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McKenzie Pass
On Friday, I returned to the (bike) saddle and rode the 57 miles from Detroit to Sisters. The first 37 miles was almost entirely uphill (!), climbing close to 4000 feet. Mostly the grade was very gentle, but the final 3 miles to the Santiam Summit was tough. The hardest part of the ride was the traffic — unrelenting passes by multiple cars, trucks, and motorhomes, in the range of 5-10 per minute, typically traveling 55-60 mph. The shoulder was narrow, often too narrow for comfort. Often, when I saw a big vehicle in my mirror, I pulled off the shoulder into the cinders to stop and wait for the traffic to pass. We all made it safely, but the hypervigilance was tiring.
Today is a rest day in Sisters. Ingrid and I took the sag car out this morning for a drive up to McKenzie Pass, about 15 miles to the west along Hwy 242. The pass is a lava field with fantastic views all around, especially from this intriguing observatory built from lava stones. Shown here are the views we had of the Belknap Crater (picture 2), Mt. Washington and Mt. Jefferson (picture 3), Black Butte (picture 4) and North and Middle Sister (picture 5).
2 comments:
All the lava makes it a very intriguing landscape.
I agree! Car traffic sucks! On the weekends I run south along PCH. The sidewalk is broken/ decaying grey bricks (painful and huge ankle spraining hazard) so I, like all the runners, just run on the road. Luckily on weekends PCH is pretty empty and along this stretch it is 3 lanes wide so most cars and trucks leave the last lane to the runners and bikers since there is no shoulder. Occasionally cars/trucks 'courteously' honk to alert you they are coming (you can hear them for miles anyway) and every time it startles me so badly making me jump and lose my breath a little.
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