Friday, July 28, 2023 - Castle Quest
More Wanderings Westward through the Apennine Mountains
It had been a perfect night for camping. No wind, No rain. Sufficiently cool. I poked my head out of my tent and again marvelled that there were two Porsche mid-engined sportscars parked next to us. We got up, had a few energy bars, and made ready to depart. We were still getting some strange side-eyes from nearby campers.
I decided to try something a touch different with respect to our accommodations today. Instead of waiting until mid-afternoon, I decided to search online this morning, from the campsite, before we left for our day's drive. In my mind, we had to advance to somewhere in the general vicinity of Genoa, about 175 kilometres to the northwest. That would keep us on our general itinerary, necessary not only for the overall success of the trip but also because it would also position us fairly close to where we were going to do our next crewmember swapover, on the following day.
We snagged a stay at a castle. Exciting!
I browsed through the various accommodation listings on the major sites - expedia.com, booking.com, travelocity. I was finding those kinds of online accommodation sites were working better than using something like airbnb, which seemed more focused on multi-day stays. As I was browsing through booking.com, I came across an intriguing place - essentially a castle, by the looks of it - or what used to be a castle - and furthermore, it was very reasonably priced. It also showed as having a free room. And the location was perfect - only an hour or two away from the dropoff/pickup point for our next crewmembew swap. I clicked 'book', and ... the website said 'success'. It was now only a matter waiting for the confirmation e-mail.
Now, how cool was that? We were going to stay in a castle tonight. Camping one night; Castle the next!!
We could have taken a different route away from the campground, but we wanted to sample that awesome continuous-esses slope that we had come in on the night before. We drove uphill for two minutes, back up to the low pass of the Passo del Giogo. We took a few artsy shots in front of the rustic stone buildings of a local Agriturismo that is located just off of the road here. We then spent some time enjoying heading back down that twisty road slope, getting the drone out and capturing various views of the excellence.
Down the amazing twisties
Then we decided to head down into the town we had driven by the night before - the town of Firenzuola. The previous night, as we had zoomed by, we had gotten a glimpse of an old town wall entrance archway and an interesting-looking street beyond. And on top of that, we were in the mood for a morning sit-down at a cafe.
Firenzuola is a town originating from the time of the warring city-states of Italy in the 14th century, being in a strategic location between the then city-state of Florence and the then Lordship of Bologna. It was built in a style known as the late medieval "ideal town", with a fortress and a well-defined square of defensive walls, where all of the important buildings are within these walls.
Umbrellaed Main Street
It was through one of the big portals in this city wall that we entered downtown Firenzuola - on foot, after having parked the two Porsches in a large parking area just outside. The entranceway view was striking. The antique entrance archway framed a narrow street lined with portico-ed buildings. The city had strung multi-coloured umbrellas along wires between the buildings, down the full length of the street. When viewed from one of these entranceways, the umbrellas formed a colourful series of lines diminishing into the distance - a modern artistic flourish that contrasted beautifully against the historic cityscape.
We wandered into the town's principle center square, the Piazza Agnolo, where there were several suitable cafes scattered about. We chose a cafe named La Fonte, for no reason other than it was the closest one to where we had entered the square.
We ordered our coffees and our dolci, and then sat at one of the cafe's outdoor tables to relax for a bit, and to watch the comings and goings of the folks in the square.
This was not a particularly touristy town, nor was this a particularly touristy area. And it was a weekday. Therefore the people moving to and fro - they were simply regular Italians, going about their normal everyday activities. Nice vibe.
Andy and morning coffee
Refreshed and refocused by our mid-morning coffee break, we wandered back out through the city walls and back to the parking lot. Our objective for today was to simply continue our exploration west along the line of the Apennine Mountains, making decent progress westward, and arriving at our "castle" accommodation, which was located in the municipality of
Ferriere, deep in the heart of the Northern Apennines, and about 50km northeast of Genoa. At the moment, we were roughly on the meridian between Florence and Bologna, and so that put us about 175 kilometres away. It didn't seem too far, but of course that was an as-the-crow-flies measurement. In these deeply-corrugated mountains, it was likely that the covered road distance would be double that.
So, time to leave Firenzuoa. We got up and walked back to the cars. So enamoured were we of the umbrella-ed main street, that we chose to drive down that street on our way out, and had Andy film us puttering along under the umbrellas.
