Crossroads strategies

I actually had a few Crossroads specific strategies in my latest report, so I figured I'd break them out here:

• Get the Bellevue bike map, especially if you're biking. Even if you're not biking, it's a good scale, and more up-to-date than the Street Scramble maps (for the most part).
• But don't trust the Bellevue bike map completely since, as I said, it's ranking of hills is suspect.
• If you're nervous about traffic, go north and west first, since those roads get worse and worse as the day goes on (as those of us who had to get onto 520 after the Scramble found out).
• If you're averse to climbing hills, note where the watersheds are, and try to grab checkpoints in roughly the same elevation before going to the next one over. Here are a couple of the more obvious areas with the same elevation, from west to east:
  • The Norwood Village Hill, in the SW (only the most insane go here).
  • Wilburton Hill, near the botanical garden, south of Bel-Red road at around 124th.
  • The Kelsey Creek valley, including Kelsey Creek Park, Hyak JHS, the valley west of 140th.
  • The ridge east of Kelsey Creek, including Sammamish HS, Sunset Hills cemetery, the highest parts of BCC, and Robinswood (the lower parts of BCC are on the slope down to Richards Creek, which is what Kelsey Creek runs into).
  • The Lake Hills trail valley (west of the mall, down to Larsen Lake and SE to Phantom Lake).
  • The ridge to the east (including the mall and the area generally to the east and north of it).
  • The slopes down to Lake Sammammish (including Tam O'Shanter park).