My Southern Oregon and Bay Area Bike-cation, Part 1: San Jose 2 Bend via Crater Lake
Southern Oregon and Bay Area Bike-cation
Really delayed post. Like 9 months late. Coulda had a baby. I totally forgot about all the photos I took on this trip until now. Thought I’d accompany them with my new habit of writing my mundane experiences. Here goes.
It’s been over a year since my last bike tour. The plan was to do something like this with Nathan every year with my vacation time. We’re the OG touring buddies! Or were… more on that later.
Inspired by the (now cancelled) Oregon Outback bike packing race, the goal was to create a ~300 mile loop, a bike tour that could be completed in a week. Half of this would be dirt, and all of it would go through Oregon’s high desert/forest area in the southeastern part of the state. The latter (dirty) half of the loop would include part of the actual Oregon Outback route. The route starts and ends in Crater Lake, where Nathan’s uncle could pick us up and bring us back to his house in Shady Cove an hour or so away.
We set a date, including the week and both weekends around Labor Day for an optimum actual Vacation/PTO ratio (don’t worry, I did the math).
First day, I flew into San Jose with my Salsa (incidentally the first time I got to use my S&S couplers). After some reasonably good neighborhood mexican food, we headed back to his house to put together my bike by garage- and moonlight. This went rather smoothly, and then it was time to go to bed (on Nathan’s bedroom floor, using my camping gear).
Nathan and his stupid shirt. The salsa was pretty great.
The next morning we got up pretty early and hit the road. We were driving to Nathan’s uncle’s place in Shady Cove, Oregon. This was a 6 hour plus drive. A requisite stop was made for In N Out in Redding (officially out of yuppie California), and we made it to Uncle John’s house by early afternoon, where we spent a good hour or so packing for our trip up to Crater Lake. John was going to drop us off that night, and we would begin the tour proper from there.
Both of us were going for a more lightweight/minimal load out this time around. Nathan was touring on his Niner ROS9 (roll off shit) steel 29er, with a frame bag, seat pack and handlebar roll combined with a hydration backpack. I was surprised he would choose a slack trail 29er for a trip that would be at least 50% pavement, but when you only have one bike, you do what you can! Besides, with skinnier cross country tires, it seemed to do OK.
My bike of choice, as I mentioned earlier, was the Salsa Vaya Travel I had used for our PCH tour a year ago. However, this time I was set up with my new drivetrain and fatter tires, along with a full Rogue Panda bike packing set up, combined with a Blackburn seat post bag and two minimalist Ortlieb panniers in the front (complete with bottle cages!). We were both geared for a full day without water later in the tour.
As we packed, John’s wife began reading the forecast for Crater Lake to us. “Looks like it’s gonna snow tonight!”
Haha, that’s a good joke. But it wasn’t a joke! It was really snowing. In late August. Though we had researched weather for most of southern Oregon, and were expecting chilly desert nights, snow wasn’t something we had even considered. My sleeping bag is only rated to 50F. This was going to be interesting.
We stowed our bikes in John’s truck, and he drove us up, up, up the steep twisty roads to Crater Lake. Sure enough, as we approached the top, the flurries started coming down. When we made it to the park, there was already a good dusting of snow, and it wasn’t slowing down just yet. I made an impulse buy of some sweatpants from the general store, while Nathan’s aunt and uncle tempted us with a ride back to a warm bed.
No! We were determined to stick it out. I mean, what’s better than camping in snow in late summer in Oregon? Probably lots. But it makes a great story. Unfortunately, a story doesn’t make great insulation, and I got very little sleep, as I tossed and turned in sub-freezing temperatures.
No matter, once the sun came up, it was easy to forget a night of freezing unrest. Coffee helped the matter along as well (#coffeeoutside). We had in front of us what could probably considered the best riding of the entire trip. I had seen photos of Crater Lake, but they could do no justice of the place. First of all, the road to get there was punctuated by steep rollers and short aggressive climbs. Nothing like a few solid hill climbs to wake us up. I’d compare it to the upper half of Mt Lemmon in terms of scenery and grade.
When we made it to the top, the views were certainly worth the effort. If you’ve not had the pleasure of going here, I strongly recommend seeing it with your own eyes. Otherwise, I’ll let my photos speak for themselves.
We saw a couple other bicyclists at the top, also touring! But going a different direction than us; their loss! My AZ bags drew some ogles, as they would continue to do throughout the trip (thanks Rogue Panda!). We took an overt tourist photo in front of the lake, and we headed off for a few more climbs around the rim of the crater before beginning our descent off the mountain. We actually encountered some sections of road covered with slush where the sun hadn’t touched. Thanks to the weight of our bikes and the relatively narrow contact patch of our tires, we had to walk our bikes through the snow.