Once through the old town of Firenzuola, we turned north on a nicely-paved highway that climbed out of town. This was the
Strada Provinciale 117, and it was one of the many roads in the general area I had flagged when compiling my "good roads" database. In my notes, I wrote:
Excellent rambling road over a lot of open hillsides and farmland.
Good wide pavement, curvy with occasional tight twists.
looks quiet.
This was exactly the sort of route I was looking for - a quiet, curvy route that let us feel immersed in the landscape, far from crowds. And indeed, it was just that. The road climbed in a curvy fashion, at first through some forest but then soon up into a kind of grassy uplands. Here and there, where the terrain was a little steeper, the grass gave way to gravelly gullies. Overall, a gentle landscape. There were very few buildings around, and virtually no other traffic. This was the kind of unregimented road-trip vibe I had been hoping for: on our own on a road that was curvy and remote and scenic - and where we
sort of knew where we were headed but where the specifics were unclear.
After winding up and down a few subsidiary ridges, we climbed up to a sweeping curve in open grassland, and which had a generous pulloff area. It looked like the perfect place to stop for some photo/video action. I wanted to make sure we made some effort to capture our drive from different angles and using different devices. I was discovering that it was easy to get in the mindset of pushing off the hard work of setting up outside shots, putting in place different camera assemblages, and in general putting in the work to record. I had to combat that laziness or we weren't going to have much media to help us tell this story!
Admiring the Landscape... and the cars
Continuing on, we soon came to the northern end of the SP117. We were on the crest of a high but very gentle ridgeline, and a different state highway - the SP58, led westward roughly along its crest. As you may already have realized, I love ridgecrest routes, and so naturally turned west (plus we needed to head west anyway).
We stopped at a cool picnic area next to a huge prominent crag - the Sasso di San Zanobi (the "Rock of Saint Zanobi") - jutting out of the otherwise gentle landscape. A large gravel parking lot provided plenty of space and picnic tables were scattered around in a scrubby field directly underneath the face of the crag. We stopped here for another photo op.
The highway west of here was along beautiful open grassy ridgecrest, with the the landscape of Tuscany on our left and the landscape of Emilia-Romagna on our right (the ridgecrest was roughly along the boundary of the two provinces). We did some more photography here, including some tracking shots with the official GTS Chronicles Aerial Camera Platform (tm).
Enjoying the open ridgecrest
After the open ridgecrest, the highway soon brought us to another pass - the Passo Raticosa. There was a roadside bar/restaurant here, populated with a large gaggle of sportbikes, which were clearly on some sort of group ride. We were feeling some pangs of hunger ourselves, and we decided to stop here for lunch. I had an excellent plate of tagliatelle with venison.
Although our lunch was relaxing, enjoyable, and delicious, it burned up quite a lot of time. We had arrived at 1pm and now, as we were heading back out to the cars, it was nearing 3pm. I was starting to feel the pressure of the clock again, which was becoming a perennial trip problem. Our current progress wasn't nearly good enough to get us to the municipality of Ferriere - and our castle - by the end of the day.
courtesy ABrown
I took a bit of time to do some route calculations, and confirmed that yeah ... as much as I would have liked to stay up in the mountains and enjoy the roads, we needed a faster route. And once again, the solution ended up being a big out-and-around route, heading north to the lowlands of the Po near Bologna and then blasting along the flats for a while, before heading back into the mountains to find our night-time resting spot. It felt a little like a cop-out, but a cop-out that was required if we were going to stay on-schedule.
And so, the A-1 Autostrada came to our rescue. Instead of crossing it and continuing through the mountains, we hopped on it northbound, and in minutes we were on flats near the outskirts of Bologna. We now proceeded northwest, at a comfortable 140km/hr, and saw the signs for many famous cities pass us by ... Modena ... Reggio-Emilia ... Parma (all of which, by the way, are amazing cities that one should definitely visit when time permits - which for us at present it did not).
Luke's Thoughts
[on the high-speed bypass...]
I think Andy has enjoyed the twisties, and the chance to yap with Andrew in his car as I chase along after them. The Boxster is effortless on the highway. Smooth, quiet surges of power in sixth gear whenever you need it, no need to downshift to pass anyone. The cruise control is impressively intuitive, although I do wish it was on the wheel like the S2000 versus the stalk sticking out but I'm getting used to it and it does work extremely well.
