The bicycle riding has taken a bit of a backseat in the activitymobile because of the good smallmouth bass fishing, but as is so often the case here in the Columbia River Gorge, the wind has come up and we haven’t had a relatively calm day for a week or so and the upcoming five or six days is not looking too promising for kayak fishing either. Not much you can do about it, around here you take what nature gives you. The fishing conditions may not be very good, but the mountain biking is excellent right now; hardly any rain, everything is springtime green and there is a lot of wildlife out and about.
The “brand name” trails in the area are getting more crowded every season. Trails that were barely known, even to the locals, now are crowded with riders, especially on weekends. With nice weather for the Memorial Day weekend, the local trails were packed so we headed out into the Gifford Pinchot National Forest. With 1.4 million acres of forest, Gifford Pinchot has a lot of trails and old logging roads that are rarely ridden.
We start out in a section of forest that was logged about five or ten years ago, judging by the size of the evergreen trees planted after the logging operations. This area is close to a Forest Service road so the trail is in pretty good condition. Trails in this area are usually made by the Forest Service, AmeriCorps, horseback riders or hiking groups. This is a little too far out for the mountain biking associations, most of which are from the Portland, OR metro area. It looks like some trailwork has been done recently, but there were no foot or hoof prints, nor any mountain bike tire tracks, so nobody has been on this trail for some time.
As we ride further into the forest and away from any Forest Service roads, the trails become smaller, sometimes they are so overgrown, you can barely see them. These trails are primarily used by herds of elk. Since this area was covered in snow not that long ago, the elk herds are still at lower elevations and will not be around here for another few weeks as the weather warms up.
In some places, the trail is almost completely overgrown. Riding in conditions like this is a little different than riding around on well used, groomed trails; you have to ride under control because often you cannot see what’s ahead of you because the trail is obscured by bushes. You could hit a rock or log and find yourself in a bad way a long way from civilization.
Being out here is a unique experience; there’s not many places left in the United States where you are more likely to encounter a wild animal than another human being.
Probably be doing a little more “off the grid” riding and hoping the wind subsides a bit so we can get another shot at those springtime, prespawn smallmouth bass. We are also working on more kayak fishing videos, so stay tuned.