Down The Cascades, Almost There

We left our host home on the outskirts of town with cloudy skies and a light drizzle of rain. Our wonderful hosts, Steve and Karen, made us an enormous and delicious breakfast of eggs, pepper bacon, and waffles. Almost a mile down the road I noticed the same tire on Sauder’s bike that has been giving us problems was wobbling again, another loose spoke. We pulled into Sisters and were lucky to find a bike shop open on Sunday. We spend about a hour fixing the wheel and repacking our things. By the time we were on the road again it was 11 o’clock. This had us worried because we were planning on doing 100 miles to the town of Albany, but we also had some pretty large climbs over the Cascades.

Almost straight out of Sisters we began to climb up the Cascades. Traffic was heavy on the route but the wide shoulders provided us with some sense of security. Our route included two mountain passes. We conquered our first peak winded but relatively ready for some miles, we noticed dark clouds building around us, which meant rain. The descent after the first pass was incredibly steep, we hit speeds past 40 mph before we leveled out at the bottom. We also noticed around this time, 20 miles in, that we had completely forgot to pack any significant amount of food. Digging in our bags we came across a few packs of peanuts and some energy gel packets. After a few miles of flat to rolling roads, we began our second climb, the last out of the Cascades and into the valleys on Oregon’s west coast. It was chilly and raining, something we are getting used to. The forests around us were filled with tall Juniper and Ponderosa pines which seemed to reach as high was the surrounding mountain peaks. We climbed for what seemed like a long time until we reached a sign , 6% grade for 11 miles. We had thought we had only had 4 miles left to the top, now it appeared to be 11, at 6% grades. We hunkered down for a long climb.

However, the road began to fall, we misinterpreted the signs as indicated a climb, not a descent. For the next 11 miles we flew down the cascades, winding around mountain sides and hoping we would not crash. It was raining hard at the same time making visibility through our sunglasses very limited. Traffics was moderate as well so we had to be on guard for everything from gravel to potholes to sharp turns. I never have experienced going downhill for so long at such a speed. We traveled 11 miles in 20 minutes, a new record in my mind. We went from high mountain forest of pines to a an almost rainforest environment. The rain on this side of the cascades was much more intense than the east side. Within minutes we were soaked. Our panniers barely keeping our things dry. By this time we were at 50 miles and had only eat a few peanuts, were quite hungry. We rode another 20 miles before we finally found a place to eat.

Long story short, we made it to our destination right before dark. We are staying with a mutual roommate’s family in Albany, OR. I can almost smell the Ocean from here. We are 67 miles from the finish of this long journey and I am somewhat nervous about ending it. Since we traveled 104 miles yesterday we are taking a rest day here. We have a few days to kill before we fly home so urgency to get anything done is low. So that was our day yesterday, today will be a lazy day for us, a much needed lazy day. Here are some pictures. 

Going up

Coming down