46 miles. A beautiful day of hills.

Thanks to our new friends Wendy, Donna, Anita and Chantal for driving us to dinner last night. There were no restaurants close to our BnB – at least for tired cyclists. These women are avid climbers and working on the 46 peak climb challenge. Wendy, in fact, will summit her 46th tomorrow. Congratulations!

Kelly, our BnB host fixed us an early breakfast so we could get on the road by 7. We crossed the Hudson River and wound our way through the forests with climbs and descents galore.

There was very little traffic for the first part of the morning and the ride was very quiet. We passed some beautiful scenery on the way and eventually turned onto US 9 to head south for a bit.

We passed the town of Schroon and I was tempted to ride to Schroon Lake where my mother had studied voice at the Seagle Music Colony in the 1930s. It is one of the oldest operatic training theaters in the US and still turning out young singers. To us, every mile is critical so to keep to our schedule and preserve our energies, we decided to not seek out more adventure.

We turned onto a hard packed dirt road and rode through thick forests and emerged at the town of Severance. There we turned one last time on the road that would take us to Ticonderoga.

Two views along the dirt River Road.

We had read and had been warned about a significant uphill just before Ticonderoga so were both looking at each rise in the road wondering if this was the big one! We finally found it and either because the build up was over the top or because we are in better shape than the earlier “monster” climbs, it wasn’t so bad and we soon topped out and started a long descent into Ticonderoga.