[trip-list] Oregon

[drewish@katherinehouse.com]

NE SHORE KLAMATH LAKE, OR 06/30/02 - Woke up in the middle of the night freezing. Trying to save weight by leaving the sleeping bag at home and bringing what's really a polarflece blanket wasn't the best idea. Put on all my clothes and got back to sleep until a semi pulled off a couple hundred feet up the highway. My fears that he would park there with his motor idleing all night were unfounded.

I got moving at a reasonable hour, made 10 miles and got breakfast around 09:00. It was much more pleasant riding through the Klamath Basin this year, partialy because I had a tailwind and partially because it wasn't a dust bowl. Last summer there was a big fight between the farmers and the USDA over water. The feds were trying to provide water for an endangered fish and the farmers wanted to be able to make their morgage payments. This winter was wet enough that the farmers got to plant and it didn't, as one guy I talked to at breakfast put it, "come to violence".

I stopped at a yard sale just outside of Klamath Falls and purchased three super-pimp western wear shirts, one will be a gift but the other two will soon be making apperances in my photos. The ladies at the yard sale gave me the low down on the bike trail a mile up the road. I forget the name but it was a really nice rails to trails path that hooked up with the Canal Path which took me right into downtown Klamath Falls.

In downtown I pulled up at Bicycle Jones, a very cool shop--last summer they really saved our butts, only to find it was closed Sundays and Mondays. I looked around for a place that was open where I could sit down a minute, think through my options and make a couple phone calls. I found a pizza place and set up shop. As instructed I got some ice for my knee, borrowed their phone book to try to find another bike shop that might be open, and went to town on their salad bar. 

With a refreshed knee, a full stomache, and a resolve not to worry about shifting, I set out. My plan was to get to the campground just past the cataracts of US 97 [okay maybe I spelled it wrong, but you know what I'm talking about: the blockages that for years prevented the discovery of the source of the Nile river]. 

I don't know where to start enumerating the perils of old 97 as it leaves Klamath Falls. On ODOT's Oregon Bicycing Guide those 8 miles are colored red, indicating "Caution areas, due to narrow roads, poor visibility, or high truck volumes". Let me tell you, it's got all three.

It starts with a narrowing shoulder, cut into the side of the mountain, sandwiched between a Jersey barrier and two opposing lanes of semis. Then comes two miles of a long straight stretch with a nice 4 foot shoulder bordered by a very soft gravel that drops 20 feet at a 45 degree angle to a 3 foot wide swath of stinging nettles and a barbwire fence. Throw in a crosswind that has you swerving to avoid both the shoulder and the traffic and you've got quite an expression on your face as you shout "hooo-ahhh" at the passing traffic. 

All that said I'd still rather ride it than any federal highway in Iowa, that place is scarry. I spent a few white knuckled minutes staring at my mirror glad that most of the traffic was headed the other way. After this it opens up to some nice wide shouldered, flat riding. 

Pick 'em up and put 'em down,
andrew

------------------------------
This mobile message sent using PocketMail.
Sign up for unlimited e-mail at www.PocketMail.com.