After a lengthy Blog hiatus, it is time to return to the world of blogging. The hiatus was in part due to craziness of being busy but also in large part due to a road trip that we took...day 1 below
Destination: Canada, Eh!
The month of August was quickly coming to a close and on its
heels came September. The latter
part of August proved to be really busy as life motored through what was
quickly becoming the end of summer.
The missus took some time off from work and as luck would have it, our
scheduled synced up for the first time in a long time such that we could
actually take a few days off together.
We had been talking about a trip ‘north’ where we would take the
airstream and hit the road in an attempt to get some camping and riding
in.
The loose plan was to load up the truck and the airstream
with dogs, bikes, and ‘what-not’ with destination Canada in mind. In a way, it made sense since Canada
played host for me the preceding two summers for BC Bike Race and the
TransRockies. These two trips had
piqued the wifer’s interest in riding in Canada while cementing my view of the
abundance of trails to the north of us.
As we prepped for the trip, there were multiple warnings regarding
taking food across the border.
Given one of my prior encounters at the Canadian border I decided it
would be in our best interest to comply and not take a bunch of food with
us. The prior encounter went along
the lines of asking me if I was in possession of a gun multiple times. Naturally this line of conversation
surprised me as the wifer is the only gun-toting member of our family. I suppose they might have had reason
for this line of questioning considering I was driving a big truck with Montana
plates. To digress, long story
short, we got to the border when the wifer informed me that not only did we
have a fridge full of food, but that fridge included meat, fruit, and all sorts
of other items that may potentially raise a red flag with our friendly
neighbors to the north. As luck
would have it, our border patrol officer was a friendly young man who did not
pursue any further detailed line of questioning after he looked at the missus
and she batted her eyes.
Riding Lewis River Trail:
The trip officially began on Wednesday when we left and
drove up through Hood River and crossed the Columbia River to the Lewis River
Trail. As we got closer to Mt.
Saint Helens the landscape started to change and become much more lush. We found our trailhead at Lewis Creek
Trail and decided to ride in the upstream direction. The trail was around fourteen miles in length with
undulating terrain through old growth forest that followed the river. At the end of the trail we decided to
take the paved road back in order to save time and get back to the car/trailer
so we could find a place to camp before it got dark. This was the wifer’s first river trail experience and she
kept oohing and aahing about the trail and the scenery. The most downstream part of the trail
was very smooth and relatively flat.
As we approached the middle section of the trail the undulations got
bigger as there were several punchy climbs and descents of around 300 feet of
elevation gain/drop. We worked our
way through the middle section and came across more popular sections of the trail
that included multiple waterfalls, namely lower, middle and upper. Fortunately as we planned it we were
there on a weekday and therefore there was little foot traffic.
The top third section of the trail once again became fast
and flowy with the undulations becoming smaller and smaller until the trail
gave way to the paved road. This
was our turn-around point, although we did notice that there seemed to be
additional trails for exploration if you so chose. On the way back via the paved road I kept looking at the sky
and trying to figure out if the cloudy gray skies were going to open up on us
and start raining. We were able to
dodge the rain and made it back to the tincan where the dogs were happy to see
us.
We cleaned up, loaded up, and got moving so we could find
aforementioned place to camp. We
headed up to Mt. Saint Helens towards the climber’s bivvy and found a campsite
off the road that we called home for the night. As we got settled the skies grew darker and it started to
drizzle. The drizzle turned into a
constant rain that fell throughout the night and continued when we woke
up. At this point, riding in Mt.
Saint Helens was out of the question.
Sadly, we packed up with our tail between our legs and decided to head
to the Canadian border.
more to come...
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