoped for in a birthday!  Fun times with friends and an amazing experience, not to mention Sara came prepared with a cooler of beer for post-ride (I did my brick run and drank my pre-packed recovery beverage first) so we were able to sit around in a park and relax after.

Thanks to everyone for the well wishes!