A couple of weekends ago, we decided to test our luck with trail conditions at Waldo Lake. I had heard great things about the ride and it was time to explore the trails before the area shut down due to weather. The weather window opened up and we had two great days of weather which enabled us to get our and ride in the high country.
We made our way to Waldo via the Cascade Lakes Highway and were treated to amazing views of local area peaks as we headed south. I started to wonder about the wisdom of our decision to try our luck at Waldo when we got up to Mt Bachelor and started to see snow on the side of the road where the Cascade Lakes Hwy officially started. They usually don't maintain the road in the winter and it gets shut down due to snow. The first couple of curves were in the shade and still had snow on them from the recent weather.
One of Waldo's claims to fame is that the water is supposed to be incredibly clean (even more pure than Crater Lake) since there are no 'organics' in the lake. It is a large lake that does not allow any motorized use on it so the integrity of the lake can be held intact. It provides for a great and peaceful setting with views of Diamond Peak among others.
As we made our way over to Waldo, we missed our 'short cut' turn and took the scenic route. The short cut takes a rough dirt road up and over to Waldo Lake (as opposed to heading all the way south, then backtracking north on the next road over. The challenge was that the road is very poorly marked and in some cases has 2 different names/numbers on maps. It just meant it would take us a little longer to get to the trailhead.
We arrived at Shadow Bay, found the trailhead pretty quickly and proceeded to suit up for the ride. The higher altitude created a question as to how to dress up. I decided to not worry about it too much since we would be moving and it was going to get warmer as the day progressed. We decided to go clockwise (the trail is a loop) which meant we would start on the more 'technical' terrain and then have a nice ride around the east side of the lake on the return. THe first 7 miles were different in that we rode through a couple inches of snow and there was also a fair amount of downed trees from the recent storms.
The trail meandered along the west side of the lake in the trees and we picked our way through the down trees and snow. As we made our way up north, the conditions got significantly better and the riding continued to be really good. The east side is significantly more exposed to the sun so it was dry and pretty much perfect conditions for riding.
There was a little bit of mechanical excitement on the ride....my singlespeed drive train was skipping so I could not really lay down too much force without the chain skipping and threatening to break. I had to take it easy on steep climbs (very few and very very short). I had swapped out my drive train and as usual the only thing I did not swap out was the rear cog which did not want to play nice with everything else. It looked like it should be fine, but unfortunately it was too worn...
The other more exciting mechanical was that one of the rails on my seat decided to bust! I was riding a Specialized Phenom with titanium rails...based on my bike fit, I set the saddle up such that the seat post clamp was secured outside of the spec'd zone so I had only myself to blame. I did this knowingly, hoping that the rails would be OK. The combo of being outside of the 'green' zone and riding a hard tail for a few years mostly likely caused it to eventually fail. Let's just say the last 2/3 of the Waldo Lake ride were ridden more or less out of the saddle...it was a delicate dance of trying not to hammer on the pedals (thanks to the drive train) and riding out of the saddle.
We bumped into a familiar face on the trail and stopped to chat for a little bit. Overall, it was a great day out on some new (to us) trail.
