Our first night out was without too much incident. We were tired and ready to get some zzz's. It ended up being a chillier night than I anticipated mostly because we ended up bivvying next to the Sprague river. The combination humidity and cold temps made for a brisk morning. I woke up to see part of my sleeping pad was frozen!
After shaking the cobwebs off, I got out of my sleeping bag and noticed there was some serious condensation going on between my bag and the bivvy bag. I hung both up to dry as we fired up some water for some morning oatmeal.
Pretty soon, we were on our way...everything packed back up in its place and rolling. We had not hit cattle country and the trail went through herds and herds of cattle. We passed many a gate that we had to stop, dismount, open, close...This little dance went on for a while as we worked our way through ranch land and hoped that the cows that were grazing in those sections did not get too spooked at a couple of weird rolling contraptions. Fortunately, we made it through without getting charged by spooked cows so I consider that a big plus.
We ran into another fellow biker heading the opposite direction, He promptly told us to avoid making the mistake he made which was not turning left at a Y junction around mile 57. We diligently kept our eyes peeled for the junction and said junction never appeared. After a while we began to debate whether or not we missed our turn as it did not feel right.
We determined we had ridden past our turn by about 6 miles so we had to pull a U'ey and roll back through some crappy trail that had fist size gravel. We eventually made it back to our missed turn and figured out why we had missed it...it was around mile 52....not mile 57!
The gravel bed changed in color from gray to red by all else remained the same...we pedaled and started to get into some even looser trail. About this time a local rancher pulled over and checked in with us. As it turns out, this trail would eventually go through his property and he was a little concerned as he wanted to make sure all the gates were closed behind us as we went through such that his cattle would not escape. We asked him where the closest water source was and he offered to let us refill at this ranch. We took him up on it and filled up our bottles and bladders.
Out of the corner of our eye, we noticed some zebras in the mix in one of his pens. Zebras in the middle of outback Oregon! Neither Nick or I had our thoughts together enough to take a picture but apparently this trip was going to be defined by weird animal experiences! Day 1 was a rabid bat, and day 2 was all about Zebras!
The trail once again beckoned us and we rolled and rolled until we eventually pedaled off this rancher's property (10,000 acres). We found a little spot by the river and determined we should stop, fill up on water and wait for the rest of the crew. We had no idea where they were and figured that we should wait until they caught up and regroup.
As Nick and I waited, we mapped out the mileage and plan and figured that optimally, we should keep moving after they caught up.
They eventually rolled in and they looked pretty ragged. They cooked up some food and we all recounted stories of the past 48 hours. Nick and I were determined to get a little more pedaling in that evening such that our subsequent days would be less demanding. We got back on our bikes and rode up the pass as the sun went down and darkness enveloped us. It was super peaceful and we were now in the heart of the Fremont National Forest. It was pretty sweet!
We pedaled until we hit the pass where we got onto a paved road. This paved road allowed us to gobble us mileage...we put a quick 20 miles in since our last stop and decided it was time to find a place to camp for the night.
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