We finally found a gas station with 100 octane so we are all gassed up and good to go. Gas is frickin' expensive here though, phew. Give me a Canadian fill-up anytime. A bit more autostrada and then we head into the next set of mountains. It's hellishly hot right now, 33.5C is the reading on the dash for external temperature, so I've got the roof up and the air conditioning on to keep me comfortable. I tend to get a bit flushed in the twisties LOL.
Branching off of the A-1 autostrada just outside of Parma, we headed back south, now on a subsidiary autostrada - the E33 - which goes all the way to the coast at the city of La Spezia (near where the Cinque Terre is). But we weren't going that far - instead, we were using the highway to get into the heart of the Apennines in the general vicinity of our Castle destination, and then we would wander around on a few more juicy roads before arriving at our destination. I mean ... on a roadtrip with two Porsche sportscars, you just can't be spending all of one's time on boring expressways when there are great roads nearby. That would be tantamount to sacrilege!
The town of Berceto
We exited the E33 Autostrada at the town of Ghiare, and then began a circular route that would hit some of the good roads I had identified in the area. We first headed east on the SP19, hitting some nicely paved switchbacks where the road went back underneath the autostrada. We slowly rolled through the quiet town of Berceto, then turned southwest, soon crossing into Tuscany on the SS62. The highway through here was curvy but not truly twisty; however the quiet, pretty countryside and lack of traffic made up for a lack of outright twistiness.
We drove as far south as the outskirts of the city of Pontremoli, in northern Tuscany. Although an interesting-looking place, we really didn't have any time for city-visiting. In fact, we had once again stretched the time a bit too far in our road-rambling, as it was now already early evening. We had better make a beeline for our castle accommodations.
I put a pin on the online map at the rough location of where I thought the castle was, and hit navigate. The display showed roughly 60km of road distance, which, at a sporty driving speed, we should be able to manage in about 45-50 minutes. All good.
Mistaken Valley
After about 60 kilometres of driving, back north into Emilia-Romagna (over more nice twisty country road, I might add, and over two decently-high mountain passes), we descended into a pretty valley. Late evening sunlight streamed down into it from the west. I dutifully followed google maps along the last stretch of the route, down and across a small river (a gravelly, braided watercourse called the Torrente Noveglia), and up some farm roads on the opposite bank. As we climbed the opposite side of the valley, I scanned the slopes for our "castle".
No castle. Hm, strange, I thought. I looked at the map more closely. There were indeed a few agriturismos here (basically, rental farm-houses), but no castle. I flipped through my phone, back to the booking receipt for the Castello Malaspina. I clicked on the little location/map finder, then watched - with a mild sinking sensation in my stomach - as my maps display zoomed away from our location to another spot a few valleys to the west.
Crap. I had misplaced the route destination, and I had led my GTS Chronicles compatriots astray. This wasn't the valley where our castle was located.
Castello di Bardi
Well, this was a fine pickle I had gotten ourselves into, wasn't it? Dusk was fast approaching and I had led us to the wrong place.
Ok, recovery time. Just how far was it to the right location? calculate, calculate .... 46 kilometres. Ok, not too bad. Next ... we had better update the hosts at the castle; I didn't like the idea of not showing up by the usual check-in time, which I considered to be a matter of politeness. So, I fired off a message on booking.com to the hosts, explaining that we would be a bit late. And then, time to get our butts in gear!
Luke's Thoughts
[more sanguine observations as Andrew frantically navigates...]
As we headed towards the place we were staying for the night, the road surface got a bit rougher, well more strong undulations I guess is the right word. Can't believe how well the Boxster suspension just soaks it all up. No wheel hop, no skittish behaviour, just all four tires planted all the time. There are a little aero flaps in front of the front wheels just like on the S2000 and those occasionally get a tiny scrape, just like on the S2000, no issue.
Andrew definitely drives faster than me, but because of radio contact it's no big deal. Plus he is generally very good about waiting for confirmation at any kind of intersection, and we do have a protocol should we actually get separated.
With a bit of extra urgency, we headed back to the highway on the opposite side of the valley and continued on north. We soon crossed a river and approached a beautiful little hillside town, dominated by an imposing fortress-like castle perched on a crag. This, however, was not "our" castle. This was the
Castello di Bardi, a medieval fortress and now a museum and art house for the surrounding town of Bardi. Looked like it would be a cool place to explore. But, once again, no time. Andy used the camera to capture some images as we drove by.
