Sunday: Horse Ridge
Sunday: Gray Butte
Ho hum, another weekend and another travelogue, this time from Central Oregon. As many of you much know the region east of the Cascades has been socked in by an ice fog, in some places for a couple of weeks. My mission this weekend was to find someplace fun to ride out there despite this "adversity".
First rule of fog is you go UP to get out of it. Sure enough, as I headed out from Bend towards the Cascade Lakes area, I quickly climbed out into the sun. First I decided to drive to Lava Lake and ride up the trail towards Mt. Bachelor basically as far as the snow would allow. Well, turns out the Cascade Lakes Highway was gated shut for the season a few miles south of there.
So I decided, WTF, I'll just grab my map, start here and venture out into the maze of logging roads. Based on experiences further north the last couple weeks, I didn't expect to encounter much snow until well above 5000 feet, but here I was at 4500' and the road was completely buried:
Oh well, the snow was several weeks old and very consolidated, so it was real?easy to ride on. Plus it was over 50 degrees out! Very nice! A snowed-under clearcut made a wonderful freeride playground for a few minutes (and yes I was careful not to ride over any of the little seedlings):
Saturday: Cultus Lake
After 11 miles of this I decided to go look for a real trail. I'd slept in this morning so there wasn't much time, so I headed for nearby Cultus Lake. Normally you do a 12 mile loop that is half gravel road, half singletrack. But loops are not a good idea when it's late afternoon in December and you're not sure of the conditions, so I just started in from the singletrack end. The trail goes in and out of the snow:
There's quite a LOT of fresh deadfall to climb over, and quite a few icy patches where I have to walk, so I only get 3 miles in. Most of it is rideable and nice though. On the way back I make a side trip to a lovely sandy beach. Six months ago, or six months from now, it would be packed with almost as many drunks and kids as there are mosquitoes and deer flies. Today it's all mine:
One last view of the sun setting over the lake and it's back to the car:
Sunday: Horse Ridge
Sunday. I decide to head east of town to Horse Ridge, one of my favorite winter rides. In summer it's too sandy to be much fun, but it's starting to firm up now. Bend is really socked in this morning, and the fog doesn't let up until I reach the western base of the ridge. I start out from the sunny eastern side, and I'm almost overdressed for the 55 degree sunshine:
An easy climb over the ridge crest, and a side trip down a dead end doubletrack lead to a lovely stand of gnarled old junipers. The Three Sisters are visible to the right of the tree, and Mt. Bachelor is visible to the left:
Now I drop down the east side of the ridge and into the fog zone. That is frost on the trail, by the way -- not snow. If you look closely you can just see the summits of the sisters peeking out above the fogbank:
The temperature has abruptly dropped to 34 degrees, but the next couple of miles are surreal and beautiful. Everything is covered in a 1/8" layer of rime ice from two weeks of relentless fog:
You don't see this every day:
The road now leads into lovely Golden Basin, leading to a couple of different choices for climbing the higher west side of the ridge. I choose the more southerly route, which I haven't done before, and it turns out to be quite SS'able to the top. I've crested over the "gap" in the ridge, but the true summit of Horse Ridge is to the south, and can be reached by a very steep dead-end track:
Of course steep hills never look very steep in photos, but by my reading of the topo map this is a climb of over 500 feet in less than half a mile. That's an average grade of over 20%, probably much steeper than that in spots, and the whole thing is 2-4" of VERY loose dirt. I can barely push my bike up this thing.
Here's the view from just below the?top, looking east across Millican Basin with Pine Mountain to the right and the Maury Mountains off in the distance:
Pine Mountain has some great riding, and even though it looks barren from here, it encloses a gigantic central cirque filled with one of the nicest old-growth pondo forests you've ever seen.
Time to head down. Mentally I'm prepared to walk down if necessary, but fortunately I manage to ride it down just fine. I did stop twice during the ride down because my (rim) brakes started to smell. Never had that happen before. I really have to give credit for the successful descent to my new Conti Survival ProTection 2.3 front tire (run at 30 psi). Reports about its performance on hardpack are decidedly mixed, but on loose conditions in Central OR this tire is turning out to be fantastic. Even though I felt it start to wash sideways in this steep, deep dust a number of times on the way down, it always gave me plenty of warning, and I was always able to back off the front brake and easily regain control without falling. I was VERY impressed, and I know I would not have made it down controllably with the Alligator I used to run up front.
Back at the gap. Sure, I could ride back to the car in a couple of miles, but it's early in the day and I have some more time to horse around on Horse Ridge. Back down into the basin and up out using the more northerly road and back down in a screaming sandy descent (thanks again to the Survival for making that safe).
Sunday: Gray Butte
You'd think I was done riding for the weekend. But you'd be wrong. At 3:30 I find myself east of Madras, heading out for a quick loop around Grays Butte. I've also brought a full complement of lighting because I will be doing the last couple miles in the twilight. This ride is back in the fog zone. The temperature is 30 degrees and visibility is 200 yards. Fortunately I know this trail pretty well or I wouldn't be out here in these conditions. The entire 8 miles look pretty much like this:
Once again, everything is caked in enough rime to make it look like those fake flocked Christmas trees they sell at KMart. Simply lovely, and a fitting end to another great (though odd, weather-wise) weekend of riding in Oregon.
Return to top of page | Home