Today was to have been the shortest and easiest day of the tour. 21 miles and just 351 feet of uphill. Indeed we were at the Sisters BW hotel while breakfast was still in session. Our first 5 miles were on lovely quiet roads where we started to see the Three Sisters (another in the Cascades chain of volcanoes), passing Tumalo State Park and crossing Tumalo Creek just before joining US 20 for 15 miles.
Not a fun 15 miles. Narrow, chip-seal shoulder and lots of traffic - where are all these people going in such a hurry on a Saturday morning?? The views of the Three Sisters kept improving, though. Left to right in the second picture below are Broken Top Mountain, South Sister, Middle Sister and North Sister. The following three pictures are the mountains individually (middle & north together).
Oh - and here's our ever-vigilant SAG driver Cindi looking out for us along the route.
Mount Jefferson, next in the chain, also comes into view on our ride.
Passed some interesting log home construction.
Into Sisters....... Which looks like a great little tourist town. Tomorrow is a rest day and I'll take some time to explore it. Our hotel is on the far side of town. It is a Best Western, but really spread out and home to some llamas as well.
An option for today or tomorrow is to cycle McKenzie Pass (out & back). It is 15 miles each way, and as the name "pass" indicates, there is a bit of uphill involved in getting there. Because is was such a short ride today and because it comes so highly recommended as a cycle trip, most people said they were going to do it today. It closes to car traffic each winter and the website indicated that it will open to cars on June 20th this year. At breakfast this morning, though, our guide Katie relayed information from one of our riders that the pass is already open to cars. The route is narrow and winding, so probably isn't too much fun if there is a lot of car traffic on it. Also - after weeks (it seems) of everyone bundling up to stay warm we are finally getting some heat. So between the "open to cars" false alarm and people finding it "too hot" to cycle, I was the only one to carry on from the hotel to the pass. Ann did cycle up later after first checking it out in the car. It was fabulous! And really not all that tough. Some good views of The Sisters. A good road surface and even a sign that said "cyclists may take full lane". Pine forest most of the way up. Some forest fire activity close to the road at times.
About 9 miles from the hotel the road was closed to car traffic. Since there was no through traffic, there was not much point in being on the road in a car at all so there were very few. Lots & lots of bikes though. As we rode towards Sisters from Bend it seemed that every third vehicle was carrying road bikes. I'm betting most of them were headed for this ride. Kind of like Highwood Pass the weekend before June 15th.
After a few more miles we came to Windy Point viewpoint and suddenly huge lava fields. In the distance, Mount Jefferson, Mount Washington and Belknap Crater (the source of most of the lava from here on in). We also had our first view of Mount Hood, which will take us about 3 more days of riding to get to.
And continued on towards the top.
Spent around 45 minutes at the top exploring around a bit and having lunch. "The Observatory" was built by the CCC in 1927. All made out of lava rocks, with big lookout holes and little tiny ones that allow you to look at specific mountains in the distance. Very cool place! Especially with only cyclists able to access it. I hope a few more of our riders decide to do it tomorrow. Meanwhile, I'll be exploring town.
Stats for the day:
82 km / 51 miles from Bend OR to Sisters OR, including a side trip up & down McKenzie Pass
2704 feet up
2988 feet down
Weather: Great! Bright sunshine and temps from about 16C to 32C.
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ReplyDeleteReally? You didn't have enough riding that you had to add extra 30 miles? What're you going to do tomorrow?
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