We climbed up out of the town of Bardi on the SP77 - a fairly narrow provincial road with decent pavement that gradually traversed a wooded mountain slope towards a low pass. There was no traffic to block our progress, and we made good time to the height of land at the
Passo Linguada, elevation 3100 feet (950m). It was 8:15pm, and we had just over a half hour left to sunset.
We descended into the valley to the west. The road - although well-paved - was surprisingly narrow for a "provincial highway", and we had to exercise some caution in blind turns. The road descended into the bottom of a farmland valley, and started following another gravel-choked river - the
Torrente Laviana - to its confluence with an even larger gravel-choked river (the
Torrente Nure). We turned up the valley of this larger river, on the also much-wider SS654, and headed south. We were now - according to my google maps route - only about twelve kilometres from our destination.
A few minutes later, we passed through the little hamlet of
Ferriere - a name I recognized from the online booking for the castle, so that was reassuring. From here on, we would keep our eyes peeled for the little turnoff to a small satellite community called
Gambaro. Our castle - the
Castello Malaspina da Gambero (in english "The Castle of Malaspina in Gambaro) - was located here.
Valentino, Clara, and the Amazing Castello Malaspina
We slowed, and from this point on, we payed close attention to every turnoff to the right, not wanting to compound our mistakes any further. We were glad we did, too, for we soon came upon the correct turnoff, marked with a small brown sign which indicated an attraction. "Castello Gambero", it read. Perfect. We turned up the small, single-width paved laneway.
The Elusive Castello Malaspina
The laneway soon branched, and at this point, we could see a large and broad old stone building on the hillside above us, its top poking up above trees, so we branched left to head towards it. This led us up and through a beautiful little cluster of quaint buildings and a small rustic church and bell tower. And just beyond, perched above the rest of the buildings, an imposing structure loomed - a structure sporting a very castle-like turret on the corner nearest us.
Finally. We had managed to reach our destination - the Castello Malaspina di Gambero.
The time was 8:42pm. Ten minutes before sunset, and still eighteen minutes within my updated arrival window. However, technically we were not yet fully arrived. We were on the narrow laneway *below* the castle; not actually in the parking lot of the castle itself. And that presented one final obstacle.
The cobblestoned entranceway to the castle was at quite a steep upward angle, and where it met the laneway, the angle changed abruptly. I eyed that change in angle, and I realized that if we weren't careful, our low-slung 718s may very well catch a front lip on the transition. This was going to require some finesse.
Very, verrrry carefully, I approached the entrance to the steep cobblestoned entranceway at as oblique of an angle as the surrounding obstacles allowed. I had Luke and Andy stand outside and watch as I inched up, verifying that the edge of my Cayman's front lip would clear the ground. It did. Barely. The rear-biased weight of the car kept both drive wheels firmly planted and slowly I made my way over the transition and onto steep entranceway. After that, it was a cinch to drive up and into the spacious parking area on the far side of the castle. I returned to the driveway entrance and we repeated the process with Luke's Boxster. Phfew. Our cars were safe and sound.
A short, solid gentleman with pure white hair stood illuminated in the open doorway of the castle, yellow light streaming out from behind him. The proprietor of the castle, we assumed. Had he been watching our delicate entrance act? I greeted him in Italian and expressed my apologies for being so late.
Entrance Foyer
I followed the gentleman into the castle. The interior was as rustic as the exterior - bare stone walls predominated. Wood was present where it was needed - in the roof beams, on the stairway steps. He led us down a hallway and down to a reception area adorned with a few decorative items and a small desk that held the trappings of a boutique hotel - flyers and pamphlets and a tripadvisor authenticity sign and review rating - that sort of thing. The gentleman disappeared into an adjacent room that looked a bit more like a dining area and I followed him. A lady within stopped me as I was entering and indicated that this was a private area. Oops. Back to the reception hallway.
I completed our check-in, and we were shown up to our room, by way of a large, beautiful stairway where the steps were finished in dark, richly-varnished wood. The walls remained bare stone, creating a pleasing old-and-modern aesthetic.
At the top of the stairs, the gentleman led us down a long hallway with plastered walls, an angled ceiling constructed of dark-stained wooden beams, and smooth flooring. Partway down the hallway he turned into a doorway. The entrance to our room.
