The weather has been great since I got to the Columbia river valley. Today was no exception. Blue skies and highs in the mid 70s. The forecast looked good the rest of the week as well.
I remember talking with a nice couple out picking mushrooms. Lobster and chanterelles. I saw a few commercial pickers during the day with boxes of chanterelles.
Ride time: 5 hours 22 mins
Distance: 53.7 miles
Avg: 10. Max: 43
I didn’t have time to make it to Portland, so it will be a must-stop when I tour the west coast. Vancouver, WA was a nice town. I talked with a lady about touring. She had biked across the US many years ago and retold dome stories from that.
I think I read somewhere that Vancouver has the second largest Chinese population in the US after San Francisco.
Ride time: 5 hours 37 mins
Distance: 74 miles
Avg: 13.2
Hood river has an awesome cement skatepark. I stopped there and had a little skate session using a borrowed board and my hiking shoes. So much fun.
I was going to pick up a new speaker for my bike today. It crapped out and it has a warranty so they shipped one to the post office via general delivery. The thing is, the Cascade Locks post office hours online looked like it was open on Saturday when it is not. So I headed west on the Washington side and will bike into Vancouver tomorrow after I unload my bike. I am thinking I’ll make good time without the weight. The state park I am at has a hiker biker site so I’ll stay here 2 nights and grab the speaker Monday morning.
Ride time: 3.5 hours
Distance: 36 miles
Avg: 10.3. Max: 46.9
Today I stopped at a trailhead that had a bunch of cars parked there. There must be something coll I thought. So I hiked the 4 miles round trip up to see a waterfall. I think the hike up was prettier than the actual falls.
Ride time: 5 hours
Distance: 57.8 miles
Avg: 11.6. Max: 45.3
This morning decided to take it easy and go exploring along the river. That was a good choice. The forest and the river were beautiful.
I got to see a huge fish swimming upstream. I took a video of it.
I camped at another closed campground tonight on a lake with a great view of Mt. Hood. I road my bike around the lake on a dirt path until I found a nice spot on the beach with the best view of the mountain. There were lots of birds on the lake.
Ride time: 4 hours 52 mins
Distance: 41.8 miles
Avg: 8.6. Max: 40.4
I saw a bald eagle today. There was also lots of old growth trees. I am not sure what type of landscape I am in, but if I had to guess I would say temperate rainforest. You can hear water running in every direction. There are vines and moss growing towards the center of the forest road.
I ran into a small problem in Detroit, Oregon. There was sign that said the road I planned to take was closed at mile marker 38. Great. I tried to figure this out at the forest service visitor center. The guy there read me the report for the closure. No one is getting through. Landslide. So I needed to figure out where mile marker 38 was. After some more talk with the folks at ODOT, we figured the road that I was taking was open. Forest road 42, the meaning of life. It turns out forest road 42 was amazing. It was about 40 miles long and most of it was a single lane and paved. The only traffic I saw were a few people looking for a nearby hot spring.
I wanted to stop at Breitenbush hot springs, but there were closed. I stayed very near there a a USFS campground called Breitenbush, because it was on the Breitenbush river.
Ride time: 4 hours 25 mins
Distance: 55.45
Avg: 12.5
I spent a rest day in Bend and it was lovely. I could definitely live here. I went to a shop that just served tea, over 100 kinds.
I climbed to the top of this butte which is right in town and overlooks everything. From what I gather, buttes are the nipples of volcanic formations.
I rode my bike today, so life is good. I found some full finger riding gloves in the ditch today. I could really use a pair of these!
I camped at the PCT trailhead and just pushed my bike into the woods away from the parking lot. It was great because there was a bathroom and a garbage can. What more does one need?
Boredom breeds ingenuity.
Ride time: 5 hours 18 mins
Distance: 48.6 miles
Avg: 9.1. Max: 38
Coming into Bend I went past Mt. Bachelor but the clouds were looming over the top so I didn’t get a view. I passed lots of cyclists riding up the hill as I was going down. Most of them were way too serious to wave back when I greeted them with a wave and a ‘good morning’. Don’t forget to smile!
Bend is a beautiful town of around 80,000 people. It was very clean and beautiful. Lots of breweries. The Deschutes rivers runs through town. Bend is also known for 300+ days of sunshine every year. I could definitely live here.
I stopped for some tea at one of the many coffee shops downtown. This one was hidden in an alleyway.
I picked up some fuel for my stove and a dry bag at the REI in town, then met up with Zach Nordby for some food and drink across the street. It turns out Zach was related to the owner of the coffee shop I went to. I guess I have good taste.
I found a place to stay through Warmshowers with John and Audrey on the east side of town. John retired at 55 and is the most fit 57 year old I have ever seen. Both John and Audrey have done lots of bicycle touring and had tons of great stories to share. They are planning a tour with these things called elliptigos. They are like elliptical machines that are bicycles. You can google it. They looked wild.
They were very hospitable people and it was a pleasure staying with them.
Apparently this is the only picture I took today. I am invincible in my shiny pants.
Ride time: 4ish hours
Distance: 42 miles
The ride was beautiful and traffic was at a minimum. I biked pasted numerous alpine lakes.
Today’s ditch score (and there are lots of cool things you can find in ditches)
Ride time: 7 hours
Distance: 69 miles
Avg: 9.9. Max: 31
38 degrees at 8 am this morning. I was wearing almost all of the clothes I brought with to bed. I stayed warm. It rained all night and I was a little worried my tent was going to start taking on water due to the poor drainage of the soil. My MSR Hubba Hubba tent has a surprisingly water-tight bottom on it. Worth it!
My gear and my bike that were near the picnic table all had a nice layer of ice on it. The rain had frozen over night so the temps were lower than 38 at night.
On the way up to Crater Lake I spotted a cool mushroom the size of a softball. I don’t even think it’s reached its final form yet.
I finally got to see Crater Lake for the first time ever. It really is beautiful. The vibrant blue water surprised me the most.
I hiked up to a viewing thing as well. I have more pictures but I need to stitch them together with Photoshop.
I met another touring cyclist just as I started heading downhill and just as it started raining. He was from Portland, heading south. I had a really light setup with next to no gear and a light frame on his bike. His wisdom as we talked about last night’s bitter cold – if you’re not wearing all of your clothes to bed on the coldest night, than your sleeping bag is too heavy.
I am camping at a ‘mushroom camp’ in Chemut. From what I understand, everyone is here to find matsutake. The season only lasts a few weeks. There were several of these camps in town. They all looked like shanty towns with makeshift tarp structures as the dominant camp design.
Most of the people I have seen in these camps look Vietnamese or Hmong. I could be doubly wrong on that though, just a guess. They were all very pleasant but not a whole lot of English happening.
Trying to find a person that ran the place, I asked a guy and he told me to ask somebody in a neighboring trailer. Knock knock. Two very odd guys (read: trashy hillybilly’s) answer the door and seem to have just put down the crack pipe. There were some strong hillbilly and meth-y vibes in the air. They basically shrugged and said, sure camp wherever. No mention of payment so another free night in the bag.
Ride time: 4 hours 15 mins
Distance: 47.6 miles
Avg: 11.2 Max: 36.8
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