Day 3 video. Lots of video from the different passes.
Day 2 compilation video.
I’ve been working on a more thorough ride report in ADVrider.com which I’ll link to when it’s complete. In the meantime, here is a compilation video for day 1. This one is mostly just a slide show of still images, but they get more interesting on subsequent days with more video clips.
Stats for day 13, a really long day.
Our ‘connector’ routes got us to Detroit, OR, where we split up and each headed home, in my case via about 150 miles of pavement. Fortunately, only about half of it was mind-numbingly straight, but it was all butt-numbing after spending so much time standing up riding on dirt.
We realized that we hadn’t put enough planning effort into the Oregon part of the trip, because the OBDR tracks had been longer in both cases than we assumed. Something to come back to and try again, and easier since it is closer to home.
An amazing trip, but it does feel good to be back home!
After a couple hours of OBDR, we realized that we were not making enough northward progress, so we hit some paved but interesting roads for a while (FS 19, the Aufderheide Road), then made a few ‘dirt connector’ routes between highways, one of which took us right past Wolf Rock, the largest monolith on Oregon.
We started day 13 following one of the OBDR tracks through several miles of this type of narrow road between lodgepole pine.
No way are we going to get an early start today! NWS says it is still 22 degrees at 7:00.
Stats for day 12.
We started out following the TAT from Lakeview toward Chemult, but it started winding around on really small roads, so we switched to following one of the OBDR tracks instead. However, after several miles, the OBDR track tried to send us down a road which didn’t exist. At this point we realized that we had made hardly any real progress toward Chemult and it was already well after noon. We decided to follow some main forest roads into Paisley and have lunch. There we studied the map and the GPS to find an efficient way back to the OBDR. After some struggling with the over-abundance of logging roads shown on the GPS, we eventually plotted a route and joined back up.
After following the OBDR past Thompson Res., we realized the sun was getting very low and making westward riding difficult, so we stuck to some main roads and got to the Crater Lake Lodge in Chemult before dark.
It was a bit chilly all day, especially some of the highway miles we did getting around Summer Lake from Paisley, so we finally put our jackets on mid-afternoon. It feels quite cold tonight, and the low is forecast to be 22 degrees. I thought August was still summer!
The sad thing about today is that this is the only photo I took. Part of the ‘problem’ with Oregon is the trees — we rode mile after mile down roads like this, where through the occasional break in the trees you might see across a valley to another ridge covered in trees.
We did ride past Summer Lake, and Thompson Res., and Klamath Marsh NWR, all of which might have been good photos, but we were in a hurry at those times. Neither of us realized that today’s ride would be quite so long.
Stats for day 11, Fields, OR to Lakeview, OR via Catnip Reservoir in NV and the abandoned-feeling town of Fort Bidwell, CA.
