Last night’s camping was warm — silly warm. I fell asleep on top of my sleeping bag, with shorts and no socks on, and didn’t wake up slightly chilled until there were millions of stars in the sky and it was the middle of the night.
Still, we slept well. It’s been nice to have a tent. Even at Steamboat Falls, our camp for the night, the mosquitoes came out at dusk to harass us. We have a new saying for dealing with mosquitoes. We inform them that the penalty, should they land on us, is “death on the spot. This will always be so.” (see: Wikiquote for the reference). Sadly, I don’t think it works to keep them away. But the tent does — it keeps them off us and makes it easy to fall asleep.
We got rolling, debating about fording Steamboat Creek rather than riding the ~2 miles around. We rode it. It’s flat. We’re lazy in the morning.
The flat pavement cruising that I promised (or remembered) finally did arrive. It was a gentle climb up the picturesque creek. Eszter called out an “Airsteam!”, as she always does whens he sees one. But this was no ordinary Airstream trailer. This trailer had a banner that said, Umpqua National Forest Fish Watch. A friendly old guy named Lee lives there, protecting and counting the steelheads that travel up the creek, for the entire time they inhabit it — six months of the year.
He came out and invited us to look at fish. It was too early to see much in the pool, which apparently has been dynamited by locals in the past, in order to poach tons of fish. But better than seeing the fish was talking to Lee, about these fish he’s protecting, about dams, about fish hatcheries, and about tradition and doing things ‘the way they are’ simply because ‘that’s the way they are’, instead of because they make sense. If only the human race was better at dropping tradition and re-evaluating what we do periodically. But that’s just not how we are.
Turns out Lee is in the movie Damnation (available on netflix streaming). It’s well done movie that I had not seen. We were able to pull it up and watch it in Oakridge. It’s been interesting to think about some of these issues as we travel through the PNW — land of many rivers, dams and pacific coastline.
As we pedaled more of FR58, I was pondering the uniqueness of the road — paved, but zero traffic. No fences and cattle guards. No ranches and inholdings. The forests are so thick that ranching is not really possible, which made it so people couldn’t homestead them, didn’t need to fence them off, and as such, no one really lives up in the mountains on pieces of private land surrounded by federal. We’ve been riding an entire week without being anywhere near an actual town. Resupply has been from small lake resorts.
It’s just an interesting difference between the mountain west I am so familiar with and the PNW. I certainly don’t miss the ever-present bovines, or the traffic on dirt and paved roads in the mountains. But, I sure do miss the open spaces and the views. Riding in Oregon is a different experience, for certain.
The roads may be generally empty, but this one was particularly void of cars on this day. The whole thing was closed 15 miles out from Steamboat, which we were warned about by several signs. They didn’t offer a detour suggestion, and I wasn’t about to volunteer to climb several thousand feet extra in order to make one up. So we rolled with it and approached slowly and with smiling faces.
A worker came out, walking towards the “If you can read this sign, you and your vehicle have been photographed” sign. He was a mountain biker, and asked if we wanted to walk through. He thought it would be possible. As we approached the huge hole in the ground the boss gave us the OK. It was some difficult hike-a-bike for a few minutes, but we crossed on, and then had more empty road.
The music in our ears (electric feel djs for me) pulled us up the climb and into the cooler air. Before we knew it, we were back in the Middle Fork of the Willamette valley, and turning onto singletrack. 6 miles of good trail took us to the massive Hills Creek Reservoir, a flat but frustratingly head-windy pedal back into Oakridge.
Pizza. Cheap motel. Pick up laptops from the post office general delivery. Watch damnation. Sleep.
Day 13 is a rest and work day in Oakridge. Day 14 – Alpine trail plans are being discussed, or on with the loop!
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