Shred Oregon Day 3: McKenzie River Trail

Wednesday we rode a trail that has been on our (and pretty much every mountain biker who reads bike magazines’) bucket lists: the revered McKenzie River Trail.

The MRT starts at Clear Lake and follows the McKenzie River for 26 miles to the hamlet of McKenzie Bridge through national forest in the Cascade Range.  That means mostly descending through big trees in the wet!

We shuttled to the top using McKenzie Lodge’s service.  Driver Mike gave us the 2-cent speech as we drove through the at-times-alarmingly-heavy rain. He then sent us and a couple of BC bikers off on the trail.  15 seconds into the ride and we never saw the couple again. 

Driver Mike and Drew

But I think that was because we had to stop to take goofy pictures.

The first of may stops was the origination of the McKenzie River at Great Spring.  There is A LOT of water surfacing at this location, flowing clear and very cold (35 degrees F) into a channel that runs to Clear Lake.

Drew is standing right above some spring heads. All the water in the pool behind him is emerging right here at Great Spring. The channel goes out to Clear Lake.

The trail around Clear Lake goes through lava fields.

 

And over the raging McKenzie multiple times.

Go-arounds are different in the Northwest!

The second super amazing attraction on the MRT (the first is Clear Lake and the springs) is Sahalie Falls.

 

Sahalie Falls

It is very loud and very tall. A short distance down river is Koosah Falls.  Not quite as high but I think more water.

Koosah Falls.

After that, the trail winds along the river to a reservoir.  After the reservoir, there is no more McKenzie River.  I mean that the entire river, that is, all the water in Sahalie and Koosah Falls somehow goes underground, only to resurface a mile or so later at this amazing, ultra clear Tamolitch Blue Pool, which is the third most awesome attraction on the trail.

Tamolitch Blue Pool

Following the river once again we resumed our traverse across moss and lichen covered rocks.

The rhododendrons were amazing too

 

We continued the descent, often in the rain.  With a temperature of 53 degrees and being pretty wet from the rain, I wasn’t very comfortable.  The scenery made up for it.

There were more river crossings.

More fern forest.

And hazards you don’t normally see.

And finally, 26 miles and six hours later before another wave of rain hit and messed up our bikes even more, we made it to the end of the trail and back to our van.

WHAT A RIDE!!!

Shred Oregon Day 2: ID to OR

You’d think with our fancy RV staying at fancy RV parks, we’d have some WiFi, but we really haven’t, or I’ve been too pooped to post.  I’ll try to catch up as best I can. Here is Day 2 of Shred Oregon.
Tuesday we pretty much drove all day. But although that does not sound exciting, you should still read this post.
After a good night’s sleep at The Boise River RV park,

I got a text from cousin Donna that they had returned late the previous evening from camping and she would love to see us. So we had a lovely, if short, visit with her in her beautiful garden.  Unfortunately, no pictures to document, but it really IS lovely.
Then driving all day through the lonely high desert of eastern Oregon. How can Drewsey (Drew + Lucy) not stop to take a picture at their sign-namesake?

Here is the most exciting picture of the day:

Dewey turned 40.
Later afternoon we hit Bend and made a delicious stop into Boneyard Brewery. 

Bend is at the base of the Cascade Mountains.  Soon we were climbing up and up and afforded views of Mount Washington.  Every high peak in the Cascades is a volcano, but some, like Mount Washington, have been dormant long enough that glaciers have carved them into pointy peaks instead of the typical dome you think of as a shied volcano.

We pulled into Belknap Hot Springs Resort and RV park and found a camp spot right next to the roaring McKenzie River

We had been transporting my homemade chili all the way from SLC and this was the perfect chilly chili spot so we heated it up in the microwave (we have a microwave in our car – how fun is that?) for a scrumptious dinner after our growler of RPM IPA from the brewery. 

Then a dip in the hot spring-fed pool and early to bed to rest for the epic ride on Wednesday.

Shred Oregon Day 1

We embarked today on an 11 day trip to ride the best trails in Oregon. 

Embarkation was not easy.  This week I spent a ton of time getting Dewey ready for the trip.  Many hours sleuthing problems and finally help from Access RV diagnosed a short in the water heater.  Then a dead battery.  Nearly $200 later and at least 5 hours late from departure time, we were underway. 

First stop Boise.  Rumors of great riding in the foothills turned out to be true.  Perfect riding weather, hills the color of emeralds, and wildflowers in a shade of indigo I have never seen.  Great way to loosen up the legs after 5 hours of driving. 

 

Then delicious beers at 13th Street Pub before bedding down at an RV park for the night.  We missed seeing my cousin but the timing didn't work out with the holiday weekend. Bummer.

Combining work and play in May

In early May 2014, I was able to go to the National Groundwater Association (NGWA) annual Summit in Denver: a professional meeting to discuss new research in my field.  My employer sent me, but I went a couple of days early to spend time with my sister and brother in law.  Drew was able to arrange to fly into Denver after a trip to join us.

What do we do as soon as we land? Go hike!

Di and Tod took us north to Boulder to hike the Flatirons at Chautauqua Park. The Flatirons are a famous formation that was tilted when the Rocky Mountains were uplifted.

The Flatirons are the five slabs of smooth rock tilted at a 45 degree angle in this picture. Classic front range geology!

Front range hikers.

Lying flat on a Flatiron!

Monkey in a tree.

Rugged terrain off the trail.

Quite the view of Boulder from the trail.

I'm happy about the geology. It must have rubbed off on them.

After a day of hiking I spent the next gorgeous spring day in a conference room in a downtown Denver hotel learning about ways to quantify recharge.  Woot woot. 

My lodging for the week of the conference was my sister's high rise condo in downtown Denver.

The view from the condo is spectacular.

Thanks to Facebook, I realized that Judy, my old friend from college, and her boyfriend were in town for a separate conference.  We got to spend a fun evening together in LoDo. The next few days were filled with more conferencing and a visit with a high school classmate who lives in Denver, which broke up the conference nicely.

After the conference I jetted off on Southwest to Vegas.

Before Drew arrived I got in a nice solo ride on the Blue Diamond area trails.

May is beautiful in the desert.

Work conferences all around: Drew's little brother was in Vegas for a trade show so we stole him away to show him the Hoover Dam.

The Hoover Dam from the new bridge.

Dikes of dark basalt cut through light Tertiary-aged andesite or dacite on the walls of Black Canyon downstream from the dam.

One of the giant spillways. You could almost fly one of Drew's planes through here.

All told, a fun week of work and play.