Alp d' Minnewaska

Well loyal fans of the New East Coast Syndicate, this past Sunday was a continuation of the painfest of training that leads up to the Wilderness 101, a race that hurt so bad I swore never to go back yet find myself prepping for a seventh consecutive start.
On the menu for the day was the fabled climb up Alp d' Minneswaska. While not quite on a scale with those of the tour, this offroad painfest serves you up a main course of 14 switchbacks and a veritcal gain of 1300+ feet in a scant 2.9 miles with several pitches exceeding 14% grade and follows with a dessert portion of another 14 switchbacks and a gain of 700+ feet in 1.9 miles. With most of the troops off doing battle at Kittatinny, Shop Sidekick (still pouting over missing the Peekamoose 100), opted for the beating to be doled out the day's ride.
Warming up with a preride meeting in the C-Dubs man cave, Shop and I set out at an easy paced roll over to the base of the climb (I was still feeling a bit ragged from yesterday's 62 mile offroad racepace training ride) before paying homeage to the gods of climbing and setting off.
After setting off up the trail below (this picture doesn't reflect the impending doom)it wasn't long before my legs started screaming and I was cursing the previous night's bottles of wine. In true warrior spirit I pushed on, with Shop Sidekick showing mercy and not riding off into the distance (probably because he didn't know where to go) leaving me to eat his dust. Half way up I took a gut check/lung rebuild and rested for 5 minutes listening to the frogs in the pond and thinking of the days when I was young and would have been tossing M-80s into the water. From here the trail/fireroad washe out as the pitch steepened with it tipping up to 14% at one point. We were going so slow that at one point (I believe it was a hullcination) I thought I saw an old man with walker pass me.
Finally cresting the top we were blessed with a couple of miles of nice rolling singletrack before round two, the carriage road to the summit where we were blessed with this view.It was all smiles realizing that the ride home would be more then 80% downhill with speeds in excess of 35 mph being hit on the lower part of the alp. Back at the man cave it was straight to the fridge for a cold yeastly malted beverage before hitting the couch for well earned rest.