We finished yesterday at the base of our longest climb for the day. It was just over 3 miles, but on cold legs, it was a heart thumper.
Makaela at the top of our early morning climb. What you can’t tell by this photo is that she had lost a cleat bolt in her left shoe, and the other bolt was loose. That meant she could not unclip from that pedal. I was a little nervous, but she wasn’t worried. She unclips from the right side normally. However, if she had to get off her bike, she would have to take her shoe off.
We had a good descent after the climb, but it was quite rutted. It made for some fun zigzagging. The road improved, as we descended down to a bridge over a creek. What happens when you go down to cross a creek? Yep, you have to go back up. Fortunately, it was not too long…only 3/4 of a mile.
When we turned back onto 4610, we saw we would be going back into a burn zone.
While there was a bit of a stick forest, it wasn’t as bad as what we had gone through on the first day.
As we were continuing our descent, the road turned to pavement. Then the descending really began. It was the most awesome swoopy downhill EVER! So much fun! We were whooping and hollering…it was so good!
We came around a corner, and it opened up. Down to the right (if I’d just waited a little longer to take the photo) was the Clackamas River, and the Hwy we had ridden on the first day.
At the Hwy looking back up at what we had come down. We had no idea when we passed the turn on the first day that it would be a paved descent.
Eight miles to the end!
The route had us backtracking on Faraday Rd, past the North Fork dam again. We were back on the Hwy after the nice ride by the dam. There was that short bit of gravel we had done on the first day, but we opted to stay on the Hwy back into Estacada.
We made it back to the truck at City Hall at 10:00am.
Hmmm…looks similar to the photo we took the first day (except we are a whole lot stinkier).
All in all, it was a very successful bikepacking trip. There was quite a bit of pavement. Of course, the one patch of pavement was because the Clackamas River Trail was impassable. But, really, it was okay. The Hwy had a good shoulder, and the other roads had very little traffic. The singletrack was really fun around Timothy Lake, and Abbot Road made us grateful to have front suspension. And, that descent…did I mention how much fun that was? We got lucky with the weather, and also no fires (you never know about fires this time of year).
Here’s some photos Makaela took.
Getting around the gate to take the shortcut to Milo McIver.
Me and Billy
FR 42 with Mt. Jefferson in the background.
Proof I am a mountain biker!
Two adventure buddies!
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