So at 5am....our alarms went off BZZZT BZZZT BZZZT BZZ- and then were immediately cut off by our diligent snooze button pressing skills. Fortunately Kiefer and I had stayed up late the night before packing our bikes up with all of our gear. By 5:30 I decided it was time to wake up and make breakfast, so a tasty breakfast of leftover veggie grill chili and scrambled eggs I did make! Kiefer headed down and loaded the bikes while I put the kettle on (gotta have our cuppa!). We were set to check in by the 7:30 am deadline at Catalina Landing in Long Beach, CA. Fortunately we've done this before, so we quickly found a spot on an upper level and filed into the elevator one at a time, after having a quick obligatory argument in the parking lot over something inconsequential (an argument I attribute purely to the stresses of starting a trip).
Pro tip: You must purchase a ticket for your bicycle. The tickets are under $10, and can be purchased in advance. Check the rules, because most of the Catalina ferries do not allow tandem bikes (sorry GT!).
We checked in and received our departing and returning tickets, and at 8:00 am we headed for our ramp and lined up. This 11 year old boy in line next to us was completely fascinated with our disc brakes. Yes, we both have hydraulic disc brakes (and a good thing too!!!). We boarded the boat thinking we'd be stowing our bikes in the aft bike racks as we had the last time we crossed the channel....but no! Everything has to be more interesting, and we were to stow our bikes in the forward....cargo area....and I use the term stow lightly, as we were really just leaning them up against the forward deck walls! Tell me that doesn't make those of you with nice bikes a LITTLE nervous, and i'll call you a liar!
After the deckhand reassured us several times that our bikes would be totally fine, we traipsed sleepily inside to find our seats. As you can see from the below photograph, "sleepy" is an excellent descriptor for our states at the time. Hey...it's a 65 min boat ride, we should be able to have a nap right?????
Zombie Kiefer and Zombie Ryzzie on the Catalina Express
Yeaaaahhh....I had a lot of fun playing Plants vs. Zombies on the ride over, and Kiefer went to check out the aft deck. I declared that I was going to spend the next 2 days being uncomfortable, so i wanted to sit right there in my seat. Secretly this was only half true (it was rather chilly outside after all!), because every time I looked up from my iPhone 3Gs my equillibrium got TOTALLY off kilter and I immediately became nauseated.
Pro Tip: Don't sit in the center of the boat, you will feel the maximum effects from the roll, pitch and yaw changes of the boat. Sit towards the back, where the thrusters/props are.
So we meandered over to the Catalina Island Conservancy first. Numero uno step to doing interior island touring is to get a permit. Catalina Island is not a national park, and is maintained by a private conservancy. Permits are $35 ("Friend") per rider, or $65 ("Explorer") for a pair if you cohabitate like we do! Plus your fee goes toward the preservation of the island.
Bonus: Catalina Island Conservancy Freewheeler passes are good for one year from the time of purchase, so plan to come back again!
Following that Kiefer and I headed over to the Atwater Hotel to check in to our Little Harbor campsite. You can even order a pack of firewood for $9, but be sure to bring tinder, or something to split the logs with because ours was a bundle of sucker logs. Nice thing is you don't have to pack it in, they just drop it off for you when you show up! We just never got our fire going...oh well!
It took us a while to remember how to get out of Avalon, so be sure to study your map, and BRING YOUR OWN!!! The little paper one they give you is great if you never want to leave Avalon...but we did! FYI locating Catalina Island topo maps (in print) was a fruitless effort, so we visited the USGS website and downloaded the 4 (North, South, East, and West) Catalina topo maps for free, and then sent them to our friends at Kinkos.
Pro Tip (yes there are a lot of those this time): convert the USGS default *.tif format to *.pdf so you can preview and select fancy images at Kinkos.
We opted to print them on 11x17 for easier readability. We also increased the resolution to the max allowable by our converter software (Bullzip, nice FREEWARE!). I also had them laminated for weather resistance, overall durability increase, and in case we wanted to write on them with wax pencils or dry erase markers.
Finally we got out of Avalon. on this portion of the ride please be careful, there are people all over the place driving golf carts like maniacs!
