June 22, 2009 Twisp to Tonasket, WA

Left Twisp early this morning to take on the Loup Loup Pass. Just outside of Twisp we headed up Highway 20 for 15 miles of climbing. The climb took us about 4 hours. These climbs are slow with speeds between 3-6 miles an hour. This particular climb was not as difficult as previous climbs and we felt much better today sunshine and 60-70 temps helped considerably. Met another biker who is headed to Bar Harbor, Maine. One we topped Loup Loup we decended quickly on some long steep downhills to Okanogan. The downhill helped our average speed as we were hitting about 25 mph for about 20 miles. Had a great lunch and visited the local Okanogan bike shop. From Okanogan we proceeded to Tonasket about a 30 mile trek. We are starting to talk about a rest day soon and have traveled about 230 miles since Anacortes. The next two days both involve more climbing but after that we will be out of the Cascades and into more even terrain as we head to Idaho.