Ride Report - Old Mckenzie Hwy (5.5.13)

Every year for a week or two in the late spring/early summer, the Old McKenzie Hwy is plowed, but the gate remains closed to vehicles. This provides an amazing opportunity for bicycles and pedestrians, allowing paved passage to McKenzie Pass (and beyond) without automotive traffic – this is especially enticing to road cyclists, who’ll have an open road on the amazing descent back down to the bottom. Every year I tell myself that I’m going to do this ride, but something always comes up (usually kayaking plans). Then, as soon as I see everyone’s photos from the ride, I kick myself for missing it yet again. Finally, this year I decided to make it a priority and got it done! After a boat and BBQ on The Miracle Mile the day before (which was awesome), I was ready to mix it up and saddle back up on my road bike, which happened to have two flat tires from lack of use. Emily, who had already ridden Old Mac the day before (from the McKenzie River Ranger Station to Sisters and back; ~80 miles) had agreed to ride to the summit and back with me. I was pretty glad she had already done the ride, since I figured she’d be more likely to allow me a leisurely pace, taking photos and getting my out of shape ass up the hill. Since we were struggling a little bit to get out of bed, we were only able to muster a late morning start, which was kinda nice – Although, I was hoping that the unseasonably high temps (near 90 degrees!) weren’t going to beat me down.

Most folks do this ride as an out-and-back to Dee Wright Observatory, starting at various locations between the Ranger Station and the closed gate. We had decided to start right in the middle of the two, about a mile below White Branch Youth Camp, which would give us the most bang for the buck on the sweet downhill! Apparently the wind was pretty bad the day before, especially when you leveled out at the lava flows, where there’s only sparse vegetation to act as a wind block – therefore, I was glad when Emily mentioned that the wind didn’t seem as bad on this day. The temps were also quite pleasant at around 75 degrees, but we knew it would also be cool up top, so we made sure to pack some extra layers. I had expected there to be a lot of other riders doing the trek as well, and sure enough many passed by as we were getting geared up. Before long we were in the saddle and got started with the climb.

For the first couple of miles I tried to keep up with Emily’s pace, but it soon became apparent that I would be doing a lot of solo riding. Eventually, we worked out a system where she rides for a while before turning around and heading back to ride with me for a bit. You would think that this would be demoralizing, but I actually didn’t mind since I knew I was out of riding shape and I also wanted to stop and take photos at some of the views – okay, maybe it is a tad demoralizing…

Early mountain views

Emily, getting into a groove

After 5 or so miles we reached the closed road gate, where we took a quick break to scarf down a snack. As we continued to climb, road bikers were headed back down in the opposite direction, most in a fully tucked position with a great deal of speed.

Not to bikes!

A biker from another group heading back down

The climb itself was a perfect grade and the road surface was nice and smooth, and there were quite a few banked corners which I knew were going to be a blast to rail on the way down. Before long, snow started to dot the landscape and the first couple of views presented themselves, as it opened up toward the Three Sisters. The higher we climbed the taller the snow banks along the road became, dramatically cooling off the ambient temperature. At about the 10 mile mark, the road started to level off and straighten out a bit. It was somewhere in this section that Emily informed me that a lake had formed in the middle of the road, (from the melting snow banks) and was fast approaching. When we got there, all sorts of people were hanging out, some of which were taking off their shoes & socks to make the crossing. Emily had a strategy worked out in her head for keeping her feet as dry as possible. Basically, coasting the first bit with her feet off the pedals and then ratcheting one of the pedals to keep it above the water. Although it sounded reasonable enough in theory, I was pretty convinced that my feet were going to be soaked by the time I reached the other side, which really didn’t bother me that much. I will say that it was entertaining to watch Emily’s approach, but since I was taking photos I really couldn’t see how well it had worked. It didn't seem like anyone else who was sitting around was eager to make the voyage, so I packed up my camera and decided to give it a go. From dry land, and the following photos, it didn’t look all that deep, but this would soon change once I was in the thick of it. Basically, the water came up over the chain rings, and my futile attempt to stay dry went out the window, at which point I resolved myself to soggy shoes and hooked into the pedals. As it turned out, Emily was fairly successful in her attempt, with her shoes much less saturated than mine…

One of the views on the way up

The snow starting to pile up

Emily, with her dry feet technique

In the thick of it

Not too far past the road lake, the trees parted and the surrounds opened up into a giant lava field, mainly from the flow of Belknap Crater to our north. Wanting to take some photos with my newly purchased wide-angle lens, I leaned my bike against the snow bank and climbed the opposing one to get into a position for a few shots. The ground was a mixture of snow and small lava hills, and a few small shrubby trees mixed in for good measure. After setting up for a few at one location I moved on to the next for a few more. It was at some point during this time that I broke through the snow and fell into a well that ended up being about 7’ deep. To be honest, it was a little scary and it took me a few moments to process what had just happened & how I was going to get out. Luckily I was able to kick some foot holds into the snow as well as use the lava rock to get myself above ground. It probably goes without saying that I was a little more cautious on my trek back toward the road, where I was acquainted with my trusty steed and an un-amused companion.

