King of climbs
Mauna Kea on the island of Hawaii lays claim to being the hardest climb on Earth. After a brutal day in the saddle, Cyclist isn’t about to argue with that
On most mornings, for just a few minutes after sunrise, you can make out the top of Mauna Kea from the western shores of Hawaii, the grand volcanic peak hanging over the island like some prehistoric monster, blotting out the sun. Then it’s gone – concealed by a mist that turns the sky into an orange haze. That briefly glimpsed summit is where I am heading today. It’s the crack of dawn and I’m ankle deep in sea water on the beach of Waikoloa. Ahead of me Mauna Kea, technically the tallest mountain on earth, stands over 10,000m tall when measured from its true base in the ocean. From the water’s edge the summit is 4,192m above me, and the road to it is considered to be the hardest cycling climb on the planet.
I’ve no real idea of what lies ahead, but I’ve seen the stats and they are truly terrifying. My journey is 92km long, during which there is just one single 1km downhill segment. The rest is climbing, with a 24km stretch at 9%, a 12km stretch at 12% and a rolling 16km stretch at 7% with back-to-back spikes of 15%. That’s before I get near the summit, where I can expect long chunks at 20%. Some of it on gravel. All of it at high altitude.
Just to add to the fun, I’ve been cursed with a blistering headwind that’s bending the palm trees and whipping up
the waves. I dip my rear wheel in the ocean, put on my shoes and socks, and begin to pedal towards a climb that I’m still struggling to comprehend.
The next 16km are at a 6% average, which would be the main climb of the day if I was riding in the Alps
The White Mountain
Of the eight major islands of Hawaii, the Big Island (or Hawai’i) is the largest, and Mauna Kea dominates its landscape. It was described by missionary William Ellis in 1823 as ‘like a stately pyramid, or the silvered dome of a magnificent temple’. In Hawaiian mythology, its peak was the meeting point of the two great deities, the sky god Wakea and the land goddess Papa, where earth and sky first touched and from which all life and land flowed out.
Returning to the present, I’m not alone for my assault on the volcano. With me in a support vehicle is Alex Candelario, an ex-pro cyclist who owns Big Island Bike Tours and will guide me up the climb. It was Alex who insisted I dip my rear tyre in the ocean to make the full journey from sea to sky.
Pointing to the palm trees billowing in the wind, Alex says, ‘That will make the climb about 15% harder.’ I look at him in horror, and ask if he is being serious.
‘What do you want me to say, man?’ he says with the relaxed bluntness of a Hawaiian surfer, ‘It’s goddam hard.’
Alongside Alex in the car is photographer Patrik and Alex’s friend Mark, who has kindly assumed the role of rider support: filling my bottle, handing over sun tan lotion and reassuring me that I don’t look nearly as bad as I feel.
By the time I pass through the town of Waikoloa, I’ve already ridden 13km uphill into a block headwind, and
the landscape has switched from tropical beaches to plains of grass and rock. I’m told Hawaii experiences 11 of the 13 climates that can occur on Earth. It’s like an enormous diorama of the world’s different landscapes, in perpetual metamorphosis from one mile to the next.
So far it has been a manageable 3% incline, and despite the headwind the kilometres are ticking by. After 22km I turn left onto the Mamalahoa Highway, which offers a few kilometres’ relief from the wind, before I turn right onto the Old Saddle Road. The next 16km are at a 6% average, which would be the main climb of the day if I was riding in the Alps, but today is little more than the hors d’oeuvres. As I tap away along the straight road, the scenery changes to grassy desert and then to fields of verdant green.
To my right I can see the Pacific Ocean, now a mile below me, and in the distance is the site where British explorer Captain James Cook landed in 1790, the first westerner to truly discover ‘ O’why’he’, as he called it.
When Cook landed in the bay of Kealakeku, he was treated like a king by the Hawaiians, who, some historians believe, mistook him for the fertility god Lono. Only when one of Cook’s men died did the islanders realise their visitors were mere mortals, and promptly killed the lot of them. Nevertheless, as a mark of respect, Cook’s remains were treated as those of a high chief, or deity.
