The way points of this bicycle route:
If you bring your bike to this point by automobile (and fully recognizing all the irony implicit in driving a car to ride a bike at a renewable energy facility), you can park at the Wild Horse Wind Farm maintenance facility about a tenth of a mile from Vantage Highway.
There are a couple of speed bumps in the road here and a "guard station" and gate for the road. Beyond these, just stay on the paved road and climb away! The road surface is rough, there are patches of gravel on the road surface, and there are even a few patches of broken asphalt as well as construction traffic (summer 2009). None of these seemed a significant problem or danger on the climb, though they clearly warrant more attention on a fast descent.
End of the climb: the Renewable Energy Center is worth a walk through. There are bathrooms and there's drinking water available. You might be able to talk a center guide into showing you the inside of a wind turbine. The views from the center on a clear day are expansive and beautiful.
Welcome to Bikely, take a step by step tour of this path:
Press Start Tour - then use the navigation buttons below to move along the path.
Yet another gratuitous hill climb inspired somewhat tangentially by the El Camino YMCA Triathlon Club. The road and the Renewable Energy Center is open to the public from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. seven days a week from April through November (drill down through the Puget Sound Energy website, www.pse.com, for current information or for more details about the Wild Horse Wind Farm and the Renewable Energy Center). The road IS rough and completely exposed to sun, wind, and the other elements for the entire distance - be prepared. The visitor center at the top of the climb is an interesting destination. This Kittitas Valley ride starts at Vantage Highway 16 miles east of Ellensburg and ends at the Renewable Energy Center atop Whiskey Dick Mountain.
Tagged with: Training, Onroad, Steep, Rough, Rural, Scenic
