Day 1 - Mother nature bends the plan

OK, so we got underway today, a day later than originally planned due to the torrential rains of yesterday. The day broke promisingly, with bright sunshine and temps just below 70 when we left the hotel in Keene NH where Larry and I met up to start our trip. We made good time getting over to I-93 in Concord and then northward, but things slowed up a bit when we got over to Lake Winnipesaukee and had to snake through Meredith and Center Harbor. It was after all a Saturday and lots of vacation traffic was everywhere. Once free of that we again were cruising well just until we got the our actual start of the 1st required segment - Rte 16 from North Conway up to Berlin NH.

The official start of our Top 15 Challenge

Everyone knows what North Conway is like on a summer Saturday, but to add even more delay was the funeral for the Fish & Game officer who died in a motorcycle accident in Wolfeboro last weekend. Lots of LEO's both directing traffic (isn't that an oxymoron) and many, many more attending the services at the church right on Main St in N Conway (Rte 16). We eventually cleared all that and got moving well once again, though there was a TON of hiker vehicles parked along the road near each and every hiking trail, and the Pinkham Notch visitor center had cars parked along 16 for at least a half mile in both directions. We got up to berin, and gassed up there and then came back down, stopping just short of the auto road to get some lunch before attempting to summit the auto road.

We arrived at the auto road at about 1:00 PM and there turned out to be some sort of bicycle event going on there so it was heavily congested. After stopping for a photo op at the base we got in line to go up the road. It took another 10 minutes or so to work up to the gate where we were informed that motorcycles were not being allowed up the road due to excessively high winds. We were directed to go across the street if we wanted to wait to see if things improved which we did. Well, we waited for 3 hours watching the reporting station update the wind speeds every 2 minutes. It would inch down, then back up and by the time 4:30 rolled around we were pretty sure we needed to find a room 'cause we weren't getting up the auto road today. As you can see from the photo below, taken just as we left, the Summit wind speed was 56.4 MPG, but with gusts to 70!

Windy!

So, now the fun really began, because here we are in Vacationland, on a Saturday in "high season" with no room reservation... Long story short, the nearest room we could find was in White River Jct VT - 150 miles away! We did manage to complete the Kancamagus Highway section of this challenge, and got into the hotel just as darkness was falling. But, we need to go back up the Mt Washington tomorrow in hopes of getting up the auto road then.

We rode a total of 315.3 miles today.

Added GPS Track for the day: