The Mobius Trip

[DR. Rock]

any further, I remembered to tell the story of why Humbug (aka: Humbert Humbert) Campground was so creepy.

short version: early evening, single men in SUV's cruising around, taking a few slow laps around the camp road, not parking or staying... spank mags found in garbage can in the morning... You do the math.

Cowboy camping is looking better and better all the time.

Honestly, the risk of a bear attack is probably HIGHER at a developed campground, 'cause the bears learn that that's where they can score easy food. But they're not the two-legged animals that scare me the most.

And we PAY $12/night for the the opportunity to enjoy these risks??? Yeah, the picnic table is nice, and the toilets were clean, but if it weren't for the fact that the fire restrictions prohibited a camp fire anywhere but these campgrounds, it'd be a no-brainer.

[DR. Rock]

We rode along for awhile, before crossing it.



Then up another ridge,



where we got another nice view of Mt. Jefferson (here almost 25 miles away!):

[DR. Rock]

was Timothy Lake, (formerly Timothy Meadows)







The road was paved only right around and over the dam... then it was back onto the dirt and dust:

[DR. Rock]

is so massive, that no FS roads traverse it. The set-up out here in the Cascades is a bit different than in the Rockies. There, you have a range, with peaks and saddles (or passes). All the peaks are roughly the same height, and so are the passes. Passes that are traversed by dirt roads tend to be at higher elevations than the paved passes, but you get the picture.

The Cascade range, consists of foothills generally at lower elevations, which are then punctuated by these massive volcanic peaks.



In the next vid, I have no idea what I was yammering on about... We got our first glimpse of Mt. Hood in the first 20 seconds, and then the rest is me trying to chase down LDF, and catch another view of the peak, neither of which happens in the next 2 minutes, and is entirely skip-able.

All this explanation is in order to excuse ourselves of what we did next to get around Mt. Hood... pavement.



there's just no other way around it ('cept hiking)... we had to do the same thing later getting past Mt. Rainier in WA.

Mt. Hood: (I had to correct the exposure on this one) It simply dominates the horizon.

[DR. Rock]

sufficiently west of the peak, we started making our way north and found ourselves on the Barlow Road... I had to take a photo, 'cause we've got our own wpBarlow out here on the east coast, and I thought he'd get a kick out of the photo.



Now that I've read a bit more about the Barlow Road's history, I'm even more glad I snapped that shot.

Between Barlow road, and Lolo pass, we were really traveling in the footsteps of early explorers and pioneers.



Slowly, clouds started to form around the peak, and as we wound our way past Mt. Hood, it became more and more obscured from view:



Back in the day, Lolo pass was rough ..."It was also possible to drive livestock over Lolo Pass on the north side of Mount Hood, but that trail was too rugged for vehicles and so unsuitable for wagons."

It's still no superhighway:



It's mostly a power-line road, mostly graded, with a few tough spots.

[DR. Rock]

we could have taken Lolo Pass road directly into Hood River, we were going to try to take a more remote and dirtier route that would cut north to Wahtum Lake, right between the closed-off Portland watershed area, and the northern part of Mt. Hood National Forest, and then mosey north-east into town.



not much traffic, but that sign didn't look promising.

[DR. Rock]

was a single-lane paved track, winding it's way up around blind-corner after blind corner...

Next thing I hear over the squawk-box is "TRUCK, TRUCK!!!" and I see a huge dump truck barrelling around the curve.

I squeeze over to the right, and it passes by me. It didn't seem as if he even bothered to apply his brakes.

Once our pulses returned to normal, we saw that we were getting into some higher elevations, with nice views, but Mt. Hood was now completely under the clouds.



When we got to Wahtum Lake, where I thought the real dirt section would begin, we found out that the roads that appeared on the GPS maps had all been turned into hiking trails. This seems to be a common theme for N.F. roads around out-doorsy towns with a high percentage of non-local college-graduated folks living there... same thing in Flagstaff. I'm sure y'all can come up with other examples.

We stopped at the trail head to have a snack, and de-fleece, check the maps for a re-route, and another dumptruck flew by:




Gotta be careful up here.

[DR. Rock]

we headed down to Hood River. Nice views along the way. Avalanches?:



as we got closer, we passed through some pear orchards,





The Columbia River:



Our destination, Brian's Pour House:

[DR. Rock]

It was only about 3pm. I had promised someone that if we passed though Hood River that we would stop by Brian's Pour House, and give my regards to Brian. I knew that the connection was an important one, and since we were passing through Hood River, I wanted to complete the loop.



We got our photos in front of the restaurant, and headed in to grab a bite with plans to ride a couple more hours and camp somewhere in WA.

Well, they were closed until 5pm, so we sat out on their front deck,



broke out the maps, and figured out what we'd do.

[DR. Rock]

(http://www.brianspourhouse.com/menu.html)

and we decided that we wanted to stay for a proper dinner.

There was a quaint little hotel stumbling-distance next door, the Oak Street Hotel, built in 1909, and recently renovated.



A plan was starting to come together. We still had about 300 miles of trail to ride before we got to Seattle. The last 30 miles or so was paved. If we could turn in a big day tomorrow (thursday), that would leave us a half-day of riding on friday to finish. There was a potential bail-out that would cut out a bunch of dirt within about 100 miles of Seattle, so if we had a flat tire, or were otherwise delayed we could still make it in time to check in to our motel, and get the bikes stored before our flight back to NYC on Saturday evening.



Hood River seemed like a neat town, so we decided to indulge in a nice hotel room, a nice meal, a hot shower, and check the place out.

Since we were staying, and had just snacked, we decided to silicone the case-guard on Blueberry's stator-side case, take a walk, pick up a bottle of wine and some appetizers, chill out, have a late dinner, meet Brian and give our regards, and get an early start in the morning for a long day of riding.

Like LDF said... it was like a little vacation from our adventure.

[DR. Rock]

on the veranda:



we buy local whenever possible

[DR. Rock]

to check out the town.

The legendary winds of the Columbia River Gorge:







(either my camera, or that clock is 11 minutes off.)

Main street:



Side street:



Down by the river, -- goin' fishin'

[DR. Rock]

we couldn't pass up this place:



There was a 3-piece band playing,



sofas to lounge...



wines to taste...



nice.

[DR. Rock]

There's a tremendous amount of preparation that goes on before we embark on one of these Mobius trips... logistics of airplane flights, all the routing, loading the GPS's, reading other people's ride reports, waypointing POI's and potential fueling opportunities and camping spots, arranging public storage, tires, parts, maintenance... the list goes on and on.

We could be accused of over-planning. Of leaving nothing to chance, squashing spontaneity. I don't know. Once we start rolling, it doesn't seem that way. From our perspective, there are only two fixed data points... Reno and Seattle. What happens in-between is anyone's guess. For instance, I knew we'd be changing the oil at some point, but I didn't know where or when would be the right place.

For this section, I knew we'd be passing through Hood River to cross the Gorge, but that's it... every day on the trail we are continuously integrating a lot of factors (our energy, the weather, what's available, what's coming up ahead, how stinky we are) in our decisions along the way... (where to stay, what to do, how long to ride, when to struggle, when to bypass). All that the pre-trip preparation provides to us, (besides getting us psyched for the trip) is a sounder basis for making good decisions as we move along our proposed route.

Pack and repack your 'chute. Be precise. Check and double check. Pay super-extra careful attention to each and every detail. Then take a deep breath, and jump out of the plane. Round and round and round you go, where you'll land, nobody knows.
Seems to be working pretty good so far.

[ADW]

Originally Posted by DR. Rock

There's a tremendous amount of preparation that goes on before we embark on one of these Mobius trips... logistics of airplane flights, all the routing, loading the GPS's, reading other people's ride reports, waypointing POI's and potential fueling opportunities and camping spots, arranging public storage, tires, parts, maintenance... the list goes on and on.

We could be accused of over-planning. Of leaving nothing to chance, squashing spontaneity. I don't know. Once we start rolling, it doesn't seem that way. From our perspective, there are only two fixed data points... Reno and Seattle. What happens in-between is anyone's guess. For instance, I knew we'd be changing the oil at some point, but I didn't know where or when would be the right place.

For this section, I knew we'd be passing through Hood River to cross the Gorge, but that's it... every day on the trail we are continuously integrating a lot of factors (our energy, the weather, what's available, what's coming up ahead, how stinky we are) in our decisions along the way... (where to stay, what to do, how long to ride, when to struggle, when to bypass). All that the pre-trip preparation provides to us, (besides getting us psyched for the trip) is a sounder basis for making good decisions as we move along our proposed route.

Pack and repack your 'chute. Be precise. Check and double check. Pay super-extra careful attention to each and every detail. Then take a deep breath, and jump out of the plane. Round and round and round you go, where you'll land, nobody knows.
Seems to be working pretty good so far.

David, thanks for that particular analysis. I'm the "planning guy" for our group of riders and I've been viewed in the past by some of overplanning. Your analysis here is a perfect description of why I do what I do...it's not trying to control everything, it's having some decent data and familiarity with the environment/options in advance in case you DO have some sort of incident that requires a significant change in plans. If you don't know your options, you got nothin'.