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Two kinds of old growth: The Galfromdownunder celebrated her 43rd birthday at Constitution Grove, on the Aufterheide, where America's founding fathers are immortalized by giant trees like this.
A personal review of this event by The Galfromdownunder.
 PHOTO GALLERY shot by the MOVIE CLIPS (Quicktime) On the road 4.4 Mb THE BASICS: Wild Heart Cycling Oakridge Weekend WHEN: Sep 3-5, 2005 WHERE: Oakridge, Oregon HOW: Hub-and-spoke cycle campout based at Salmon Creek campsite. BYO tent and bike. You pedal; Wild Heart cook all meals and carry rest stop food and water in their bike trailers. Cold beer every night! HOW MANY CYCLISTS: 8-10 HOW MANY MILES: 40-70 per day with options COST: $170, special deal for Bike Friday owners |
STANDOUT FEATURES: Gourmet food, individual attention, and very flexible routes.
SUMMARY: A low-impact, personal and well organized tour that takes you right into the hidden Oregon at a smell-the-Douglas-fir pace.
I CONFESS to an unhealthy penchant for jetting off to far-flung destinations on a whim, my Bike Friday packed in its suitcase for up to 3 months of micro-budget loitering. But recently, the riding price of fossil fuel and - let's face it - long haul airfares (those $69 Seattle-Florida tix aren't sustainable, my CheapSeats.com-loving comrades) - have caused me to pause before pressing 'Buy'.
Yes, being car-free for 10 years does not crown me with a halo of eco-consciousness, especially when I spend time in front of a tray table above the 60,000 liters of rocket fuel imbibed by the average Boeing 747 on a cross-country hop. (That's three times that of a car; eight times that of a public bus, per passenger).
With this in mind, I decided to spend a month of weekends exploring the immediate region where I currently lay my helmet - Eugene, Oregon. I completed four small, self-contained overnighters, ranging from 12 to 100 miles from my front door, plus one relatively pampered one: a hub-and-spoke cycle campout based near Oakridge, the mountain bike Mecca of Oregon.
It all began when Celia and Ben Leber, recent transplants from Maine, offered to start a Bike Friday Club chapter in Bend, the snow bunny epicenter of Oregon. Seasoned cyclists, skiers and campers, they had founded Wild Heart Cycling, specializing in low-impact, highly personal, bike-and-trailer based tours. That is, small groups with no rider sag vehicle or giant entourage. My 43rd birthday coincided with Ben's (Sep 3), so they invited me on a 'non-labor intensive, Labor Day weekend tour' to make me feel like I didn't look at day over 42. How could I refuse?
Bike Friday Customer Service rep Tim Link against a backdrop of Steeple Rock and the north fork of the west fork of the ... whatever part of the Willamette River it was. There are a ton of natural landmarks like this in Oregon.
Small group, low impact. The group consisted of 5 Bike Friday owners and 3 guides, ensuring very personal attention. Andrew Black came from Portland with fellow Team Bag Balm member Amy. My guests included Bike Friday service rep Tim Link and housemate Frances, whose power purple New World Tourist had been posing 'for way too long' as a still life in her home office. A sixth rider planned to fly her folded Friday in her private plane from Colorado but was thwarted by cloud cover at the last moment. Eugene Cathcart, a mountain biker and Unicycle builder, recently moved to Oakridge from bustling, bankrolled Bend over yonder to join Wild Heart as a guide.
A small group has big advantages. It felt instantly like traveling with a huddle of good buddies rather than a paid 'outfit', and enabled us to meld quietly with the landscape, accessing remote spots unreachable with a big entourage.
 A few good crank turns from home. Faraway trips put welcome distance between your swivel chair and deck chair, but burn up time and resources getting there. A simple change of pace and immediate scenery and is often enough to feel adventurous. Oakridge is just over an hour's drive or bus ride from Eugene. It's also 'a nice sixty miler on the a hard-packed gravel road (North Shore Rd) that runs south east of Eugene', according to Tim. Next time ... |
At close of business on Friday, we piled our camping gear, three folded Fridays and Frances' woolly standard poodle Waldo into her Subaru wagon - the classic carpool. An hour later, and still within happy hour, we were opening the first beers of the night to good conversation, the smell of delicious rice and buffalo mince burritos and the sound of Salmon Creek gushing over rocks.
