The climbs were extremely steep and long in spots. Lee was impressive powering up the climbs on his single speed, but Don really had his climbing legs on as he rode up pretty much all the climbs, even after a header into a pile of downed timber.

As we neared the top of the mountains, the wind was pretty chilly, especially after sweating our way up the steep climb.

At the top, there was a tremendous view of the Tillamook State Forest. This is an awesome Pacific Northwest rainforest.

From the mountain peak we dropped down into one of the forest valleys. One of the valley creeks was dammed up by a beaver family, making a large, grass filled pond.

There is more than one mountain on this ride, so back on the uphill trails we go. Climbing was getting a little tougher with tired legs and Don and I both took unexpected endos, so we were all working for it on the final climbs. There were a number of landslides where the trail was extremely sketchy, a few downed trees and a number of water crossings with wet, slippery rocks. You really had to stay on the trail here; off the trail meant down the cliff and the cliff side of the trail was pretty loose and soft. A real challenge for three tired riders.

There were a few more ups and downs, even a few flat spots. The scenery was always awesome; giant trees, green rain forest foliage and rushing mountain creeks.

Finally, the ferns and moss turned to grass, meaning we had come out of the rain forest and on to the coastal plain. One more downhill, complete with twenty or so switchbacks and we were at the Keening Creek parking lot. A challenging and worthy ride, exactly what real mountain bikers are looking for. There was a price to be paid; more than a few cramps and some heinous cuts from blackberry plants. Getting cut by one of these natural barbed wire fences is like having small fishhooks dragged across your skin. Definitely counts as worthy battle scars.

After a couple beers, we picked up the other car at Elk Creek and headed back to Shady Rest Restaurant. Lee had some exotic macaroni and cheese dish, Don had fish and chips and I had a giant half-pound burger with mushrooms, bacon and swiss cheese. Now I don’t usually eat hamburgers or bacon, but this was the best burger I’ve had in a long time. Gotta give the Shady Rest two thumbs up.
All in all, a five star day. Great ride with friends, Lee did a great guide job, a couple entertaining crashes without serious injury and a good tale to tell.

The weather is still pretty warm so the snow continues to melt off the local mountain peaks. Even with the late spring snow, it seems more and more snow melts off Mt. Hood and Mt. Adams every summer.

The light rain did rinse the summer dust off the plants and moistened up the dusty trails a little bit so it was a good thing.

Looking forward to at least a couple days of sun and clear skies.

In the shade of the large trees, there is still plenty of green.

Out in the sun, the plants are dry and brown, full of sticky seed cases and thorns.

The increasing clouds over Mt. Hood and the rest of the Cascade Mountains are a clear sign that the seasons are changing.

Still plenty of excellent mountain biking available.

Every time my neighbor, Casey, washes her new car, it rains. She washed and waxed it, so we had a thunderstorm within hours.

After the thunderstorm passed to the east, there was an awesome sunset.

Yesterday, Don and I went for a bike ride in the Mt. Hood National Forest, an area known as Gunsight Ridge. It was sunny on the valley floor with ominous clouds hanging on the Cascade mountain peaks and cool to cold wind blowing. With Mt. Hood in the background, we left the sunny valley and headed up to the cloudy mountains.

Some of the roads and trails are very steep, the tops of the mountains are more than 2000′ above the valley floor.

How high do you go? The photo below is a close-up of Mt. Hood across the valley from Gunsight Ridge. In the left/center of the photo, you can see the ski runs off the Hood River Meadows chairlift at Mt. Hood Meadows Mountain Resort. Above those ski runs and to the right are Heather and Clark Canyons. So at this stop, we are just about as high as the middle of the ski area and still climbing.

This is getting pretty far off the beaten path. The photo below is the Hood River valley. The road on the right of the photo is where we came from.

Easy to get lost? Sure, happens all the time. The locals pretty much realize the situation and carry maps and/or GPS units, even if they are familiar with the area. Better safe than sorry.

The trails are challenging. They can go from rocks on the trails….

To rocks and roots….

To just plain rocks.

After a few hours of climbing, the only thing left to do is burn up the downhill back to the valley.

More stuff coming here on the blog, on the WatermanAtWork website and the WatermanAtWork YouTube channel so check back soon.

