Burning Man. I don't normally rant. Pretty disappointed by all the so-called Bohemian lifestyle wanna-bes. As the saying goes, "Perception is 9/10's of reality." My perception is for the most part you're a bunch of self indulgent wankers. Semitruck trailer after trailer of your garbage left behind. Backhoes on the roadside pullouts scooping up the garbage you dumped if you were "thoughtful" enough to take it off the playa. Buisness owners paying out of their pockets when you overflowed their dumpsters and left mountains of garbage, all because you are too ignorant to take care your own mess. Yes I know cleanup crews are part of the festival, but on the roadside and private buisnesses? And, yes I know it's not everyone, see how that works?
Moving on...
We passed through Gerlach NV and headed out rt. 34. Flat #1 occured not too far from the Lund Petrified forest. Ok, it happens, the road has tons of sharp obsidian making up the road bed. Onward. We camped for the night at the old Denio springs cattle camp. Being a desert traveler via bicycle I'm always interested in the springs. The spring was still flowing well. Filed under 'good to know.'
Our original intention was to do a short bikepacking trip covering much of the same ground as
I'd done in the spring. But now with no spare tire we instead limped out to Alturas where I managed to pick up a used tire at no cost using my warranty at Les Schwaub.
From there we moved up to Oregon camping for the night up on the Winter Rim, part of the Oregon Timber Trail bikepacking route. I wasn't carrying any routing information for this section so we didn't know exactly where we were in relation to the route. Never the less we still got out the bikes and rode a little dirt road where Wyatt had a great time running free and alongside as we rode.
We worked our way up to the trailhead for the McKenzie Rivers "Blue Pool." I had ridden the
McKenzie River Trail in July as part of my
Oregon bikepacking trip and from those pictures Joannie wanted to see it too. So Wyatt got to do his first trail as we hiked the 4 miles round trip to the pool and back.
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| Campground below Santiam Pass |
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| On the trail to Tamolitch Pool |
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| Tamolitch Pool the "Blue Pool" on the McKenzie |
Heading out into the volcanic lava lands of central Oregon traveling some VERY obscure dirt roads we cut down from hwy 20 to hwy 31 via Pine Mtn observatory and the bit nerve wracking road coming down off the south side. It wasn't truly bad but it was rough enough and narrow enough with significant exposure to never be sure if we were going to make it down, or would have to somehow turn around. Down off the mountain on much better roads now we headed south past China Hat and Sand Springs until until once again turning off on very obscure pumice roads. Never the less we managed to navigate our way south and came out at "Hole In The Ground." Spent the night up on Winter Rim again.
We dropped down into Sheldon National Wildlife Refuge still intending to do our bikepacking route. Again the obsidian cut a (brand new!) tire and we flatted. After changing the tire we camped for the night at the
Massacre cabin and the next morning headed back to Alturas for another tire. Because the flatted tire was basically new we got another (different!) tire for the $35 price difference.
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| Flat #2 |
Giving up on the bikepacking we dropped down to Susanville and broke out the bikes and Wyatt's doggy trailer to ride the
Biz Johnson trail. It was very easy, fun and scenic traveling the old railroad bed next to the river. Wyatt got to jump in the water chasing sticks along the way.
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| Going through one of the tunnels |
After that we headed up into the mountains above hwy 395 and found a beautiful spot to camp. We traveled the dirt roads up there all the way back out to 395. I had never been up there and it was far nicer and more extensive than I had thought. After coming down to the hwy it was just a relatively short drive home. Another trip finished and Wyatt's first big road trip. But not without another flat...
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