Day 13: Dexter, OR

Alea hit the road while it was still 41 degrees out, and we headed toward Hwy 58, our planned route to the Willamette Valley.  There was a fair amount of truck traffic, but generally the shoulders were sufficient. 

One of Lane County's 20 covered bridges.  This one is at Lowell, OR.

I took over when we reached Hwy 58, which meant a climb up to Willamette Pass at 5,128 feet.  Since we were already at a fairly high altitude, it was a fairly easy climb.

The descent was over 4,000 feet of nearly continuous elevation drop,  spread out over about 50 miles or so.  It would have been a screaming fast descent, if it hadn't been for a pretty good headwind blowing up the valley.  But we did make good time.  At the end of the day, I had ridden 48 miles and Alea had covered 27 miles, giving us our longest day thus far of 75 miles.

At some points along Hwy 58 the shoulder narrowed considerably, leaving little room when loaded semis went speeding by.  But there was only one truly white knuckle moment: I was flying downhill at over 30 mph through a long tunnel when I was passed by a semi pulling two trailers.  The pavement was grooved, so it was an unstable descent to begin with, but the bow wave created by the semi added considerably to that, as did the inevitable "snap" caused by the slipstream wrapping around the back of the rearmost trailer as it passed.  Fortunately, there was no uphill traffic in the tunnel, or things could have turned ugly very quickly.  It was a relief to see daylight at the far end of the tunnel.  It didn't help seeing burned out flares along the roadside every few miles, suggesting that mishaps were not that uncommon along this highway.

We left Dexter and drove to west of Eugene, OR to camp at Richardson County Park ($25, power, water, adjustable showers).  It should be raining here for much of the next week, so our intent is to hang out here and do some route planning (we found a lot of closed campgrounds when we crossed the Cascades), to figure out our best route south from here.  Once we have our route determined, we will return to Dexter and continue on from there.

We learned that May 19th is when the remainder of the USFS campgrounds open south of here, which suggests to us that we will likely follow Old Highway 99 and I-5 south as far as Canyonville, OR, where we will head back east over the Cascades toward Klamath Falls.  That route offers several conveniently located county parks spaced about 35-45 miles apart, which is our preferred riding pace.  We aren't looking forward to riding I-5, so it is possible that we might continue searching for other options for when we head out again, which will be on Sunday.