Snowy Rides, Epic Rides & Lonely Dogs

I took this a couple of days ago when it was trying to rain. The setting sun lighting up the trees against the dark cloudy sky was very striking.

Monday we were planning to ride around Swampy Lake, which is higher up on the mountain than we have been riding. No, there is still snow. Snow! In June. Never occurred to me that I would be thwarted by snow.

In addition to mountain bike trails, and snowmobile trails, there are cross country ski trails. Bend is truly the destination for the out door enthusiast. This is a warming hut. Wood is burned in the drum to take the chill off.

After abandoning the snow covered trails we went down to scout part of C.O.D. Due to an error in map interpretation we were not where we thought we were and ended up on the black section. It's really rocky. We were talking to a guy from Quebec who was riding the boulders so beautifully, he said it's what you grow up with on the East Coast, so you have to do it. Then his 71 year old father came through and rode it, too. My hat is off to them. So far my sense of my mortality is not encouraging me to tackle those sections.

Yesterday was a long day. Remember we've got about 8 pounds of water and stuff on our backs, heavy bikes and knobby tires, so when I say 30 miles is long, it felt like an eternity. We climbed up to the top of Storm King (about 8.5 miles up), and then rode down it. It's pretty loose this year, many of the outside edges have been nibbled away by people riding too close to their edge. It's still a fun run down the hill, about 4 miles to the highway. We didn't do the second section because we wanted to get more water at Inn of the Seventh Mountain, which was a very nice place to split the peanut butter sandwich. It's 4 downhill road miles from the Storm King exit to the resort. Then it was a few more miles to get to the access point to C.O.D. which gets us back to the truck. This is a gruesome hike a bike. It's steep and dusty and hard to wrangle the bike up it.

We rode for awhile on a trail another rider had shown us as a good way back to the parking lot. He told us "left at the gate." Perhaps his dyslexia was acting up that day. We headed out into the great wide open. After awhile, the first mate called for a compass check. No WAY were we heading in the correct direction.
I can not stress the importance of having a compass when you're in a place like this, it's very difficult to figure it out otherwise.

We should have turned right at the gate, we were actually very close to the truck, but we didn't know it. We decided to backtrack to our last known good position and go the long way back to the parking lot. So we got 30 miles between the woods and the road. Now that we can find the truck without bonus miles, it'll be a good loop to ride.

This is the dog next door on the other side of us. They leave this poor guy alone all day. It's mean. He should bite them.

Today we are resting and eating. We did that whole ride on 6 Cliff Blocks and half a peanut butter sandwich. I think we should eat more.