Joy Dutta’s blog

Summary: Ride on long weekend of 4th July, covering 1540 miles in 5 days. Stay in a tent 4 nights back to back. Mind boggling roads in Oregon.

Pics: Crater Lake, Oregon Outback - Jul 06

Day 1
The usual friday evening start at 5pm. And no night riding this time, stopped like a sane rider by nightfall at a Koa campground near Cloverdale on US-101N. Equipped with pool and all, cost me a whopping $38 for a few hours of nightstay in my tent. Koa is blacklisted now, because state parks charge around $20 for a tent space.

Realized a tent setup also needs a mallet for the tent hooks. Last time I got soft wet ground, but this time I had to hunt for a big chunk of stone. A BMW 1100RT rider camped beside me and he set up his pup tent in 5 minutes flat.

Day 2
The night was cold. And this time I rode with less preparations. The fleece sleeping bag was inadequate and I ended up waking up at 4am, all groggy eyed and cold limbs. Started at 5am. Goal: no less than 30 miles before breakfast.

Classic mcdonalds big breakfast combo at Ukiah. I just love this after a stretch of early morning rides - a biscuit hamburger, scrambled eggs, hash brown, pancakes and orange juice. It is like a 30-min quick charger for my body. So now I head north to Crescent City where Ligeo is supposed to meet up around 10:30.

Already skipped a famous twisty road sometime back, the CA-128 from Cloverdale to Mendocino, the excuse being I would lose time, where in fact I am little uncomfortable in those 25 mph switchbacks I just dont want to do with any kind of time constraints in the head. Out of interest I took CA-20 west at Wilits hoping it would be short, but came back after 10 miles, quite in a bit of frustration of moving slow.

And then came the redwoods. Drive through tree at Legett was an awesome experience. A Chandelier tree 300 feet high and 21 feet diameter, still remember seeing it in an encyclopedia when I was 8 yr old. And today I was clicking my huge motorcycle peeking through it. Life moves fast.

The clouds started playing truant after Legett, presenting me some mesmerizing redwood scenaries. Too bad I didnt stop even once to capture the road engulfed in dense fog amidst those giant monsters slowly fading in the distance. Every bit of those moments were cherishable, as I only could dream of such scenes from a motorcycle.

Crescent city is a marvellous little town, welcoming me with a wonderful sandy beach abound with young surfers. Just as I looked around for the wendys restaurant, Ligeo arrived at the same time. Both late by 3 hours and 1:30pm was a perfect time for lunch and route planning at Wing Wah.

Ligeo did a comprehensive research of scenic roads and byways of Oregon and we both has a tough time choosing our next halts. He wanted to touch Nevada just to add one more count to his “visited states” list but I tried to talk him out of it. We defered it for later and started our way on US-199 to Grants Pass, OR. Oh and before that we hunted down the walmart and I loaded my bike with a 40F sleeping bag, and a pair of $1 sleepers (priceless at campgrounds) and a mallet from Ace hardware.

The serpentine US-199 took us along the Smith river and the whole area is named Smith river national recreation area. I plan to return there someday to camp, just too many beautiful camping spots touching the swirling river. Before long we hit a gas pump beside a junction which announced that the famous Oregon Caves were 20 miles away. Even with our tight schedule we gave in to the temptation to visit the caves. Amazing piece of geological wonder, well worth the 500 stairs and 1.5 hours of guided tour inside the cold, damp decayed limestone and marble den. The purest of water is dripping from the stalactites. And they take 1000 years to form one inch of it.

Back to 101 after the short adrenalin filled twisties from the caves around evening. Grants Pass at 9pm and from previous camping experiences I promptly bought some food from a grocery store. Hit the Rogue river campgrounds by 10 and it was full. With plenty of energy still left we started off to crater lake, taking the beautiful OR-234 which is part of Rogue-Umpqua national scenic byway.

Stopped at the middle of the road to take a glance at the complete darkness and the soul-relaxing starry sky. Thousands of stars. Two motorcycles. Plenty of gas in the tank. A fellow road hungry traveller. Could not expect anything more.

OR-234 dropped us on OR-62 which goes all the way to crater lake. We passed a couple of RV-only parks before hitting up Joseph stewarts state park. Plenty of tent spaces. Registered by ourselves and quickly setup our tents. Took a warm shower at midnight before dining with banana, apple and white merlot. By now, I made it a habit to update my travel diary every night after dinner.

Day 3
Morning at 5am. Woke up and took a stroll, watched sunrise. back to bed. sound sleep till 8. Wanted to relax the whole day there but Ligeo’s collection of roads made us pack up and hit OR-62 by 11am. Before long we climbed to almost 6000ft near the rim of the crater lake. Even with residual snow showing up beside the road it was fairly pleasant for our summer gear.

