Feral is Go!

Short Version:
Officially-sanctioned feralness and a fantastic - but cold - ride in the forest

Long Version:
Hit the 2000km mark for the trip, then arrived in Bend mid-afternoon on clean day and commenced bike-shop-hunting. Took a while, but we eventually found one, which turned out to have a super-helpful advicemonger on staff (Hi Nate @ Hutch's!). We left quite a while later with a map, ride recommendations, camp-spot suggestions, and directions to the other townside things we needed to hit before disappearing into the woods.

First of these we checked out was the Federal Ranger Station, where Jake the Ranger disabused my notions of Park Rangers as forest cops replete with mirror shades and attitudes. I left the Ranger Station armed with the knowledge that in any Federally-managed forest, dispersed camping is a valid option, except where otherwise stated. What that means is that we can, in any of the States of the Union, camp for free in National Forests*. That's pretty cool.

Next stop was Cog Wild (Hi Lev and Sarah!), where we booked ourselves onto the McKenzie River shuttle they had running on Friday, then Pine Mountain Sports, where we acquired disc golf discs and course info (Hi bearded guy whose name we never learned!), and on to Safeway, where I stole internet access while Janine purchased delicious foods.

While I sat in the Safeway parking lot, cursing the intermittent access drops, the sun came out. For about four minutes. This was a momentous occasion, as it was pretty much the first actual sunshine I'd seen since entering the United States. And, as it turned out, the last sunshine I'd see for another 42 hours. Locals have all taken great pains to assure us that the weather in this part of Oregon at this time of year is usually hot, and dry, and that we're actually lucky there's been so much late rain this year because the bike trails are normally dusty by now. This actually makes me feel better about the fact that it's been pissing down since we got here. Which is good, as the rain that fell the next two nights, in particular, was a total deluge, as was the rain that fell on us while riding each of the next two days.

The slightly sneaky feeling of dispersed camping** had us both mildly edgy, as did the alien pod things*** all around our campsite. Nothing worse than rain and bizarre dreams**** hit us overnight though, and we set off the next morning to ride some of the extensive and famed Phil's Trail network.

We'd camped near the bottom of Storm King, so we started up that one, past the tin-cans-on-a-stick marker and into the forest. The trail meandered around, swooping up and down, but generally trending uphill. I loved it. Janine fell off. Twice. My attempts at remedial advice were well-received. Honest.

By the time we reached the top end of Tiddlywinks (about 12.5 miles horizontally, and an elevation gain of 1500 feet) we were above the snow line, and as we exited the trees to hook through the snow-skiing area a freezing rain began to fall. Hard. Pretty soon we were soaked, and bloody cold, and getting miserable despite the awesome riding on Funner. Janine's arms were numb from the elbows down, and both shoulders were hurting from her earlier misadventures. I'd given her one of my layers, and was suffering silently. Not the best time for us to stop to chat to a friendly local (Hi, Fishman Rob!), but he was one of the local trailbuilders, and a fount of information about trails both local and national, and our interest in the conversation was such that we forgot how cold we were... until we started riding again! Decided to skip C.O.D. and hook back down Storm King to the campsite, which was an inspired choice, as a) it was an even better trail heading downhill than it was up, b) I got to point and laugh at the spots where Janine had fallen off her bike, and c) when we reached the bottom we encountered a couple playing disc golf, who told us that the tin-can-marker we'd thought was a charmingly-primitive bike trail sign was actually a disc golf basket, and pointed us in the direction of the first tee-box.

We didn't go play, though - we went back to camp, put on multiple layers of warm, dry clothes, and went to bed.







* = Except where we can't, which are signposted areas.

** = In case anyone hasn't yet figured it out, this is similar to what the NZ press tend to refer to as "freedom camping," except without the "parking on the side of the road for the night" element, and the "leaving faeces and trash lying around" element. And, so far, without the "getting beaten up and robbed by locals" element.

*** = If we were on a Pacific Island beach, I'd've thought they were recently-hatched turtle eggs. Given that we were some hundred miles inland, in a forest, I'm guessing not. Nene thinks maybe some sort of fungus thing, I'm wondering about snake eggs.

**** = Nene dreamed that I was a secret drug user***** and was splitting our possessions and taking all the good stuff to sell for more drugs. I dreamed that I was out running in a forest at night, and decided to get naked and swim across a lake to TVNZ's secret evil empire HQ, which I infiltrated via a door which had carelessly been left unlocked by some lackey. Unfortunately, I was spotted by a welder, who chased me back to the lake (which was full of trout and seals) and was planning to shoot me until he was instructed not to by the other guy.

***** = I'm not.