USA - Day 7 - Silverlake - Crab Flats campground

This is the route we biked today

We spoke yesterday with a couple of cyclists who rode past our camping spot and they confirmed that we could take a cycle path next to the lake. That way we could avoid the interstate.

After the windy path we started on our road in the direction of Arrowhead. We noticed there was a restroom here so I had to take advantage of that 😉

The road we were on was open to all kind of vehicles and it was very uneven and steep in certain places. The fact that these vehicles are driving here make these roads even harder to cycle on.

These kind of roads are a sort of an interval training. You have to do an intense effort to get to the next top and then take a rest and do it all over. I like these kind of challenges and prefer this over a long climb up a 1 000 meter mountain.

When arriving in Arrowhead we immediately noticed that this is a place where rich people have holiday homes. It’s a beautiful place with beautiful houses but it feels a bit posh. We cycled to the center to get some coffee and charge our phones and batterypacks. While I watched over the charging and the bikes Bart went to the store to get some supplies.

We got a poke bowl for lunch and started cycling again at 12:30. We only had 15km and 500m of elevation to go to the campground so we should get there early.

And then we came across another sign of a road being closed. This time we had no real alternatives and we were also fed up with it. So we just continued on and there was nothing wrong with the road at all and we popped out on the other side without any issues.

We continued on and it’s amazing to see the autumn colours in the leaves and all the rest around it. The less amazing part was that this was yet again a road for offroad vehicles.

We would never had thought that this kind of road is suited for any vehicle but we saw tire tracks and marks on the stones that indicate that vehicles do pass here.

We struggled for 2 hours with a section of 5km or so. There were constantly steep sections with huge boulders where we had to push our bike up. At a certain point it stopped being funny but what can you do except continue? 😊

We arrived at our campspot at 15:30 (3 hours for 15km, pfew) and were first a bit bummed as it had signs that the area was closed but we decided to just stay anyway (wild camping is allowed so).

We had some noodles for dinner and as the sun goes down at 16:51 it was so dark at 18:00 that we got into our tents. It was also kinda chilly because a breeze popped up.

While writing this now the breeze has become quite a bit stronger and I can hear the wind blowing through the trees. I have exited the tent once to resecure a peg that got loose. Let’s hope the wind dies down soon but you never know when you’re at 1 820m high.

Let’s just say that I’m really looking forward to sleeping in a bed tomorrow!