What do you 4AM love?

It seems to me that everyone has something they love doing enough to wake up at 4 AM. For a lot of people, fishing/hunting fits the bill. If stores open that early (like the day after Thanksgiving or something), shopping could be it for others. For me, mountain biking is one of those things. OK, and I've gotten up that early to road bike too.
About 7 or 8 years ago, I led a somewhat ill-fated circuit of about 25 miles on the Southeast side of Mt. St. Helens. We began by ascending to Ape Canyon, crossed the Plains of Abraham, passed by Windy Ridge, descended the trail to Smith Creek, followed (and repeatedly crossed) the creek, and ascended the Lava Canyon road to the car (except Mike, who eventually realized he'd taken a wrong turn in his effort to go ahead and get the car . . .). It was really really brutal and only sort of fun.
But I discovered one cool thing. As we ascended the 5 miles of singletrack trail to Ape Canyon, I told myself that it would be very cool to descend that route someday. And, with summer waning, I decided this was the year to satisfy that dream.
So it was, then, that I arose at 4 AM, started driving around 4:30, and started riding around 7 AM.


I'd done enough homework to know Road 83 had been washed out. As you can see, it's actually pretty close to being fixed. But they still won't let you drive on it. We non-construction people had to park our cars 5 miles from the Ape Canyon trailhead. So, the first 5 miles of my "mountain bike ride" didn't really require one.



The mountain, the man, and the machine.


Mt. St. Helens looks good by the dawn's early light! This is looking up a mudflow path ("Lahar") from the 1980 eruption.


It's cool to see this and visualize the path of destruction.


One thing I LOVE about the trail is all the HUGE old trees (they obviously didn't get swept away in the mudflows in 1980). And, they make for handy bike stands!