Cool morning, mosquitoes weren’t quite stirring. But by 7:30 when I headed out, the shes were seeking me out. No repellent but wearing long pants, wool long under wear top and a vented cap. The trail gained slight elevation thru lodge pole pines. Mosquitoes were on me like flies on stink only worse. Trail wandered thru forest until hit road of upper trail head and then the elevation kicked in. Ran into snow in the trees and lost the trail but found it in places and then finally it was open up in alpine. Went above the bowl where us forest fire fighters back in ’70 engaged in a boot skiing contest dropping in off upper lip. Memories. Trail is now snow free. It joined a rock rib thru a steep scree slope. A band of frozen snow hugged the shadow of ridge where trail went. Needed crampons and I only had an ice ax. Down climbed around end of finger. Pretty dicey on just volcanic rubble. rejoined the trail for a short jaunt to summit. Even experienced a few mosquitoes @ 8360. 3 hours of non stop climbing to keep ahead of mosquitoes.
I used my Garmin etrex GPS with the track feature turned on so that the gps wopuld guide me back on my up route to get me down thru trees to snow free trail. I lost the trail in the trees and releid on gps. I have a leaning curve to move down. There were times when the track back sent me back up mtn. I was bush bashing down thru open woods ove old growth blowdowns. I had a good idea of where I needed to go. When i sat down to decipher what the gps was saying I was feasted upon. I never spent quality time w/ the gps. I hit the beat up road to the upper TH and turned right and picked up the correct downtrail. The mosquitoes were even more. As I looked in the air ahead of me I could not see any flying but I was swarmed. I have 3 confirmed 5 girls at a swack kill. Got back to van and open door, climbed in, & shut the door. Plentiful and big.
Drove into Bend. Called Chris and found him at the Deschutes brewery taproom. I joined him for a beer and tales. Chris is living in eastern NC and has visited here before. Great guy. He bought me dinner and I continued to tell stories. We made ride plans for Sat. I camped street side @ this really great house he is renting for family vacation. For several days he is batching it.
Sat AM we drove out to Phil’s TH outside of Bend. I have ridden here maybe 5 times as I would stop here on my trips South and if possible on the way back to Spokane. And I had a map and Chris had reading eyesight and more accurate comprehension of the map. I just bumbled along. We spent the 80 degree sunny, cloudless day riding our 34 mile 3709′ climb loop.
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Amazing thing about riding here is the sheer number of rigs @ TH but once got a few miles away the trails were all to ourselves. Trails are dusty. I rode Chris’ wheel when there was no dust but once he hit a dirt patch i would drop back a ways to let the dust settle to be able to read the trail. I like riding here. We rode the Whoops trail section down. I watched Chris huck the whoops. twisty and i mean sometimes brutally twisty trail. I really enjoyed the riding w/ my better configured bike.
I fixed my chicken dish & Waldorf salad in his rental kitchen. Turn on the hot h2o faucet and hot h2o comes out. Wonderful.
Tomorrow we are crossing the divide to ride McKenzie River trail. OK. Chris found a local who will shuttle us to Aintree ( Deliverance town) @ top of trail. The ride is technical but it will be downhill which makes the drops & rollovers easier.
We saw a noticeable number of wonderful women riders. Neither Chris or I see this quality on our local trails. I will be staying in Bend area for several days for enjoyment.