Had a wonderful ride with Mark Belles on a gray, rainy day. We started out on Fairhaven Parkway, headed south down the Interurban through Arroyo Park, and then climbed Cleator Ave. to the Lost Lake Lookout.

From there we headed south along the Chuckanut Ridge Trail, which gets your attention, not only because it is one of the most demanding trails in the Bellingham area, but because there are several hundred foot cliffs dropping off on for much of its length.

Mark went down on the rock at the top and skipped like a Frisbee. When I walked down the rock, I almost fell too. There was a fair amount of hike-a-bike in the first half of the trail, but also some wonderful technical riding.

Following behind Belles, I was able to ride several sections I never thought I could have ridden, and twice I followed Mark across sections where I didn't even see a trail at all (both times he went up).

Regarding my comment about hitting a wall and feeling like I'm not getting stronger, Mark noted that most of my training over the last five months has been on Galbraith singletrack instead of logging roads, which builds technical skills but not the pure physicality of road riding.

We finally came down into a field with a couple of water towers, which put us on a gravel road that quickly led to the high priced ghetto of Chuckanut Crest. 

Approximately 2600 verts.

Vert Quest chronicles "The Man Known As Mongo's" pursuit of the World Record for climbing on a mountain bike, 404,000 vertical feet, or the vertical equivalent of 13 sea-level-to-summit ascents of Mt. Everest during a 12 month period. Mongo's mountain bike climbing tricks are distilled in Mongo's Over-the-top Guide to Climbing.