Today would break some records, longest Ride of the tour so far and the highest elevation. With this in mind I was off early and cycling before 9, I dropped shortly from town about 1, 000 ft in 3 miles and into a dark and cold Forest Road.
The surrounding mountains were so high there was no sun hitting this part of the forest. The road was awful potted and worn out in places it also had nasty inclines with sharp ups and downs.
After cycling one mile on this dark cold and dingy Road I was in despair and thought I had made a massive error with today's routing. It was 44 miles to the top of the mountain pass which sat at 4, 700 feet and on this road that would take about a week. I was considering turning back then after about a mile and a half the road turned upwards and joined tarmac road.
Much better much smoother this road would get me there, soon I was passing herds of goats the views remained fairly the same just lots of forests.
About halfway Up the climb I got a glimpse of the greenest blue lake it was almost fluorescent. The claim was tedious 40 miles in all to reach the summit, the road frequently went up and back down several hundred feet before repeating. When I eventually reach the top I was 4700 feet up, I was disappointed there was no sign post with the elevation I guess because there was another Road which went even higher.
I had seen snow on the Peaks of the mountains earlier and expected the top to be quite cold, in reality there was nice and sunny and rather warm not really the high point the views were in spectacular either just surrounded by trees.
The Descent to Hornos was quite spectacular and the views opened up as I rounded multiple hair pins, whereas it had taken me 6 hours to do the 40 miles on the way up, it would take me a 20 minutes to do the eight miles down into Hornos.
From there I had a few miles before I reached the embalse de Tranco. This was almost 20 miles long and after 10 miles I reached the town of Tranco where there was a large Dam which I cycled across. 6 miles past the end of the lake I reach my hotel for the night in Coto Rios. Tough day up in the Sierra !