The Anarchist

It never bodes especially well when the mountain pass you're about to scale has been dubbed with an intimidating moniker. And, truth be told, whoever decided to name the climb out of Osoyoos "The Anarchist" pretty much hit the nail on the head, aptly capturing the mountain's personality. Adding to the Anarchist's intimidation factor is the fact that the mountain looms over the east side of the lake and you can't help but watch a grim parade of toy-sized looking trucks winding their way up through the various switchbacks before becoming tiny and disappearing into the ether.

Every now and again during our rest day, I would find Kieran tracking a truck's ascent in silence and he would turn to me and ask rhetorical questions in a tone that was at once resigned and determined. "Oh, so are those SWITCHBACKS?" he would ask and sigh when I nodded. (I once descended The Anarchist while driving a heavy moving truck with shoddy brakes and possess a rather vivid recollection of its various features.)

Was The Anarchist worse than the 1-2-3 kicks to the teeth that constitute the climb(s) out of Hope? I don't know. It's not as high or as long, but it certainly has more...personality. You're under the blazing desert sun, for one thing, and it was over 30C by mid-morning. It's steep for another thing, and you often feel like your bike is teetering on the precipice of a deadly plunge over a cliff's edge.

Since I've gone into some detail on what the climb out of Hope was like and, in the end, the climbs are basically all the same (in a word: HARD), I've decided instead to post our pictures from the climb. They kinda capture the essence of The Anarchist a little better than I can without actually writing a novel.

Ah, camping on the lake, where the water is warm and the evenings are pleasant.

Naturally, the lake is at the BOTTOM. And one must go UP from the bottom, as demonstrated here, where we are an hour into the climb (or a quarter of the way up) and already the town is starting to look quite tiny.

And here we are two hours later, about halfway up but believing ourselves to be very nearly done. In fact, the mountain messes with your head that way (ah, yes, the Anarchist) because you hit something of a plateau not long after this and then find yourself grinding up for another hour yet.

A glimpse of the switchbacks to the north:

And south:

And then, at last, your 1233 metre/30 kilometre flirtation with anarchy is done.

Stats: Osoyoos to Midway: 73 km; Anarchist Summit: 1233m/30 km; Number of times we ran out of water under desert sun: 1; Number of RVers we accosted at rest stop to ask for some of their water: 4