Alpine Trail

I'd have been doing my guests a serious disfavor if I hadn't taken them to Oakridge to ride. I'll allow the photo blog to talk for me though.

Long Hot Day

Yesterday we went for a monster ride in Oakridge. I can't give you exact mileage, I can only piece together what I think it was from our map. It looks like around 30 miles with somewhere in the field of 5500' of climbing and uh, yah, some hiking too. We actually probably hiked a few miles all together. The sun was smothering us and it was impossible to drink in all we sweated out. The first 6 miles were pretty flat and then the next 10 were all uphill and then the rest was downhill followed by uphill with lots of undulation. No crashes, but plenty of near misses, and lots of scratches from overgrown brush Enough words.










You can't see the salt sweat stain on my shorts good enough.



Derek had a minor meltdown about 2/3 through the ride and while I waited, I looked for the lucky 4 leaf clover.



Here he is REFUSING to smile or look at the camera.

Am I back in Switzerland?

I love riding in Oakridge. The trails feel relatively remote, little to no dust this time of year, and it's like being on a mini vacation. Derek and I rode Alpine Trail (though our plans were to do Tire Mtn. and Clover Patch instead). The climb up is almost exactly 8 miles to split after you take the frontage trail along the river out of Westfir for about three miles. So after 11 miles you traverse a bit and then hit the Alpine singletrack. The entrance was a bit muddy in spots and made cool squishy noises but then the rest was all dry. There are some steep little short hills and a couple slightly longer ones but for the most part you are on a downhill descent made for fun. The flowers are out everywhere and the meadows smell so good.

Enough words, how about some pics.


















This tree is funky. The branch to the right is growing it's own mini tree!