Looks like I’ve got some catching up to to do since my last post. We’ve had some long days and no wifi so there’s been no way of keeping up to date but I’ll give you the highlights and bring you up to speed.
June 28
We left Baker City, OR early in the morning and headed towards Oxbow, a total of 71 miles. It would be our longest day yet; but that’s not what worried me. Two big challenges stood between us and Oxbow: Hells Canyon and the Richland Grade. Hells Canyon is surprisingly hot (stretching across most of our ride today) and the Richland Grade is a steep climb in the middle of it. We needed to stay hydrated! We made it the 42 miles to Richland without too much trouble. We just kept pedaling and drinking. We found a bench in the shade outside a store in Richland and sat down to have our lunch. The store owner was very kind and talked to us about the TranAm racers who came through a few weeks ago (they average 230-300 miles a day across the entire country!!). He also warned us about the Richland Grade–just ahead of us–and encouraged us, if we could, to bike past Oxbow to Brownlee.
Richland Grade was daunting at first sight. We were biking along and suddenly were confronted by an overwhelming bare hill. I looked up to see tiny cars switchbacking back and forth to the top of it. It was huge and I thought “Oh no.” “There it is boys. That’s what we’ve got to climb,” I said. So we paused for a few moments, in the heat, to tank up on water and up we went. It was 1:06 PM. We stayed together and kept eyeing the next rest stop as we winded our way up. The next mile marker. The next bend. The farthest telephone pole. We leapfrogged our way for the next hour and a half until we finally reached the top.
In another 30 long miles we finally reached Oxbow. It was 4:30. We’d been on the bikes since 6:30. And there was a huge hill between Oxbow and Brownlee that neither of us felt like climbing. We were done. It was a long day in the heat of Hells Canyon. So we opted to sleep at the Oxbow Dam campground, Copperfield Park.
As we turned in Forrest made a sharp turn, unaware he was on gravel, and had a nasty fall. He slid across the pavement and gravel scraping up his right leg, side, arm, and–worst of all–his left palm. My first aid kit’s alcohol swabs had met its match so I went to the park attendant and asked for some more alcohol. They turned out to be a wonderful elderly couple who proceeded to treat us like their own grandkids. She soon came down to our campsite with ham and cheese sandwiches, cookies–to go with our soup–and bagels and butter for breakfast. They let me use their phone so I could call Chantry and let her know where were and they also let us move our tent out of the hiker/biker section to a quieter area of the campground so we could get a good night’s rest. May God bless them!
We slept soundly and were off in the morning by 9AM, heading toward Brownless Summit, which he warned me was twice as bad as Richland Grade. Yikes!
…not sure why I can”t upload photos. Sorry. I’ll try to post some at another time.
Thanks for praying and thanks for following.
Until next time… 🙂