Soon we were descending, and the rocky alpine forests gave way to pine and spruce amid brown grassy fields, very reminiscent of Northern Arizona (my friend Marty refutes this, but I refuse to listen to him). Unfortunately, we had to spend a significant remainder of our day riding on a well-traveled highway up to our first day’s destination, Davis Lake.
These poles are so you know where the road is under snow cover.
See the Northern AZ resemblance?
We stopped for a standard lunch of sausage, cheese, bread and, of course, glass bottle coke in a small town called Chemult. You can’t eat a cycling lunch without glass bottle coke (you really shouldn’t eat any lunch without glass bottle coke, but we can discuss another time, if you’d like). I waited for Nathan to fill his water bottles in the combination Pilot/Subway (the classiest of combos). He usually takes several lifetimes at stops, and this was no difference. Apparently some guy inside felt it necessary to tell him his life story, while I was outside, trying to do stoppies on Nathan’s Niner.
As we headed out of town, we still had several miles of busy highway traffic to endure, but soon enough we exited the highway and made for the Cascade Lakes Scenic Byway. We came across Crescent Creek (if I remember correctly). It was too serene not to stop and take it in. This really is beautiful country, people.
We make it to Davis Lake, right off the Byway, and it’s in sort of a marshy area. We set up camp and there’s still some light out. So we wander around camp, meeting a friendly fellow, who left us with a big of Oregonian wisdom in light of our previous camping experience: “There’s no such thing as bad weather, just poorly dressed people.” He tells us of some cool secret spots ou near our planned destination, Fort Rock, and we make a mental note.
I hope that this night goes a little bit better for me, since we aren’t in the middle of snow flurries at 7000 ft. Well, I was wrong. Maybe it was being close to the lake, but the low still got close to freezing, and my toes still nearly froze off. Third time’s a charm right? Well, the next night we’d be staying in a hotel in Bend, Oregon, so at least I had that to look forward to. That, and a day full of riding through the cascade lakes (no, not that kind of THROUGH).
In addition to weaving through the Cascade Lakes, we’d be climbing over and around the shoulder of Mt Bachelor to get to Bend. Our stop for lunch was at Elk Lake Marina, where like totally uncouth hermits (band name, band name), we unpacked our own lunches and used their patio and picnic tables (hey at least we bought a beer!). We washed down some moistly packaged smoked salmon with a tall can of Stiegl Grapefruit railer (a half grapefruit soda, half lager, full delicious, beverage), basked in the sun for a bit, and started off. It was a rather steady climb from here out. We passed by two more lakes, Sparks Lake and Devils Lake (whoever discovered these must have been ASU fans!). I called my dad at Sparks Lake shore to keep him updated. The next climb was double-O BROOTAL. It went on for miles, and we were pretty sore at this point. It seriously never ended, and kept winding around.
After years of climbing, the summit came. The reward came in the form of a 22 mile mile downhill all the way to Bend, Oregon. 3000 feet of elevation dropped. You can imagine my body got a little sore after crouching with my knees hugging the top tube for 40 minutes. Here I had my first (and to this day, only) encounter with a road skiier. As I was cruising down the shoulder of the Cascades Scenic Byway, I came upon this guy, propelling himself and wheeled skies forward with ski poles. He would push for a few strokes, and then tuck with his poles splayed out. Push, then splay. Push, then splay. The thing is, he wasn’t going very fast, and his poles gave him a pretty wide footprint, which made it difficult to pass him in the shoulder. I was over this pretty quickly, so I pedaled extra hard and got a nice tuck and passed him on the left, which was more satisfying than it should have been. We got to bop over onto a cute little bike path that ran aside an outskirts neighborhood as we approached Bend.
My friend Caleb had called Bend a sister city to Flagstaff, and this was our first chance to test that. He wasn’t far off, even as we entered the city, the housing style was very similar, with a bit of New Mexico chic thrown in for good measure. The first order of business was to reach our hotel, but I made note of cool restaurants I saw on our way in for later use. There was a bank of Eddie Bauer also.
This was the first night we could truly relax since we started the trip. The realization hit me: I’m on vacation! How truly great is that! Of course we had to hit the iconic Deschutes Brewery for dinner, and we sat up on the balcony,really enjoying what the town had to offer. And the night was still young!
I’m going to leave it at that for the first part of this story. The rest of the trip, including our time in Bend and a little jaunt around the Bay Area will be chronicled in part 2! Stay tuned!