Another Hawaiian deity sits up ahead. From the mist that had previously concealed it, Mauna Kea is beginning to come into view.
From the Old Saddle Road, I turn onto the New Saddle Road to begin the next section of the climb. This part is 22km long at a 4% gradient, which is by no means steep, but the wind is getting stronger and is chipping away at my energy reserves.
The sun sits squarely above me in a cloudless sky, inflicting a brutal heat. The landscape changes again, this time into a barren plain of black lava, the lingering remnants of the Mauna Ulu lava flow in 1969.
My pace has definitely slowed, and when I finally catch up to the others at the road junction, I can feel the painful tinge of lactic acid flowing into my legs. Mark hands me a cupcake as preparation for the next part.
gradient – The incline is here to stay and I track hopelessly from one side of the road to the other in search of a vaguely manageable a style Alex dubs the ‘paperboy’
Getting higher
I’m now 70km into the ride, and from here the road snakes up with violent steepness toward the Mauna Kea Visitor Centre. This first part of the Access Road, or John R Burns Way, is 10km long at 9% with lengthy spikes of 15%. Beyond that is the crowning piece of the whole climb – a restricted part-gravel road to the observatory atop Mauna Kea. In all, it means I’m still facing an ascent of 2,200m over 24km, making for an average gradient a whisker below 10%.
It starts off easy until at 3km I see a ramp of 10% and stand to power over it. But as the rest of the road comes into view I realise the incline is here to stay and I track hopelessly from one side of the road to the other in search of a vaguely manageable gradient – a style Alex dubs the ‘paperboy’.
The wide road slices through the barren landscape, looking at odds with the natural beauty all around. As my ordeal continues I begin to resent the road, its continuous torment of my frail body, its refusal to relent from its steep upwards progress even for a second.
It leaves an impression on my psyche. For months afterwards, I will experience a dream of an unending road pointing to the sky. I forever fail on its inclines like a Lycraclad Sisyphus, forever pushing a lightweight carbon frame in place of his giant boulder. This climb truly haunts me.
The unwieldy path
I arrive at the Visitor Centre withered and hollow, and slump against a wall. At 2,800m this is higher than any Alpine pass, and already this is the longest climb and the greatest ascent I have ever undertaken. Mauna Kea is not finished with me yet, though.
A few metres from where I lie, the second part of the John R Burns begins. The next 7km averages above 11%, and is littered with lengthy 20% gravel ramps. Imagine the Mortirolo Pass sprayed with loose rock and sand.
Beyond that the gradient intensifies further. I honestly can’t see how I’m going to make it. Neither, I’m certain, can Alex, despite his continued encouragement. Mark places a fluorescent orange cone at my feet in an attempt at dark humour, and tourists at the Visitor Centre treat me like a toxic spillage, cautiously skirting around me.
After 30 minutes, like a priest preparing my last rites, Mark brings me my bike with a sympathetic smile, and I know I have to begin the final ascent. The gravel here is so rough and loose that only 4x4 vehicles are allowed above the Visitor Centre, so keeping traction on just two wheels powered by my loudly protesting muscles won’t be easy.
The gravel here is so loose only 4x4s are allowed above the Visitor Centre, so keeping traction on two wheels powered by loudly protesting muscles won’t be easy
The Scott Addict Disc has been a fantastic companion, and the wider clearance for tyres afforded by its disc brake set-up make it well suited to the job at hand. But having sided for a set of 27mm Challenge Open Tubular tyres, I quickly realise I should have gone for something wider.
Immediately the gradient spikes to 15% and I’m forced to push hard to keep traction on the rough surface. After only a few seconds I’m gasping for air, as the 3,000m altitude begins to take its toll. Clouds roll in from over the sea and seeps into the volcanic craters below me, leaving only the jagged edges of rock formations piercing a white canvas.
When I reach one 20% ramp, I stop dead in my tracks. This gravel is so dry, so fine, that when I push on the pedals my rear wheel just spins feebly in the dirt. So, for the first time in my life, I walk up a portion of a climb. It won’t be the last time today.
