The weather conditions for kayak fishing, mainly the wind, have been terrible and the mountain trails and weather are perfect, so it’s off for more Pacific NW mountain bike adventures in the Cascade Mountains. Camping and riding bikes in the beautiful Cascade Mountains is a good way to get away from civilization and see the lessons nature has to learn.
The majority of the winter rain had barely stopped falling, the sun appeared and we were on the first mountain bike camping trip of the coronavirus plagued season. Almost everything is still closed as far as recreational facilities go and I think the hope of them being opened this summer is fading fast. Dispersed camping is still allowed, that’s what we usually do anyway.
Everything was still damp from a long winter of rain and snow, fresh and green, with perfect bike riding conditions.
It’s cool in the mornings and warms up quickly as the sun comes over the tall forest trees. I put the solar panel out for some early morning mountain sun as we have breakfast and get ready to go riding.
With the early summer sun and the damp forest dirt, everything was growing full speed during the short summer season. These mushrooms were growing out of hard dirt and lava rock on the side of a road.
The weather was perfect, the roads and trails were in perfect condition. There was a lot of wildlife running around and storms of pine tree pollen.
After a couple days of getting used to riding in the mountains again, we headed a little higher up the mountain and got our first glimpse of Mt Adams for the 2020 mountain bike riding season.
After a few days of nice sunny weather, there was some overnight rain. As long as it’s not raining while you’re riding, it’s a good thing for the trails and cleans up the dust.
We moved to another campsite to check out some other trails.
Many of the trails and roads were blocked by blown down trees. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, there are minimal Forest Service people on duty, so clearing the roads and trails is going to take some time.
Our weather luck had run out and as a series of late winter storms moved into the Cascade Mountains, we headed back to civilization, stopping at this tree that had blown down. This was a huge tree, well over one hundred years old.
Now, more wind and rain…