Lots of riders out!

Belknap Crater

Happy to see the road after my death defying adventure!

As we traveled along the Belknap Crater lava flow, the view to the south eventually opened up and the Sisters presented themselves in full glory; well, at least North & Middle did, South was hidden somewhere behind them. Although I’ve seen these volcanic peaks many times before, I’m always in awe at the sight of them, especially at such a close distance and with such an expansive view. Not much past here, Mt. Washington made an appearance, to our north. If you assumed I spent quite a bit of time in this section shooting photos, you’d be correct, much to Emily’s chagrin.

Getting close!

Looking out toward The Sisters

North & Middle Sister, from the road

Mount Washington

Another mile or so down the road, both a restroom (quite convenient) and the Dee Wright Observatory came into view, marking what would be our turnaround point. Emily didn’t have much desire to check out the observatory, so she hung out and relaxed in the sun while I played tourist. The observatory itself is not one of those fancy ones with a giant telescope, but rather an open building made from lava rock by the CCC, with Dee Wright as the foreman. While walking up the stairs that wrap around the structure, the first thing you come to is a room with windows that look out onto the many peaks that dot the lunar landscape. What’s really cool is the name plates at each of the window openings indicating which landmark you’re looking at.

The summit!

Dee Wright Observatory

Dee Wright welcomes you

Climbing the stairs that wrap the observatory

A room with a view

Let's see what's inside

Looking out onto Mt Jefferson

After spending a few minutes in the room, I continued up the stairs to the top platform, where a bronze azimuth is placed, also helping you identify the surrounding peaks while you enjoy a 360 degree unobstructed view – it's really quite impressive! Once I had taken in the view I started back down, but made one last stop at the information boards, which give some historical/geological information about the area, including the construction of the observatory.

Looking south, toward The Sisters, from the top of the observatory

Looking south, toward Washington & Jefferson

The information boards

When I got back to where Em was relaxing, I scarfed down a quick sandwich and made a quick pit stop before we starting back down the hill. Since I had already taken most of the photos I wanted to on the way up, and I didn’t really want to interrupt the sweet descent, so we didn’t slow down/stop much on this part of the ride. I will say the road lake seemed like it had gotten deeper. I actually made the mistake of trying to ride through really fast, which not only resulted in soaked feet, but also my entire backside… The downhill was pretty amazing, with a nice steady grade, smooth surface, banked turns and best of all, no cars! I knew that the downhill was going to take much less time than going up, but it still felt it went way too fast, and I was certainly left wanting more at the bottom. At the car, we dug into our snacks and changed into our street clothes. Before heading home, we stopped at Takotas, just down the road, for a late lunch.
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Em poses for one last summit photo

The author

Emily rails one of the many sweet turns on the way down

Conclusion:
This ride rocks, and should be on anyone’s list who knows how to ride a bicycle! Whether you ride it as a hammerhead or as a scenic rider, you won’t be disappointed. Personally it’s the best road ride I’ve ever done; however, I don’t do a lot of this sport and much prefer placing my two tires on dirt singletrack. The trick with this ride is catching it during the small window of opportunity when the road is clear but still closed to vehicles. A couple pieces of advice if you choose to do this ride- 1) if it’s sunny bring/wear plenty of sunscreen, and 2) bring an extra layer of clothing for hanging out at the summit.

2013 NW Creeking Comp - EF Lewis (4.20.13)

Festivals/competitions have never really been my thing, I typically prefer to boat with a small group of friends in secluded locations – just getting away from it all on the weekends. Therefore, I was not originally planning to go to the 2013 Northwest Creeking Comp, but after thinking about it a bit, I figured it was about time that I attended one. I was excited about seeing a bunch of friends/acquaintances in one location and doing some catching up. I was also looking forward to doing some boating (non-competitive) and taking lots of photos! Furthermore, I hadn’t done the EF Lewis in many years, so it would be good to get on that again.

Roman and I left Eugene on Saturday morning and planned to meet up with some other buddies at Sunset Falls at around 11am. When we got there, the parking lots were packed and the road lined with vehicles, adorned with brightly colored boats. After cramming my Suby into one of the few remaining spots, we hiked upstream to Sunset Falls to take a look. Along the way we ran into many freinds, which drew us into some much needed catching up. When we finally reached the falls, it looked like a sweet flow, and quite a bit higher than any time I had run it back in the day. Folks were already doing practice laps at the falls, with a variety of lines. At this flow (~1,800cfs on the “EF Lewis, near Heisson” gauge), the best line seemed to be center-right, off a nicely formed/angled boof flake. At low water, I had run the left line, but the boof looked tricky and the hole looked a little sticky – However, I did see a few folks run it over there without issue, and even a couple free-wheel attempts!

