West Virginia, Mountain Mama!!

WOW, the mountains in West Virginia are like nowhere else, Fred V. (RAAM Crew RV expert and navigations), and I headed down to Parkersburg, WV Monday 11-19-07, we got about 4-5 hours sleep at a local motel, on the RAAM route, then headed out the next morning, grey and overcast we headed EAST, towards the toughest part of the RAAM route, by what I hear. The first 46 miles were pretty gentle, then the real work started hitting the first pass at about noon, a 4 mile climb at a consistent 8% grade, not even an inch of breathing space, my computer was LOCKED at 8% the entire climb, whew. This one is going to be tough with 2,500 miles in my legs. BrendaLee, where are you when I need you!! (our RAAM Crew: Message Therapist)
Then within another hour or so we started another climb, by this time it was raining and in the 40s but we carried on, same type of a climb 8% but there were several spots that were 7%, this went on for 3 miles.
After the descent we stopped at time station 50 and called it a day after 144 miles with 11,460' of climbing. It was now dark, narrow winding mountain roads with quite a few trucks, no sense in taking any chances at this point.
I did learn a lot that will help me train over the winter..... climbing climbing climbing!!!