I sighed, leaned heavily on my handlebars, and stared blankly up the trail. A tangle of branches arched overhead, forming a head-height tunnel through which rutted, rocky singletrack ascended steeply.

My sigh was one of those I-really-just-want-to-find-some-where-to-camp-before-dusk exhalations. The map made it look like I’d probably have 2,000 feet more of this before the slope relented. It was a tough way to begin a 5,000-mile journey from Canada to San José del Cabo, at the southern tip of Mexico’s Baja California Peninsula.

Before even getting through my first day on the trail in northernmost Washington, I was worried that Orogenesis might be too hard for its own good, too difficult for all the folks excited about the release of the first-ever Canada-to-Mexico (and beyond!) mountain bike trail. My concerns only grew the following morning. After a couple hours of tedious wayfinding and on-and-off-the-bike progress on an, albeit, stunning ridgeline in the Okanogan Mountains, the faint trail finally tilted downward, became easier to follow, and carried me toward the hungry buzz of a chainsaw.