It takes me nearly two full hours to ascend the 7.4km gravel section above the Visitor Centre, pedalling slowly where I can, and dismounting to walk wherever I have to. It’s an exhausting ritual and my mind toys with quitting.
All around me, life seems to have given up. Where before there were shrubs and flowers, the air is now too thin for animal and plant life to survive. It’s a moonscape.
As I crawl forwards at a snail’s pace, contorting from side to side, Mark offers me some water. ‘Do you think I’ll make it?’ I ask, with almost exactly 1,000m of ascent left.
‘Yes I do,’ he says confidently.
It takes me nearly two hours to ascend the 7.4km gravel section, pedalling slowly where I can, walking wherever I have to
‘Does Alex think I’ll make it?’ I add. Mark remains silent for a few moments. ‘I’m sure he does…’ he lies. I convince myself things will get easier once I’m back on tarmac, but when I get there the savage incline remains, and my legs refuse to turn the pedals. I drop my head in dejection. Alex looks at me and utters the words that still haunt me to this day: ‘This is where it gets real hard.’
Shadow of doubt
We’re just above 3,500m, roughly the cruising height of a propellor-driven passenger plane. Yet ahead of me is still 7km of climbing, much of it at well over 10% – a monster in its own right. I’ve been climbing for eight and a half hours, and with each metre of ascent I’m robbed of more oxygen.
In my deep state of fatigue, the Martian landscape surrounding me is all the more surreal. Beneath me lies
a coral red desert of stones, while on the horizon are volcanic craters that glint with the sun’s blinding reflection. It’s like I’m on a different planet.
As I ride, my contemplation is interrupted by the appearance of a hiker in his fifties, who is sitting on a rock beside the road, wearing a pristine white cap and cargo shorts. ‘Long way to the top!’ he yells at me with a cheery smile. Were it not for the need to preserve every ounce of energy for the ascent ahead, I would physically attack him.
The road to the summit cuts through the landscape like a razor. My legs ache with a viciousness I’ve never before encountered. The air feels like a supermarket own-brand imitation of normal air. Then the gradient hits 20% and I’m unable to generate enough power to get the crank over the top of the drive. I’ve stopped.
There’s maybe 2km to the top. It’s taken eight months’ planning, 8,000 miles of travel, nine hours of climbing and 4,000m of altitude change to get this far, but all of that pales in comparison to the prospect of those two kilometres.
The observatory at the summit is gleaming in the evening light. I can see two dots that are Patrik and Alex waiting for me. Alex gave me a walkie-talkie this morning so I could stay in touch with the car, and I pull it from my back pocket to ask him to come down from the peak to collect me.
There is only static. Alex can’t hear me. I wonder about turning around and braving the descent over the gravel back to the Visitors Centre.
Far back in the history of Hawaii, the Ali’he (chiefs) would climb this mountain on foot, with no support or equipment. There’s an old Hawaiian chant that retells the journey of the 19th century Queen Emma to the summit of Mauna Kea: ‘I climbed the steep pathway at the very peak of the mountain-kukahau’ula; I continued along that unwieldy path, to a journey and destination unknown.’
The gradient hits 20% and I’m unable to generate enough power to get the crank over the top of the drive. I’ve stopped
After 10 minutes of staring at my stem in despair, I decide that if bereaved queens could make this journey on foot, then riders on featherweight carbon bicycles shouldn’t give up 2km short of the top.
I drag myself up to the first hairpin and pass the first observatory building. I barely register it, facing into a brutal headwind and with an 11% road staring back at me. I’m totally extinguished, and want nothing more than to rest myself on the roadside, but I’m above 4,000m and have less than 150m of climbing to the top.
By some miracle I make it to the next hairpin, and with the wind on my back I crawl onward at an average that now sits at barely 5kmh. Even when 100m separates me from the summit, I still seriously consider stopping. Swaying from side to side, with my heartbeat pounding inside my skull, I look up and make a discovery: I’m at the main observatory. After 10 hours of climbing, I’ve made it.