Nate Merrill takes a practice lap on Sunset Falls

A boater with the standard line off of Sunset (at this flow)

Airin' it out

Before long, our buddy Chris Arnold showed up, and we decided to get geared up and on the river before the race started. Unfortunately, by the time we were ready to put on, the race had just started. With that, we hung out for a bit to watch the first couple racers start their time trials. With the racers starting 60 seconds apart, it soon became very apparent that we were going to be waiting for a long while. Eventually we decided to put on between racers, but not wanting to be complete dirtbags with poaching the course, we put-in below Sunset and made sure to eddy out each time we saw a racer coming up behind us.

Racers, staged in the eddy above Sunset

A racer starts his run

Patiently awaiting his turn

As we motored along at a fairly good pace, we ran a few fun little drops before reaching the first major one, “Sky Pilot”. Without taking a look, we dropped in, noting the well placed safety along the edge of the river as we passed through. Sky Pilot was a super fun drop, which we entered left and finished river-center, through some nice juiced up hydraulics.

Entering Sky Pilot

Not far below here, a vertical cliff wall appeared in front of us, signaling “Screaming Left Turn”. I could see that there were a few spectators on the scouting platform along the river-left bank. I figured it would be a good place to take some photos of the racers coming through, as well as scout the drop myself, since I hadn’t run it in a long time or at this level. Sure enough it ended up being a great place to capture some of the action. There was lots of good safety setup here, and I could see Brandon Bloomquist and Michael Williams wrangling a boat that had lost its passenger – Chris, who had already run Screaming Left, and was eddied out between it and “Dragon’s Back”, headed over to also help out. Meanwhile, racer after racer dropped in, most of which were running the “race line” down the right side, through a couple of beefy wave-holes. There were lots of interesting lines, including a couple flips and people getting pushed against the right wall.
 

A boater enters Screaming Left Turn

Kim Becker takes the race line at Screaming Left.
She ended up taking 1st in the women's Pro Category!

Nicole Mansfield & Katrina Van Wijk doin' it Duo

A boater drops down the Dragon's Back, as Chris and the safety crew look on

Brandon Bloomquist & Michael Williams pull an unmanned craft from the water
in Dragon's Back, with a little assistance from Chris.

After watching Roman take his run, flipping/rolling up between the two drops, I packed up my gear and prepared for my turn. Since I wasn’t racing and wasn’t too concerned about getting a fast time, I decided to enter using the more conventional/easier left side. After sailing through Screaming Left without issue, I lined up for Dragon’s Back, dropping down with a left draw and last minute stroke to blast through the hole. As I was paddling away, I felt some drag on my paddle, which happened to be the tether from my waist-mount throw rope that must have come unspooled in the chaos above. After tucking it back in, I continued downstream, with no sight of my paddling buddies.

Lining up Dragon's Back...

... and planting the required stroke

After a short calm stretch, there was another gathering of folks lining the banks, at “John's Swimming Hole”, the last and perhaps the most difficult drop of the race. I could see Roman was out of his boat and standing on the left bank, so I paddled over to join him, as well as take a look at the drop. As soon as I got out of my boat, Roman told me that he might have separated a rib, while rolling in the drop above. It was bad enough that he wouldn’t be able to paddle the short stretch between John’s Swimming Hole and the take-out, at the Copper Creek confluence just downstream. With that, he did a ferry-over to river-right and spectated for a bit before starting his hike out, with some assistance from the safety crew that was setup on that side. During this, I was able to watch and take photos of the race, which was still going on. It ended up being a spectator’s dream, with lots of carnage to be seen, caused by either the wall directly below the drop, or the hole on the right at the bottom.

Richard Young gets ready to drop into John's Swimming Hole

Richard with a left line, which worked out well for him.

Lucas Glick lines up for a direct hit

A boater drives for the right side line...

...and still catches a bit of the hole.

Carnage like this was not uncommon

Even a couple of IKs got in on the action, as Nick Hymel demonstrates here.

After taking some good shots and helping with some cleanup, I packed up my gear once again and prepared for my turn. I had originally planned to stay center-left, cut the edge of the hole while sweeping to the right to avoid the wall, but after seeing so many racers getting plastered against said wall, I decided to try my luck down the thin right line. With the benefit of watching all the other boaters, I set my line and was able to hit the line I needed to, blasting though the hole on the far right and avoiding a faceplant into the wall.

