Weather looked good but not great. No predictions of rain except that at 7:00 am, it was raining hard in Olalla. But by the time we got to Paradise, the weather is perfect. Sunny but not too hot or cold. Still felt good to be able to throw a windbreaker on before heading down. Had a new small hydration pack and couldn't get any water out of it. Found out it had a clear plastic cover that had to be removed. Stupid me. Pie at Copper Creek followed by a salmon burger at the bunk house. Sat at a table in the shade and was joinged by a women who had been hiking and has attened Burning Man several times and headed back this year. Interesting conversation. Also the start for climbers either heading up Rainier for hopefully a summit and those coming down. Some smiling and some not but all of them really tired.
Data: In preparation for the 20 miles up on Hurrican Ridge ride in August, I have been trying to calibrate my e-bike battery as the last 12 miles from Longmire to Paradise is similar to Hurricane Ridge. I have recorded the battery useage from Longmire to Paradise at level 1 several times and it is consistently 25% or 2%/mile. So today I wanted to try it at level 2 which has been derated to 75% or to 100 watts vs level one set to 50 watts. I therefore expected to use approximately 50% of the battery. Skip led the first 6 miles and was aggravatingly slow such that I shifted back to level 1 off and on. The last 6 miles I led and used level 2. Battery useage was 70% not the 50% expected. Hmm