Grand Bedroom
And what a room it was! Unlike the lower floor entranceway and reception area - which had a show-the-history aesthetic - this room was "finished", from top to bottom. Half of the walls were surfaced in dark-varnished wood; the other half nicely plastered. The ceiling's structure was left uncovered, exposing darkly-varnished beams. The floor was finished in a light-coloured hardwood. The furniture was all made with ornately-carved wood, stained a similar colour to the walls. A large king bed was positioned at one end of the room. At the opposite end of the room sat two metal-framed double-sized beds. In a corner near the large bed, a wooden door hid a thoroughly modern white-tiled bathroom. Two windows looked out over the entranceway, the historic nearby church, and the valley and mountains beyond. This was a *really* nice room. Had a definite kingly vibe to it. I reflected on the price, which - now seeing the room and this whole place - was amazing. It which was not substantially different than the prices of any other place we'd stayed at so far. I turned to our host and expressed surprise at the excellence of the room. He nodded with a kind of knowing smile, and left us to settle in.
Luke's Thoughts
[on the amazing Castello...]
When we reach the final destination, I am in awe. First of all, I think we were again at the wrong spot as we go up a narrow street, with a castle at the end of it. Lo and behold, though, it's a surprise Andrew has had up his sleeve and we are actually staying in this magnificently renovated castle built in 1500 AD!!! The place is utterly silent because the walls are 5 feet thick, and the room is gorgeous. We give Andrew the king-sized bed as a 'reward' for him finding the place. Wow. Can't wait to explore around it in the morning.
(to read more of Luke's thoughts from this day, check out his
blog post)
We quickly unpacked our toiletries and clothes and did our usual routine of setting about charging our gear. Luke and Andy were gracious enough to let me sleep in the luxurious king-sized bed, while they each took one of the two metal-framed beds. This was an awesome place we had scored - really something special.
It was now just around 9pm. We had been on-the-go pretty much all day, and we were fairly tired - but also very famished. We hoped that perhaps the Castle's dining area would still be open. If not, we were unsure of just where we would eat - we essentially had passed through no real towns of any sort during the last 30 or 40 minutes of our drive here. The whole valley seemed very quiet. And on top of that, we really didn't relish having to negotiate the tricky steep entranceway in the Cayman and the Boxster - in the dark - twice, coming and going.
I went back downstairs to the reception area, and poked my head into the private dining area (clearly part of the "home" part of the castle that the proprietors used as their residence).
I re-introduced myself (in my best possible Italian). The lady (presumably the wife of the gentleman) started asking me a few questions, clearly curious that I could speak Italian at all. I gave a little backstory about my family and where I came from (Canadian, but borne of an Italian mother from the Naples area who married my Canadian father who was a Sergeant in the second world war, and then how Luke and I had bought two sports cars and were on this rambling journey to find good roads, and how we had stumbled upon this amazing place, and so on). The gentleman and the lady seemed to appreciate the effort, interjecting with various questions. Where they had been a bit dour and formal upon our arrival, they were becoming distinctly more relaxed - maybe we had somehow passed the test of being decent folk rather than cold, demanding clients. It was nice of them to open up as they did. They introduced themselves - he, Valentino and she, Clara.
I proceeded to then ask them questions about dinner - was there still dinner on offer in the dining room of the Castle? If not, were there any suggestions they might have? was anything even open around here?
Unfortunately no, the castle's dining room wasn't serving any food - in fact, for regular overnight clients, only breakfast was offered. But - and here is where things take an amazing turn - Valentino then spoke up: "Oh, but there is a great little chalet restaurant - the
Rocca dei Folli - back down the road towards Ferriere. They make great pizza there, and they are open late. And I can call and make a reservation for you." Fantastic! but of course, the thought of negotiating the low-slung Porsches back down the entranceway dampened our spirits a bit. Maybe he was reading my mind, because I was then hit with another level of generosity: Valentino said something to the effect of "oh, and you can take my car - leave your cars here". Perhaps Valentino had watched as we had struggled a bit to get up into the castle's parking lot with our two Porsches. Maybe he had put two and two together, and correctly surmised that we likely didn't much relish the thought of having to do that twice more in the dark.
But to go from that realization, all the way to offering to lend us his own car? To people who, quite frankly, he didn't know from Adam? Whoa. That was
very generous. It would, of course, be great if we could borrow his car. I stammered and stumbled through many
grazie milles.
