Around The Bend into 2010
What a better way to bring in the new year than to ride the singletrack at "The Bend". North Bend that is - State Park, with temps at a blistering 27 degrees when I hit the trails and the weather forcast advising temps would keep falling into the teens by night.
Rolling out of the parking lot near the ampatheater I noticed the air had a bite to it. It's good that I would be climbing to the cabin area immediately. That would get my body temp up. Not wanting to dress too warm yet not knowing how cold it would get, before I returned, I threw an extra winter jersey on my pack just in case.
In the last few miles before reaching the park I noticed alot of snow from a week ago still covered the ground in the bottoms especially along the North Fork of the Hughes River. I also notice several places where trees had been cut from the roadways. This had me wondering how many tree might be on the trails and considering a modified route that would keep me out of the deep snow in the bottoms.
Once on the Overlook Trail in the cabin area heading down to Castle Rock I hadn't gone far till I found the first fallen tree and moments later, still before Castle Rock, another. Wow ! Was this going to be par for the course? My thoughts were again thinking of a possible shortened routes in case there were many stops for trees and debre.
I'm always stopping and throwing large branches, limbs and derailluer killing debre off the trails. I figured I would not be able to remember all the locations where trees were down for later removal so I decided to take pictures of the ones I couldn't move and just accepted the fact that todays ride would be slow and possibly shorter than planned. However it was still better than sitting at home watching TV, playing guitar, eating and stairing at the walls.
By the time I crossed the creek and was climbing up a tough section of Overlook Trail I noticed that I was quite comfortable. Actually sweating a bit and nothing tingling from the cold. Once I reached the flat leading out to the overlook platform it started snowing hard. I was anxious to see it cover the ground only to see have it quit after just a dusting. Note the creek ahead in the picture.
I noticed there were no other bike tracks in the snow cover portions of the trails I had ridden nor across the spillway where it became difficult to ride in the crunchy deeper snow. At the top of the blacktop path beside the spillway I climbed up over the bank and onto the naked ground of the small pine forest that lines Castle Rock Spur Trail. Time for a pause to catch my breath in the cold air and take on some liquid I really didn't want, though knew I needed to have.
Gliding down the ridge I could see lots of snow in the river bottom and thought to myself, this might be interesting. On the gravel road below the dam, it again became tough to pedal through the cruncy, refrozen snow with a layer of ice underneath. A reroute was going to be necessary after I ride a loop out Lake Trail.
I felt extremely good as I started climbing Lake Trail and also notice there had been some bike traffic in the last few days, only not today. Had to stop a couple times on the climb to throw some large limbs off the trail. I wanted to be able to zip down this section on my return trip. As I reached the top of the hill there were more trees and debre to move.
I noticed I had not heard any vehilces on the road, no dogs barking, no planes, no man made sounds at all on my entire ride to this point other than the crunch of the frozen ground and snow beneath my tires. I had to just stand there for a few minutes, looking down on the lake, and take it all in. The birds sang for a few moments and suddenly the sound of a falling tree in the distance disturbed the calm. So I was off again into this peacefull, serene ride scattering wildlife as I glided through the forest.
The view from the ridge overlooking the lake is always awesome no mater what time of year. I could picture in my mind how it would look if snow covered. Darn, why didn't it keep snowing earlier, I thought.
When I arrived at the lake, the railroad grade path along the lake was littered with logs and debre. Apparently the lake had been over this path in the last week. It was actually a good challenge to pick my way around and over so many logs and limbs while only once nearly taking a swim. Note the previous waterline in the photo.
Once back to the dam I climbed the killer hill to complete the lollipop type loop and join Lake Trail again and drop back down to Jug Handle area again. I was glad I stopped and removed all the fallen limbs earlier. Now I was able to keep a good pace going all the way to the Jug Handle day use area.
Once arriving there I found it extremely difficult to even get to the point where Railroad Grade Trail leaves the road and around along the river. That wasn't going to work so I chose to ride road a short distance. Just before arriving at the gate where I would jump back onto Railroad Grade, I chose to ride up the hill on the road to the main entrance of the park.
There I checked the time and took a left onto 10 Acre Trail. Wow! It was 4:10 p.m., I had already blown two hours with all the stops for limbs and trees. I calculated I should have just enough time to ride 10 Acre Trail and then Nature Trail / Hibbs Cemetary Trail down to the campground and the truck before dark.
10 Acre Trail was awesome with only a couple trees I couldn't remove and only a few I had to throw off the trail. It went pretty fast as I cruised through the timber, switchback after switchback, log over after log over. Part way down I noticed you could actually see the snow covered spillway and icy lake from 10 Acre Trail and had to stop for a pictue. Usually can't see this when the leaves are on.
In no time I was off 10 Acre and was cranking up the road again and diving into Nature Trail behind a couple deer I had startled. Another large tree down just before the bridge made me break my flow. Another large limb, I couldn't move, messed up the flow again just before the steep drop into the campground.
I pulled up to the truck at 4:45 p.m. where it was 23 degrees. Not bad timing, wasn't cold and still got in quite a few miles of awesome singletrack on such a peaceful and serene ride around "The Bend" into 2010. A large smile was smeared across my face as I changed clothes and drove to the lodge where I stopped for an awesome Grilled Chicken Salad before heading home in a powdery snow blizzard.
For all pictures view slideshow or click on view all tab.
Happy New Year !
