If you are any kind of bike rider, you know the Tour de France is going on right now. The past week, they have been racing in the Alps. Mountains like Luz Ardiden, Aubisque, Galibier and Alp d’Huez have a special meaning to any serious bike rider, enough to inspire me to head to the top of the mountain in my neighborhood. Sure, it’s not the Pyrenees or the Alps, but I’m lucky enough to have a mountain just up the road, it’s all I need. Today we ride up to Mt. Hood.
Starting out in the Hood River Valley, Mt. Hood looks a long way away and it looks kind of small, the end of the road is about 35 miles away, mostly uphill
Pedaling through the orchards of the Hood River Valley, the pears are growing, the blueberries are ready for picking and the horses want to go out and run
As you leave the lower valley, the road kicks up a little bit and Mt. Hood is looking a little closer and a little bit bigger
Past Odell, the road ramps up. There may be a few short downhills and flat sections, but it’s mostly up from here
Riding through the small town of Mt. Hood and past the Parkdale cutoff and the Dog River trailhead, you come to the bridge over the East Fork of the Hood River
From here, it’s steady uphill towards the Cooper Spur cutoff and up to Mt. Hood Meadows.
Because of the late spring rain and snow, there are a number of roadside waterfalls, still running strong in the middle of summer; lots of snow still melting
There is some road construction going on about a quarter mile before the Cooper Spur cutoff, I didn’t want to deal with the tourists on a single lane mountain road, otherwise, I would have taken Cooper Spur Road back to Parkdale, but I played it safe and headed back down SR35. Great ride, but I’m a little sore. Not the Alps, but more than 20 miles of climbing up a mountain road is good enough for today.