Hello boys and girls, first off I want to apologise for taking so long to update but as Mike and Eric, two engineers/hunters I met at the top of a 6000ft mountain up a dirt track, put it i've been spending a lot of time "in the buttf*** middle of nowhere". To make up for it you are getting 2 posts, the first is about my journey up to crater lake.
From Astoria I headed south along the coast and stayed in a town called Seaside, I have been struggling ever since to get the Kooks song out of my head. Here I stayed with the Lathams. A couple of days previously I met a lady on the roadside, we got chatting and she said she'd hook me up with someone to stay with, this was the Lathams: Roy, Terry and their son Pat. They took me in, a complete stranger with no reference, fed me and gave me a bed as well a shower and their great company. This generousity has been repeated twice since but through a tourist cyclers website. The next people to take me in were Bob and Vickie, 80 miles down the coast in a town called Pacific city with a beautiful location right on the beach. They and their nephew Jason made me feel very welcome and gave me an amazing supper and breakfast and washed my clothes for me, epic hospitality. Two nights later I stayed with Paul and Monica and their 4 kids: Rainy, Torrent, Dare and Sanguine, in Eugene for two nights. Through games of cops and robbers, sardines and kickball with the kids, Monica's conversation and Paul's help with my bike, his advice and pro pizza I couldn't have felt more at home and I was sad to leave them. Between these amazing people I had biked up from the coast up the wooded Nestucca valley, into the rolling hills towards Salem and south across a broad flat plain through Corvallis to Eugene. Now it was time to hit some proper hills. It took me a day to get into the Casscade mountains from Eugene and that night I found a great camp spot about 20 miles after Oakridge, I swam in the cold river and cooked myself supper next to a camp fire before setting my lycra on fire which i'd put up to wash, clever herbie: clerbie. The next day I only managed 30 miles but 4500 ft of climb mainly up dirt roads (the third photo shows the valley I came up but I still had half the climb left), past snow by the roadside and smoke from a forest fire. This is the day I met Mike and Eric and without them I would have had a miserable night. I was elated after my climb but very short on water, without which I wouldn't have been able to eat. The guys gave me water, Jerky and even a beer, as well as a brief bit of company for which I was very grateful. The next day I mounted my assault on Crater lake. First I headed down hill and back onto paved road, which I followed to Diamond lake and then to the Park entrance. I arrived at the park entrance at 2.30 and it took me till 4.30 to cycle the 10 miles to the crater rim, by this point I had got to 8,000 ft up a relentless climb, a savagely gusty headwind and thinning air. The views at the top sorted me out though, the lake in the crater (second picture, with Wizard island) was mindblowingly stunning, I definitaley don't have the words to describe how beautiful it looked with the sun slanting down. Hopefully my pictures give a hint, and the satisfaction (maybe a little smugness) of having cycled up there, feeling I deserved to see this, whereas those coming by cars (passing by pretty frequently) had no appreciation of the scale of this place.
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