Days 8, 9 & 10: Prineville, OR

Day 8 (Friday) was mostly a day of headwinds and ascents, so it was some fairly fatiguing riding for both of us.  Alea started off first, covering the first 13 miles or so.

Painted Gorge.

Not far west of Dayville we came to Painted Gorge, one of the unique geologic features of the area - a crack in the earth through which the south fork of the John Day River flows (the name relates to the native pictographs on the upper gorge walls).  Also in the area is Sheep Rock and the Painted Hills, both areas we've visited on multiple occasions, otherwise they would have been worth a stop on this trip.

A few miles past the Gorge it was my turn to ride the remaining 25 miles or so to Mitchell, OR.  That was our original destination for the day, at the city campground in the middle of town.  But cold weather was forecast for Day 9, and we didn't like the prospect of waiting out the weather in Mitchell.  So we pressed on, thinking we could camp at Ochoco Divide, which was another 17 miles or so farther down the road.  To help accomplish that, Alea took to the road again, riding about 7 miles and thus giving me time to recover for the upcoming climb.  Then I took over for the remainder of the day.

West of Painted Gorge.  That is Sheep Rock in the distance, just behind Alea.

It was just our luck that when we arrived at Ochoco Divide Campground we found it closed, with some sort of construction project in progress.  We were about 34 miles east of Prineville, with the nearest campground about 20 miles away.  We didn't feel we had enough left in the tank to get that far, but it was a steady descent the entire way, so I decided to see how far we could get.  We covered just short of half the distance to the next campground before the winds and my fatigue suggested it was time to call it a day.  We could have camped for free in Ochoco National Forest or stayed at a campground on Ochoco Lake, but we opted instead to drive all the way into Prineville, so that we could have power for the chilly nights that were forecast, to get caught up on shopping and to have a rest day.  We also felt we owed it ourselves to dine out, since we both had exerted significant effort over the total of 66 miles that we covered on our longest and hilliest day so far.

"Bunch of Lost Souls Just Hanging Around."

On Day 9, the forecast high was for mostly cloudy weather in the mid-50s, with a pretty good breeze coming out of the northwest.  So we made it our rest day.  We drove to Redmond, OR to do laundry, get a few groceries and stock up on dog food for Lana.  We opted to take in a late afternoon matinee at the Pine Theater in Prineville, in order to have a place to get out of the wind.

Day 10 was our chance to fill in the gap that we had skipped, from the western edge of the Ochoco National Forest to Prineville.  So we returned to where we had left off two days earlier, and I set off in thermal tights and jersey for the shallow 20 mile descent back into town.  Once again I battled the wind, but it was far less of an issue on such a short ride and being well rested.

It has warmed up a bit since yesterday, and we are looking forward to the warming trend continuing over the next several days.

We have made our first major route change for this first leg of this year's travels.  From Sisters, OR we had hoped to cross over McKenzie Pass to Eugene, which was to be our approximate ending point in September (now it will be at Sisters).  But the pass probably won't open until July, plus it is both cooler and wetter on that side of the Cascades than it is on this side.  So once we get to Sisters we will head south, returning to our originally planned route around Klamath Falls.  And the possibility remains for more changes.  As we head south we will discover how double the normal precipitation in most of the Sierra Nevadas might impact our plans.