Diggin' in for the bottom hole at John's

Blastin' through

Just around the corner was the finish line, where I got out, hiked up the stairs and went looking for Roman. I soon found him still pulling his boat up the hill, where I threw him a rope to drag it up the rest of the way to the road. After that, we waited for the shuttle service to head back to camp. Even with Roman's injury, we decided to still camp out and hang with folks before calling it a trip -- we'd evaluate in the morning to see if it was worth heading to the Canyon Creek leg of the race. Since we'd be hangin' out, Roman agreed to take some photos while I ran a bunch of laps off Sunset Falls, with all the other boaters that were doing the same. I think I got in 8 or so laps (which is super easy to do) before my lines started going to crap and I decided to call it a day. At some point during the waterfall session, the mass-start race began, which provided some great entertainment, despite a complete lack of carnage...

The author takes a fun lap on Sunset Falls
(photo by Roman Androsov)

Mid flight on one of my laps
(photo by Roman Androsov)

Evan Garcia, off the lip during the mass-start race
(photo by Roman Androsov)

 The afterparty started off with a raffle and awards ceremony, which was presented by Next Adventures, Alder Creek, and had many other great sponsors -- a long list of them can be found, here. This lasted for quite a while before everyone headed back to their encampments to start the real festivities. Chris had left for the evening, but once again Roman and I had decided to stay, and were based close to a bunch of other friends, including Ninkasi's camp, which provided a campfire, music, dancing, and of course there was beer to be drank! The party lasted until about midnight, when the place eventually went dark and I retreated to my tent for some much needed rest.

Raffle

And awards

Women's Pro

Men's Pro

Who doesn't like a good fire?!

The sign says it all

Let's get this party started!

Accommodations

I actually didn't sleep very well that night, and the sound of screaming kids at six o'clock in the morning didn't help much -- the bitch of it is that I was just starting to get some real sleep... I procrastinated for a bit before I was drawn from my tent, actually driven by the need to relieve myself. At this point it was also starting to drizzle a bit, which certainly wasn't helping my motivation level. I made the short trip to my car to grab the half-assed breakfast I had assembled from Safeway the night before. I also took a walk to Sunset Falls, hoping to gain some energy from the exercise and sight of the falls. When I returned, Roman awoke and we decided to mingle a bit, once again at the Ninkasi camp, who already had another fire going. People were already starting to pack up and leave, most of which were racers headed to Canyon Creek to sneak in a quick practice lap before the race. After checking in with Roman, we decided to get an early start heading back to Eugene, with a few quick stops along the way to scout/potentially run a couple drops downstream. After bidding our farewells, we headed out.

Morning rush hour

A gloomy start to the day

Our stop was at Big Tree Creek, which flows into the EF Lewis just upstream of Moulton Falls. The drops we were looking at were Yacolt Falls, which can be seen through the trees from the intersection of NE Lucia Rd & NE Sunset Falls Rd. The few times that I had driven to the EF Lewis and caught a peek, I wondered what the falls looked like from a kayaking standpoint. Roman and I had actually scouted them the day prior, where we found a ~25'er that looked like it would be completely runnable at higher flows, and I was sure it had been done. At this flow, the entrance was just too scrapey to setup cleanly, and it would have been pretty silly to run. There was, however, a fun looking drop right below it, which dropped about 8' directly underneath a footbridge. Arguably, it wasn't worth getting geared up for on its own, but since I was also contemplating a few drops downstream and thought it might also make for a good photo or two, I decided to give it a go. With that, I geared up and shouldered my boat down the convenient hiking path and over the footbridge to put-in just above the drop. The drop itself was really straightforward with a nice boof flake that called out for a strong right stroke off the lip. Not much else to say about it other than the bridge made for a cool backdrop.

Yacolt Falls -- Might be sweet with more water!

The fun drop just downstream
(photo by Roman Androsov)

Pretty easy boof
(photo by Roman Androsov)

Same drop, from a bird's eye view
(photo by Roman Androsov)

Once we were done at Big Tree Creek, we headed down the road to give Moulton Falls a look. After scouting for about 5 minutes, I decided not to run it -- not because it didn't look fun, but because if something went wrong, there wouldn't be anyone else on the water to assist in the gear cleanup. The next stop we made was at Lucia Falls, which also looked good, but again I passed due to the same reasons. From Lucia Falls we headed home, only stopping at Fire on the Mountain Buffalo Wings for a quick lunch -- damn that place is the bomb!

Roman scouting Moulton Falls

The author looking for a line
(photo by Roman Androsov)

Lucia Falls

Looking at the runout and drop below Lucia Falls, which also looked fun!

I have to give a big shout out and thanks to everyone that played a part in making the 2013 Northwest Creeking Comp a big success. Although I didn't compete myself, I can certainly appreciate all the effort to make it happen. Festivals such as this are extremely important to the sport, and who knows, maybe one of these years I'll strap a number on my chest to test myself against the clock!

Some footage of our run on race day:

Poaching the Course - 2013 NW Creeking Comp from Nate Pfeifer on Vimeo.