GP Day 23 — Saguenay

The camp site was beautiful. The bugs were not. Black flies that landed and bit causing very visible (and itchy) red marks in seconds. Small, but nasty. We missed the mosquitoes at night because we were in our tents by dusk. That wasn’t the case at 4:30 this morning when we got up. I ate in the tent again, and resisted opening the “hatch” because of those darn flies. But this morning it was the ‘skeeters. I went out with my first round of packed stuff and by the time I got back to the tent, there were at least six flying around. I have magic potion stickers that Sally S. gave to us last year, but they were packed away on the bike and by the time I found them, I would’ve had twenty more bites. Best defense is to get on the bike and hightail it faster than a mosquito can fly (about 1-1.5 mph. That doesn’t work for the ones you run into!)

Yep 4:30. And packed and on the bikes by 5:30 with a stop for the latrine and water. The ride to Saguenay was pretty desolate. We climbed out of the park and the first 30 miles was mostly a 1% or less grade with some beautiful views of the Rivière Marguerite. I didn’t capture those because I wasn’t fast enough with the phone and I packed it away because of rain. Our first cue was in 54 miles, so we didn’t need the map up. 63.6 miles, 3646 ft of climbing.

Back to the desolate part. From 4 miles or so before we got into the National Park, there were no services. No gas. No convenience stores. No groceries. No cell service. We were in a park, and didn’t need anything, but