The weather was pretty good this weekend for the most part, although depending on where you were in the Gorge it could be sunny, rainy and/or windy at any given time. Many of the local trails are still muddy, but it’s been dry enough for a few of the “wet weather” trails to be rideable so we knew where we would be going.
On Saturday, Don and I got an early start and headed out to the Syncline. Sunshine, blues skies and trails in nearly perfect condition.
We did a couple Little Maui loops
As well as the longer Hidden Valley trail loop
A great day of riding at one of the Columbia Gorge’s best riding spots. Good thing we got there early though, because by noon, there were a lot of people on the trails and every parking spot surrounding the Syncline was full. Every year, the Syncline becomes more and more popular. Some trails have already been closed due to conflicts with private property owners adjacent to the BLM land the trails are on, it would seem the sheer number of people using the trails and parking area is going to have an impact here soon. Get while the gettin’s good, I reckon.
After a day of sunny southern Klickitat County, Washington, on Sunday we headed west, you know, towards the wet section of the Gorge and wound up in beautiful Cascade Locks, Oregon where we headed out on a series of trails generally known as Trail 400. As is typical of the Gorge certain times of the year, it was sunny in Hood River, but cloudy, raining, windy and cold in Cascade Locks, twenty miles or so to the west. This area is a temperate rain forest, so no big suprise.
Met up with Don, Erin and Yael and headed over the Eagle Creek suspension bridge and out Trail 400, headed for Wauna Viewpoint.
It’s a tough climb up to Wauna trail and on to the viewpoint. The fact that it was raining with slippery, moss covered roots and rocks and plenty of exposure made it pretty challenging
Since we were in the clouds and it was raining and windy, the view from Wauna Viewpoint was not that great so we headed back down the trail and into the forest to get some shelter from the wind and rain.
Before heading back to Cascade Locks, we stopped into the Bonneville Fish Hatchery to see Herman the Sturgeon; a seventy year old, 11′ long, 500 pound white sturgeon. The hatchery, that is visited by over a million people a year, raises chinook and coho salmon, but has white sturgeon and rainbow trout ponds for visitors.
The rain had eased up a bit as we rode back to Cascade Locks and soon we were back at the cars and loading up the bikes.
It was a fun weekend of bike riding, we are hoping the weather stays mostly dry so more places will be ridable and snow starts melting off the higher elevation trails.