Cannondale, Kiefer, Ryzzie, and Cannondale at the gates.
So Kiefer and I began our ardurous climb through the interior of Catalina Island. The first climb was nothing but grueling, and I'll be 100% honest, I ended up walking most of it. The climb is steep on it's own, even with a good gear ratio for climbs, but with the added weight of our camping gear riding on the back, and my lack of being in peak condition for climbs I couldn't hold up the whole time. I will say this though, I dropped $100 and got some Shimano M076's and a set of Crank Brothers Candy C clipless and that made the climbs a WHOLE bunch easier.
The highest point of our ride was about 1400 ft, but don't be fooled, the topography of the island is very rumpled, like a crinkled piece of paper. Just when you think you've done all the climbing, here comes another 500 ft climb that you didn't even see. We were extremely grateful to reach Middle Ranch, and a sign that showed us there were only 5.0 miles to go, that meant we were at the coast, and things were about to smooth out. See how happy I am?
Ryzzie is excited there is no more climbing!
But then we checked the topo.....
Kiefer and Ryzzie's brains have liquified with the amount of climbing still remaining after about 12 miles of tough hills.
After discovering the plentiful hills ahead of us we decided to take a shark break. Shark break you say? Well I happen to like these tasty Sharkies chews found at REI. Yum!! Much more fun than your typical sport chew in our opinion, and they come in several tasty flavors.
Cannondales takin' a shark break at the Middle Ranch gate.
Finally after several tricksy climbs (just when we thought we were done, there was a Bison at the bottom, and then another climb between us and camp! Eventually we rolled in to Little Harbor Camp Ground. The weather (as you can see from the pictures) remained blessedly overcast all day. We made it through the day with no sunburns (after copiously applying lots of sunscreen).
Little Harbor Ranger Station, nothing more than a shack with some signs posted on it.
We set up camp, this time we took our new $30 REI B-93 special. It's a 2 pole lightweight tent, which was PERFECT for this trip. Chris set up the mats (phew no therm-a-rest inflating for these lungs!), bags and our new pillows. I set up our stove and started our extra yummy (and veggie friendly) dinner. Thanks to Stacey for recommending Mountain House, that lasagna was really yummy! I managed to prep dinner without setting anything on fire (that wasn't meant to be anyway), but those REI brand wet-start matches are a little fragile for my bumbling grip, and I broke the first 4 right out of the box. They're kinda cool though, and they burn like fireworks, just be careful, because you can't put them out until they're down to the wood!
Ryzzie sets up the kitchen, and preps dinner.
Kiefer was also awesome enough to bring along some mini-wine bottles (though the extra weight was definitely noticed), so we enjoyed some box-grade wine with our re-hydrated meal. Following dinner, but preceding my carefully selected desert of a Luna Bar for me, and space ice cream for Kiefer we went for a walk down to the coast.
Little Harbor is BEAUTIFUL. I really enjoyed all of the California coastal foliage, and I'd like to find some of those succulents myself to plant in my garden. The conditions were fantastic, it was probably 60 F, overcast, and the water was a beautiful dark blue. Kiefer spotted a rock outcropping and declared that he wanted to go walk up to the top. I was a little wary, as he had his Vibrams but I only had my reefs, so my mountain goat skills were definitely not at their peak! He gave me a hand up, but most of it wasn't too bad. We got to the peak and it was a little windy, but it was so beautiful that I didn't really care. I just wanted to sit and enjoy the view, standing just didn't feel safe 30 feet above jagged rocks, and there was a lovely flat outcropping of rock just waiting for my butt to be planted upon it! Perfect!!!
I sat myself down and Kiefer sat down right next to me. As I'm looking over the water, and out at the landscape he says to me "So...I've been meaning to ask you..." and as I turn to look at him talking to me to see what he could possibly be talking about, he pulls out a little black velvet box, and I know what's coming next. Those of you who know me personally know I have a hard time waiting for people to finish what their saying, I have a bad habit of being impatient, but this time, for once in my life, I waited to hear what he was going to say. He looked me right in the eyes and cool as a cucumber said my name and asked "....will you marry me?"
