Porterville, CA to Wofford Heights, CA
The cherry on top from yesterdays day of days was we awoke to a flat tyre we had to change, realizing in the process we each had about a dozen little thorns and prickles stuck in our tyres. Nice. On the road, very happy to be leaving Porterville, we took a backroad "shortcut" (oh no!) which started as an undulating country road in crappy condition past a handful of houses, all of which seemed to have between 1 and 10 German Shepherd sized dogs going bonkers at us, before turning into an uphill slog through ranching country.
This practically dormant backroad was, as seems to be the case with any non-major road in these parts, extremely steep, roughly 20% in parts, utterly ridiculous. Great shortcut Luke! So after a few hours of this, entirely on our own, sick to death of uphill, and following one encounter with a loose mutt who bounded alongside us until Luke told it to "get out of it", which it did, we hit Glenville and stopped for lunch at the aptly named Saddle Sore Saloon.
By now it's 3pm and we realize we've only climbed 3,000ft of a 6,000ft upcoming pass! Resigned to cutting the day short (there's no way we'll finish the climb alive today), Dianne and Julianne, two friendly country-music listening gals who both work at the Saloon, offer us a lift to the summit, which, of course, we gladly accept. So we hop in the pickup truck and the girls take us to the top. Once there we enjoy a 13% descent over 12kms, which takes about 10 minutes, into Wofford Heights on the shore of Lake Isabella. Funny old day.
This practically dormant backroad was, as seems to be the case with any non-major road in these parts, extremely steep, roughly 20% in parts, utterly ridiculous. Great shortcut Luke! So after a few hours of this, entirely on our own, sick to death of uphill, and following one encounter with a loose mutt who bounded alongside us until Luke told it to "get out of it", which it did, we hit Glenville and stopped for lunch at the aptly named Saddle Sore Saloon.
By now it's 3pm and we realize we've only climbed 3,000ft of a 6,000ft upcoming pass! Resigned to cutting the day short (there's no way we'll finish the climb alive today), Dianne and Julianne, two friendly country-music listening gals who both work at the Saloon, offer us a lift to the summit, which, of course, we gladly accept. So we hop in the pickup truck and the girls take us to the top. Once there we enjoy a 13% descent over 12kms, which takes about 10 minutes, into Wofford Heights on the shore of Lake Isabella. Funny old day.
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