Semi-wild camping with a Ray's down the road. Ringed by woodsy hillsides and ridges, Oakridge is a modest little town recently lauded by OUTSIDE magazine as one of the hottest places to hang. This will probably result in a real estate stampede a la Donald Trump pronouncing on Oprah that lava-threatened Hilo, Hawaii, is the new cash cow for property hounds. (Why a single woman with a less than 12"x12" footprint needs to own a couple of thousand acres of waterfront property 'cos God ain't making it anymore yet wonders why we all can't get along together, beats me. Maybe she's planning to leave it pristine and uncondoed for future generations ...). Go before the loafer set land their barbed-wire and BMW's in Ray's parking lot.
Salmon Creek campground is a forest services campsite dramatically set on the edge of a small ravine, less than five miles from town by following E 1st street. There is no shower, just a pit latrine and a water pump. Bring your solar shower, brave the chilly stream, or best of all, make an easy pilgrimage to the silty warm spring 5 miles further along the road. After a day of sweat and a chilly dusk it's as welcome as a ginseng spa bath at the Golden Door (something I have experienced often in my dreams). If you like to carry a hammock like I do, bring very, very long hammock straps - some of the tree trunks are very, very fat. How to string up a hammock without getting in a knot.
Guide Eugene Cathcart on his 'Dirt Uni'. The BOB trailer somehow didn't work too well with it so he opted for a regular bicycle
Andrew took the liberty to bring the most luxurious tent I have seen - a ripstop nylon Taj Mahal, with a cord-pulled skylight for staring at the stars. Amy's tent was even bigger. When you don't have to carry your life support system, it makes sense to make the most of it!
 Gourmet meals by moonlight. Celia and Ben prepared excellent meals which you can smack your lips to here. The Plat de résistance for me was the birthday dinner oven roasted salmon with cherry tomatoes prepared in a portable oven, fettuccini cabonara and salad, Celia's home backed blackberry pie with ice-cream and a giant slab chocolate birthday cake. Breakfast consisted of buffalo & vegan patties, scrambled eggs, blueberry pancakes, cereal, banana cake and thoughtfully, rice milk. Each day, cold cut sandwich ingredients, fruit and home baked ginger cookies were laid out for people to make themselves a sack lunch, carried by our hosts in BOB trailers. |
 The rides. With the convenience of a fixed campsite, the daily rides consisted of out-and-back loops of 0-87 miles depending on one's desired level of labor-intensivity. You could opt to cycle straight out from camp, or shorten it by getting a 10-20 mile head start in one of the cars. Of course, it was preferable to leave the SUV's parked for as long as possible, using only their cigarette lighters to charge up our camera batteries... |
The Aufterheide (64-80 miles) After Friday's happy hour welcome, we rose early Saturday to tackle the Aufderheide, one of North America’s most scenic byways, and a classic bicycle route. It's a gradual climb along the headwaters of the Willamette to the top of the pass at Box Canyon. Part way out you can stop at a place called Constitution Grove, where famous dead guys like Benjamin Franklin and George Washington are immortalized by a stand of large, old-growth trees bearing wooden plaques chiselled with their names. It's a great spot for a sack lunch and a meditative stroll.
Hills Creek Reservoir looking distinctly 'New Zealandy'.
Hill's Creek Reservoir and Staley Creek (50-65 miles) . On Sunday we followed the Middle Fork of the Willamette River upstream to Hills Creek Reservoir, a swathe of blue that's entirely man-made, yet reminds me of somewhere in New Zealand. Further on, we ate our sack lunch on a pebbly riverbank and made a second unsuccessful attempt to demolish the birthday cake. A simple sandwich never tasted so good. Experiment: try eating your least favorite food in a stunning setting and note the results.
Paved logging roads. Despite spending four years in Oregon, I'd never explored one of its finest features: paved logging roads. A legacy of the lucrative timber industry, these single lane paths go for miles into the woods, ending at spots of stunning beauty that 'would normally be packed with SUV's on Labor Day if we were over east,' said Ben. A 5-mile road brought us to a remote swimming hole called Staley Creek, where the neoprene-skinned took a dip in what an Aussie would call sub-arctic waters.
The kind of spot a paved logging road can lead to - Staley Creek with momentarily still lifes Amy and Celia.
Labor Day (0-47 miles). On Monday, Ben escorted hardcore Andrew and Amy an another expedition of several odometer-feeding yet scenic miles, while some of us tooled around in the campsite and Oakridge until the 2pm 'check out' time. After all, it was Labor Day Monday, when no hammock should be left unhung ...
Andrew Black and Amy Ream of Team Bag Balm spurned the chic weekend allure of their hometown Portland to join our little campout.
Copyright 2005 www.galfromdownunder.com
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