Kiefer is indicating the point we were sitting at when he asked.
It took me half a second to register and then however long for the word yes to come out of my mouth. The rest is a bit of a blur between that moment and when we made our descent. I found a better path to climb down than the one we came up, and we headed to the beach to toodle around before returning to camp.
Kiefer was looking for a rock to give me....I told him this one was too big.
Then we found some beautiful quartz along the beach. We admired all of it, and I declared I found my giant rock.
Kiefer gave Ryzzie a huge rock!
I hopped up on the rocks to admire the view. I really can't say how much I enjoyed being there. I just wish I'd have had my own kayak or something!
Ryzzie taking in the view.
We returned to our campsite to finish our second mini wines (they're small!!). You could say we each had 2 bottles of wine, but each was just enough to fill our squishy cups. After a moment I remembered our dessert...at which point I looked around and noticed my luna bar was GONE!!! Dang squirrels stole my dessert!!! They left the stinking space ice cream, and stole my Luna Bar!!!! GRRRRRR.
Of course, between the Sudaphed I took for my congestion, and the excitement of the day I hardly slept a wink, despite being serenaded by the frogs all night (cute!). I forgot to mention that at dusk there were Quail everywhere. I'd never seen them before, and we saw them in multitudes everywhere, it was awesome. I felt like I was on a tour of California before "civilization" arrived, it was amazing!
As we were enjoying our breakfast the next morning we noticed our neighboring campsite had a very large visitor. Mr. Bison decided to have his breakfast as well. We quietly watched from a distance, I have been to Yellowstone enough times to know that they are the leading cause of tourist deaths! I want nothing to do with you Mr. Bison thank you very much!
A bison invading our neighboring campsite.
Kiefer wanted to look his best for the ride back, so he thought about giving himself a shave. The mirrors on the porta-potties were a little small...and...SMELL BAD!!!!!
Kiefer putting his best face forward.
We headed out shortly after breakfast, and the ride back was a lot easier than the ride in, there was a long steady ascent (compared with the extremely steep grade on the way out). We did need to take some walking brakes mostly for the sake of our seats (on our bodies), as they were not accustomed to the torture of distance riding over terrain that bites back!
We had our peanut-butter sandwiches (the squirrels decided to try some of those too) for lunch, along with some sun tea, and then began the 1400 foot descent. That was pretty intense, but a lot of fun after a grueling 3 hour climb two days in a row! On the home stretch we got held up for a short bit by a tour bus, but it stopped just long enough for me to eek past (I blame my constant riding in traffic for my confidence to squeak that one off!) I knew that bus was going to cause us (cyclists) to have a crash because it was going so slowly, so it was better for everyone if we just eeked by, so we did! We flew down the remaining part of the hill and made it back to town....by noon!!!!
So we headed to a bar and had a beer. Then we rode over to the casino to watch the divers. Now, dear reader, I feel the need to point out that we made it about 40 miles with NO spills! Here, however, in the town, standing completely still I clipped in my foot (and the beer and exhaustion probably had a lot to do with it now that I think about it), and had the BEST IDEA EVER!!!! I should bounce on the front suspension because that sounds like FUN!!! Kiefer isn't ready anyway.
Bounce bounce....hey that was fun, lets do it again....bounce, bounce BOUNCE...uh....oh......as I teetered dangerously to the right (where my foot was clipped in) I realized i was not going to clip out, and my body, and hand met with the pavement along with my bike and all my gear...in front of all of the attracitve outdoorsmen (my newly afianced man amongst them) looking like a complete idiot. That's what I get for messing around I suppose.....
My freshly bruised hand was now throbbing in agony, so I demanded that we return to the bar and aquire some ice. After about 15 minutes of ice my hand felt better, so we resumed our parusal of the city. I wish we had some warmer clohtes, as with all my layers I was still a little uncomfortable, but it was such a nice day! We had some hot cocoa (Kiefer had some ice cream...crazy guy!), and wrapped up the day with some mexican food at a quiet restaurant. Our bikes got completely soaked on the way home, but all in all the return was uneventful.
Here's the details & data from our journey, and I'm looking forward to our next adventure, though this one by far was the most special!
