Friday afternoon I arrived in Oakridge. I stopped @ the Mercantile, the bike shop, to learn about the trail work project. I learned that Derek, the king of D-rock, Kevin, the USFS trail coordinator, and Ben would be up @ Campers Flat XG. I stopped @ Brewers Union, the brew pub for a cask condition brew. Three sips down I decided to drive out to XG to join the guys. I bought a qt Mason jar for a traveler saving the beer. I wanted to visit w/ Derek who among other things is the current trail work champion and advocate. The XW is 20 some miles up the middle fork of the Willamette to small XG hard on the bank of swiftly flowing clear river.
Ben showed up after dark and set up his food preparation center, quite a layout.
He fed the volunteers bfast, burgers, and beer for 2 days.
Trail work this weekend broke down to 2 projects: the bulk of the volunteers worked on Youngs Rock trail and Derek, Kevin, and I went to place nice w/ the back country horsemen to work on the Middle fork trail on some restoration projects. Several horses were used to carry in construction supplies. This part of the trail is pretty rugged before it drops down to the river. Our project is to move an existing bridge to a new location nearby. Derek and I went thru many methods of moving the bridge until we came up w/ method of flipping the bridge onto 2 log skids to slide it to its new location.
The horsemen identified this bridge as a troublesome spot although the trail sees very few horses. Bonding project where the mountain bikers reached out to be met w/ uncooperative horse crowd. Their horses hammered the trail which was in places unsustainable. Nasty section. I rode this piece 2 years ago. trail goes thru massive 1996 burn:
Hard day. Final solution was to cut the planks from the rotting sills and build a new bridge over the creek. The we climbed back out to the rig @ Chuckle spring TH. The spring erupts from mountain side in a full fledged torrent to join the river. Just so much pure h2o.
Back @ XG we joined the other crew. Beer and food. Plan became a shuttle ride down Youngs Rock trail that the others had worked on. Going to be a good un. From the XG to the top of the ride took 40 mins driving. Youngs is classic downhill Oakridge: Legacy trail narrow single track in many places bench cut into way steep mountain sides in deep tree cover. Elevation start was 5200′ not quite in alpine. We detoured over to Moon Rock for rthe view:
Back onto Youngs that just dropped. On Sunday we rode the trail again this time straight thru: 6 miles dropping 3383′ in 38 mins non stop. Both days the ride was a hand full of high speed all senses and reflexes firing. Derek smoked it. Again, this is classic Oakridge riding: steep narrow legacy single tracks accessed by shuttle or a grinding gravel logging road. and another compliment to David Turner and his creation, the 5 Spot.
Back @ camp more beer, stories, and food.
Sunday all of us went back up to work on the same trail i worked on yesterday to repair the horse damage and mitigate h2o damage. 3 of us built a rough cobbled bed to cross a wet spot:
Helmet story: Volunteers on FS land are considered employees and are covered by Workmans Comp. Hard hats are required. The club provides helmets or you wear your bike helmet. The helmets are color coded based on your hours of volunteering: green is less than 20 hours and you don’t own the helmet. Blue is for over 20 hours and you own the helmet. White is for 100 hours and more and you own it. I earned my 20 hours from this weekend and helping Derek 2 years ago build Kate’s Cut in. My helmet is a cherished item.
We hiked back out and rode the van back to camp. A short rest and a few sips of beer and i was back in the van for another shuttle ride on Youngs. 38 mins non stop ride. This ride is more challenging than Alpine albeit shorter.
Back @ XG I was in my van. A blond headed woman stuck her head in. She was clean and was not part of the trail work. i didn’t recognize her that embarrassed me. I asked her name: Theresa from Charlie and Theresa from Eagle, CO. We spent Thanksgiving @ Moab riding. She made a full dinner w/ all the trimmings and I whipped the cream for pumpkin pie. Once she said her name it all came back. She is driving over to Coos Bay for the summer. They have been reading my blog learning that I would be in Oakridge. She stopped @ the mercantile and learned where I was and drove up to see me. Hey Charlie, point your rig to the wet side, see these big trees, ride the steeps. She is having electrical problems w/ her Jetta that need to be fixed in Eugene. She drove off to take care of it. She said she would come back for some rides.
I drove back to Oakridge to the pub joining Derek for a beer. We talked about trail advocacy and how to enlist more volunteers. There are very few doing the heavy lifting for the benefit of the masses. GOATS, Greater Oakridge Area Trail Stewards, an original IMBA chapter club, and DOD, Disciples of Dirt, are the local clubs. There are very few riders living here, most come from Eugene and the rest of the world. Derek arrived 14 years ago and dropped anchor and has become a staunch advocate. Nice guy. We got thrown out w/ the cat when the lights were turned off.
I drove out to camp spot off the edge of the airport.
I am resting today unless Teresa shows for a ride.
The weather is moving to summer w/ blue skies and warmer temps. I replaced my cold weather hat w/ the palm hat. I should change into shorts tomorrow.
Again, i have ridden all over the country and experienced wonderful places and people. There are several that continue to attract me as Oakridge does.
I sort of planned to leave this Thurs for a town w/ a laundromat because there is none here. Wrong. Derek said there is one in the ST Vincent DePaul store. I need to find a shower arrangement. I might stay past Thurs.
Come to the wet side of the Cascades for big trees and clear clean water. Such a contrast from the desert and even the deciduous forests. Right now the mosquitoes haven’t hatched.