A Hawaiian Epic Ride

Our group of five had planned a mountain biking vacation on the Big Island of Hawaii where we would explore Mauna Kea, Hawaii's tallest mountain peak at 13,000 feet (and the world's tallest when measured from the ocean floor). For two of us, it would be our first time to touch snow.

We drove our van from our cabin at 8000 feet to the Elllison OnizukaInternational Astronomy Center at around 9000 feet where the rest of the road was closed off due to ice and heavy winds. Workers nearby informed us that it was another six miles to the top, the first four miles being unpaved. "How hard could six miles be?," we thought to ourselves.

Well, six miles seemed like 600 miles. We rode confidently for the first couple of miles, but once we hit the 10,500 ft mark, the lack of oxygen was getting to us (read: walking the bikes). I was getting a mean headache, but I wasn't sure why. But we rode (or walked) on. Soon my head felt like it was going to explode; the pressure was incredible!!! To add insult to our misery, they had opened up the road and a truck with some mountain bikes came motoring past us headed for the top! We felt cheated!!

Driven by our desire to upstage those pseudo-mountain bikers and to finally touch snow, we continued on. At one point, we were so desperate that we were going to pay the next truck $20 to drive us to the top, but a truck never came. At 11,500 ft, we finally reached the last two miles of paved road. By that time, the pain in my head was more than excruciating and the coldness didn't help, either.

From then on, we were walking our bikes 20 yards, then rested for 15 minutes and did it all over again. We felt intoxicated and were miserable, but the sight of snow kept us going. Eventually, two of our friends had to turn back due to the cold. Mr. M only had half-fingered gloves and a windbreaker jacket and pants over his cycling clothes. Later, it came to the attention of our other friend that Mr. M had an icicle on his thumb and his hand was black and blue. Could it have been frostbite? No wonder he couldn't feel his brakes on the way down!