The old freehub is on the right, if you look closely, you can see the teeth that engage the hub pawls are completely worn down. The old freehub has grooves in the hub splines from the cassette cogs, this can make it tough to remove the cassette. The new freehub(left) has a composite “bumper” to help prevent the cassette from eating into the freehub splines and it even looks like different material. The new freehub is made of a slightly darker, hopefully harder alloy.
Bikes are fixed up so out I go to ride my problems away. It almost worked to perfection. The riding conditions were perfect. Overcast, not as hot as it’s been, almost looks like a message that fall is on the way.

After a few miles, the rear hub loosened up and I had to ride back to the ranch to tighten it up. The rear hub loosened up shortly after I bought the bike so it seems like a regular issue with WTB DiscLite and American Classic rear hubs. Always schedule a “shakedown cruise” after major repairs, so this was not unexpected.
Back out the next day, more great riding. Never really a bad day on the trails around here.

The cloudy skies made things a little darker in the deeper parts of the forest, not a bad thing.

I had a couple small problems to make sure I was still in touch with reality. After doing a lot of work on my bike and spending more than a few bucks, I had a flat tire, not surprising because this time of year all the plants are throwing out the spikes and thorns. I carry a Crank Brothers Power Pump, unfortunately, I had a flat on a previous ride and the pump did not work the way it was supposed to. I sent the pump back to Crank Brothers and they sent a new pump out, no questions asked. Once again, great customer service. I needed that pump less than 24 hours after I took it out of the box and put it in my pack. Think a good pump is not a big deal? I had to stop right under these guys:

Pretty quick flat repair, to be sure.
A short time later, I broke my nearly new chain. Gimme a break! Thankfully, I had my Crank Brothers Multi17 tool to fix it up and get home. I ride by myself most of the time and in areas where nobody might be coming by for a while and there’s no cell service, so I count on my bike, what I carry with me and my knowledge and experience to get me home if I run into problems.
So, I’m trying to steer towards the sunny side of the hill, but I am genuinely bummed that I missed MBO. Oh well, tomorrow’s Monday, which is something.

There is a saying that goes “If you don’t like where you are from, you probably won’t be happy where you are going”. I reckon that is, at least, partially true.

When you ride down the south side of the hill, you get an awesome view of Mt. Hood.

After you grind back up the steep sections of Snowden Road and ride onto the upper reaches of the foothills, you will ride through ranches on the north side of the hill and get a nice view of Mt. Adams.

This is a challenging and beautiful place to ride. At the end of the ride, you can hit Everybody’s Brewing in White Salmon and hang out with people who ride here every day. There are places to camp and nice hotels, hostels and B&Bs around.
Keep a low profile, share the road, be cool.
Oh yeah, my mountain bike is broke down and when I stopped to take one of the photos in this blog, I noticed one of the pedals on my road bike was broken. I have spent over $300 in the past few days on bike parts. Please, powers that be, I am not made of money! New bike parts, but beans for dinner.

The riding around here is always great. Working hard on the uphills and paying attention on the downhills. You have to find a second or two to appreciate the view.

Ending the day at Everybody’s is a bonus. It’s a true local’s pub. They have great beer, really good food and I hope I can say this without being a sexist pig; but they have really attractive servers.

Turned on the GPS and headed out. Never been here before so I mainly stuck to a fire road and took old logging roads off into the woods. Some of the roads have been recently logged, some roads have not seen traffic for a long time.

There are countless roads like this; at one time they were full of log trucks and logging equipment. Once the trees have been cut down, the roads are rarely used. They go somewhere, but many times they end where the logging operations ended.

This time of year, all the plants are showing their protection from animals that would eat them. Thorns and stickers are everywhere. The thistle plant is a perfect example; lovely purple flowers on a plant with sticky, itchy thorns.

There are many old logging roads into the heart of the forest. I stopped here at this old logging gate, got a cell phone call and had to turn around and head home.
Got the GPS marks, I’ll be headed back here in a day or two.

The Gateway to the Forest is still green, the sun barely shines through the trees. There are still patches of green around, mostly in the shade.

The trees are green, but the undergrowth is quickly turning brown with the hot weather and no rain.

Riding to the top of a mountain is usually kind of tough, but it’s worth the effort most of the time.

Get out and ride. Take plenty of water, it’s hot. Remember what it is like a couple months from now when it’s raining 29 out of 30 days.