I translated everything that had been said and offered to Luke and Andy, whose mouths dropped in simultaneous amazement. I mean ... this was perfect: The cars stayed safe and sound; we had a way to get down to an apparently excellent pizza restaurant; reservations would be made on our behalf; and to top it all off ... we were staying in a kick-ass kingly apartment in a castle. I mean ... could we have lucked out any more?
Valentino's Panda
We returned back downstairs, where Valentino had already made a reservation for us. He brought us out to the back courtyard, where his shiny blue little Fiat Panda 4x4 was parked. He gave me the keys. In return I offered him the keys to my Cayman as a sort of collateral. Or maybe my passport, I thought. I still couldn't fathom that he would trust us so definitively. He gently refused my keys or anything else I had, and simply encouraged me to head off.
And so that was that. We piled into the little blue Panda and I fired it up, let out the clutch, and drove around the castle and down the steep entranceway, which was no problem at all for the short-wheelbase, short-overhang 4wd microcar. We headed back down the laneway to the highway and started down towards Ferriere.
It was only a few minutes drive before we turned - as directed by Valentino - off to the left, up a different narrow laneway signed "Caserarso / Casaldonato". There was no sign that we could see about a pizzeria, but instructions were instructions (the next morning, in daylight, we could see that there was actually a large wood-carved "Chalet / Pizzeria" sign, but it was not easy to see at night, especially in the direction from which we were coming).
Pizza at Chalet Rocca dei Folli
The laneway led steeply uphill. Soon we saw a large wooden "Village - chalet" sign, and we turned off onto a gravel driveway which led up to a large hillside parking lot. There were a surprising number of cars in the lot (given that the roads in this valley seemed exceedingly quiet), and through the trees, we could make out the lights of the chalet/restaurant building. People strolled in and out of the short path leading up to the chalet, and we could hear the low din of many people talking. Definitely was open!
We parked and headed up the path to the chalet. It was a fairly large wooden structure with both indoor and outdoor seating, and large sliding door panels completely removed to create a single space between indoors and outdoors. And the place was *hopping* - packed and buzzing with chatter and clinking and bursts of laughter and waiters bustling to and fro. We made our way up to the reception booth and introduced ourselves as guests of Valentino, who had made a reservation for us. Certamente! di qua, per favore..... Wow! primo treatment. Thank you again, Valentino!
We sat outside in the warm evening air and ordered a bit of wine and, of course, our pizzas. Luke had a Margherita pizza and I had a pizza called La Patacetta - bufala mozarella, rosemary, pancetta, and ... potatoes. An unusual combo, to be sure, but sure was tasty!
We reflected on the day's events, which had coalesced into a blurry jumble in my mind. The morning back at the campsite seemed to have occurred on a different day, ages ago. I guess that was good - a sign of a fulfilling day of GTS Chronicles road-tripping!
Late Return
After a thoroughly relaxing and recharging dinner, we payed up at the front desk and made our way down to our new little friend - Valentino's Panda - our unexpected GTS Chronicles support vehicle. We hopped in and motored back up to the castle, noting its distinct lack of power compared to the Cayman's 4.0 litre flat six. Still, a fun little car to drive.
We drove back up the laneway to the base of the castle, and then up the steep driveway. It was now full-on dark, and the street-lit ramparts and the glowing windows and doors made the Castello look quite spooky and impressive. We parked the car around back in the courtyard area. Valentino was relaxing on a chair in a covered veranda area and welcomed us back. I reported that the meal was excellent and returned him his keys, thanking him profusely once again. He was quite cordial and warm with us now, treating us almost as old friends. We excused ourselves, promising to be up for breakfast the next morning, where we could chat and experience more of this wonderful location.
But for now, sleep. Sleep in a big ornate comfy bed. In a wood-trimmed, luxurious castle suite. Yep - it had been a fine day indeed!
Interactive trackmap with photo points - July 28 - click map to view
Start Time:
9:03a.m.
End Time:
9:21p.m.
Duration:
12h18m
Distance:
391.73 km
(243.41 mi)
Average Speed:
31.8 km/hr
(19.8 mph)
Start Elevation:
1727ft
(526m)
*
Max Elevation:
3341ft
(1018m)
*
Min Elevation:
0ft
(0m)
*
End Elevation:
2793ft
(851m)
*
* : +/- 75 feet
Total Elevation Gain:
15582ft
(4749m)
*
Total Elevation Loss:
14523ft
(4427m)
*
* : +/- 75 feet
Elevation Graph