Almost the middle of October and still no rain here in the Pacific Northwest, that doesn’t happen too often so off we go for a mountain bike ride at one of our favorite places; Old Man Pass. One of the longer, mainly downhill rides around here, it will most likely be covered with snow in a month or so and unrideable until next July, the sunny October weather is unusual indeed. The dry weather is nice for last few weeks of warm weather outdoor activities, but there is still a major forest fire burning on the slopes of Mt. Adams, a short distance to the north and the trail is about as dusty as it can get. Dusty or not, the riding is always great here.
As the cool morning warmed up, we headed out on the trail at Old Man Pass. Old Man Pass regular Don was here
Our riding buddy Lee, from the next mountain range over
Mike
And Reid, who were riding Old Man Pass for the first time
The leaves are starting to turn fall colors very quickly. By the end of October most the leaves will have fallen off the trees and winter will be just about here.
Plenty of things to see along the trail, including the signature lava tubes, a mandatory photo stop on the way down.
Mike got his money’s worth out of the ride, he’ll probably remember it for a while. Reid seemed to adjust to the Falls Creek terrain pretty quickly and aired one out along the way
It turns out this will be the last time we ride the entire Old Man Pass/Falls Creek Trail the way we have been doing for years. The Forest Service has decommissioned the popular Falls Creek 152 trailhead; no more parking at the bottom of the trail by the last bridge. Apparently, the trailhead is being relocated to the Falls Creek 152A trailhead. Of course we had no idea this was going on, in fact, we rode there two weeks ago and there was nothing going on. At the end of the ride today, instead of the usual gravel road to Windy River Road, we came to this twilight zone scene of a dug up road with giant tree stumps and logs where the Falls Creek trailhead parking lot and Forest Service road used to be.
It was too late in the day to go bushwacking through the woods to try and find a new way out, so we had to hike out over all the demolition, stumps and logs. Finally made it back to the vehicles and got back in Carson to have a couple beers and pizza at Backwoods Brewery.
We are going to have to head back out there and find the new trailhead next time out.