Crater Lake is the most beautiful lake I ever seen in my life. America’s deepest at 1943 feet it is the result of caving in of the mazama volcano which is part of the cascade volcanoes. Being awe-struck even in that harsh midday sun made me wonder what it would look like in the morning and dusk. A great excuse to come back again.

OR-138 to US-97 is a straight road, as far as the eye goes. OR-31 being the outback road, we had to reach La Pine along US-97N. A small town Chemult on the way offered just the kind of break we wanted. No fast food chains in sight, we relished at a local deli with juicy burgers with fries and milkshake. Way better than a mac or wendys.

The landscape changed quite abruptly from mountains to desert. La Pine was like in the middle of nowhere, but that was nothing when we stopped at the junction of the fort rock road which was an intersection in the middle of the desert. More to our stunned eyes it rained in huge drops while there was still sunlight. True rural America here.

There were only stunning stuff to see and photograph till the end of the day. The fort rock monument is a 325ft high crescent-shaped volcanic rock which enclosed a lake some thousands of years ago. We rode in a small village road and went to till the last house on that. I could not imagine what it was to live in a house where the backyard was a desert. The local people always wore cowboy hats and I could almost hear the hooping sound of the horses like in the movies on gold rush.

By nightfall we camped at a small campground beside thomson creek reservoir. Free of cost, but no electricity/shower and tons of mosquitoes. I didnt like the place at first thinking of having to sleep in the sweaty garments without a refreshing shower. Dinner with white merlot and elk jerky. not bad at all. The sleep was surprisingly sound and comfortable with a little spooky feeling about being out in the wilderness.

Day 4
The place looked completely different in the morning. Shiny and happy from the gloomy and morbid last evening. Feeling of eternal peace just standing by the calm water. Packed up and started by 9:30am, gassed up at silver lake after discovering a beautiful desert view from a high point on the road.

Sun was getting hotter by the time we were almost in the moddle of nowhere, near summer lake. And there it was, a beautiful lodge and restaurant just when the hunger started getting unbearable. Sumptuous local breakfast with chicken sandwich and a bowl of chilli (rajmah curry with ground beef). A homely chat with the old lady at the restaurant and we were off to south OR-31, crossing some of the most amazing vistas. The almost dried up summer lake, then the Abert lake a few miles north on US-395 after the jct with OR-31 at valley falls.

The Abert lake reminded of the photographs my fellow enfield riders brought back from their expedition to the himalayas, forever making me envious of them. Here we just got the same setup, similar backdrops and similar colors ! It was so much peace I could just sit there for hours and do nothing.

Back to OR-31S. Ligeo wanted to just touch NV which we could, given a 60 mile one way ride in that arid weather. Did not seem worth it, so we ditched it and went for goose lake at the OR-CA border. The famous Old perpetual geyser was on the way, it was nice to stop by but not as big or interesting as I expected. Maybe I was thinking of the old faithful geyser seen in the discovery channel…

Goose lake was boring, so we just turned back from there. We were riding in the glider country, as the road signs said. Before long I spotted one glider guy starting to pack up after a landing. I stopped to say hi and ask about gliding. Seemed like $4k and a hauling truck is all one needs for the amazing fun of flying by just running. No motors, no nothing, just run and do some maneuvers to fly up and up, given the favoring wind is present. Maybe after retirement

The map showed in big fonts “Klamath falls” on 140W, where we could split on US-97. I was already dreaming of the cool freshness of a waterfall and rode the 140W happily. I almost rear ended on Ligeo’s bike due to a misunderstanding of hand signals. We sighed relief to find out absolutely no damages except flipped mirrors. Nice cool designs of touring bikes. Beside the road where I stopped was a tree with 3 flowered crosses nailed on it. Some recent accidental death. A place of omens…

Klamath falls. Damn, where is the direction to the falls ? We were roaming in a big city instead. Ligeo asked someone and my fears came true… the city itself is named like that, and there was no waterfall !!! ha ha ha what a goof up. We both got fooled. Anyway it was a kickass ride overall and it was time to bid goodbye. We both rode till US-97 and I took south to I-5. Magnificent mount shasta views before Weed. I must be lucky as two times in a row I got shasta with a clear sky. Stopped a few times to capture the view.

I love coming back to some interstate after a tiring day of riding slower roads. Interstates are like meditation. No distractions, just eating miles after miles. Wanted to cover as much as possible and take a motel but could not resist a small nice campground at Lakehead for $18 a night with shower. Felt glad to save a bunch and having camped 4 nights in a row. I have become an expert camper by now Bought some fruits from nearby grocery store and had a great shower to make up for the sweaty showerless last night. Dinner with fruits, juice and garlic bread while scribbling on the diary.

Day 5
Uneventful ride back home. Reached at 2pm. Ligeo also reached home around then. He camped at some small showerless campground in the wilderness and heard a pack of howling wolves around midnight. Crazy guy, he freaked. I could not imagine how I could react in such situation. Gotta see, next time !

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 18th, 2006 at 5:15 am and is filed under motorcycling. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.