Today would be our longest day, so we wanted an earlier start. I was up pretty early, and woke up Jana and Steph at 6:45ish. We were ready to roll right at 9:00 as planned. My phone was pretending it hadn’t charged off the power bank overnight. I hooked it back up to the power bank, and made sure it was charging before putting it into my handlebar bag. No photos until it charged.
We started the longest climb of the day after less than a mile of warmup. It was a 5.2 mile climb with double-digit grades for the first half. A blue car went by me as I was slowly chugging up. Then it stopped. The guy asked me if I was okay, and did I want a ride! I thanked him, but told him I was fine, and didn’t need a ride. It was nice of him to offer.
At one point, I stopped at a viewpoint. I really wanted to take a photo. Turns out my phone was already at 100% (from 8%). There’s no way it would have charged that fast if it was really at 8%. Stupid phone. But, now I could take photos.
We had been way down there just moments before…okay…maybe a bit more than “moments”. And yesterday we had been way over across to the high prairie.
The climb was on pavement for the majority of the steep parts. While we still had more to climb, the road turned to gravel (Long Rd).
Now gravel…
And a view of Mt. Hood!
Jana and Steph were ahead of me when I saw these signs.
Hmmm…which ones were we? I Guess since we were going in the direction of the Jokers…
When I was creating the mash-up of the two routes, I had to draw lines (following the roads on satellite view) for the section from the end of Long Rd to Brewer Rd. According to RWGPS, there were no roads between those two points. Of course, there were roads, but not always the best. We had a fairly long section of very rutted out dirt road. We did see a sign that did “Impassable in Wet Weather”. Indeed, it would have been terrible. Fortunately, we had not had any rain, and the road was dry (and also sandy in places).
We finally got out of the dirt and back to regular gravel. We had finished the long climb, but still had three more in the climb profile (there were others, but they weren’t long enough). In between there were some nice descents, or just rolling.
Steph.
At noon, we stopped along the side of the road with this view of the meadow to eat our lunch. I even broke out my chair.
Back to riding.
After lunch we had one more significant climb, then it was mostly downhill. We had a stretch of downhill pavement that was quite fun, then the pavement ended, and we were back to gravel.
Took this selfie at this viewpoint on the pavement part.
Then came the main descent on Fisher Rd. It was amazing!
Another view of Mt. Hood with freshly cut hay.
Going down.
If you look through the trees, you can see the Klickitat River way down there. We still had to go ll the way down back to the river.
The views!!!
Multiple switchbacks!!!
Back to the Fisher Bridge across the Klickitat that we had crossed on the first day.
On the Klickitat Trail for another 1 1/2 miles to finish our epic weekend.
Some Thoughts
This was an amazing route! The weather cooperated (even the wind), and the diversity of environments made for an always changing, never boring, beautiful ride. The direction in which we did the route (particularly reversing the Schilling Rd/Swale Canyon Loop) was perfect. We all said we would do this route again. Memorial Day Weekend might have just been the most optimal time for this route. Too much later, and it would be too hot in the canyon. Too early, and there might be snow or mud. I would wholeheartedly recommend this ride to anyone who has a moderate amount of fitness (there is some significant climbing). Some might not like the idea of camping in the same place twice, but there really isn’t any where else to camp. And riding through Swale Canyon mostly unloaded was really fun. Overall, we gave this weekend 5 out of 5 stars!
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