Day 38 Crescent City to Klamath, CA: I Am A Lion

August 10, 2017

Yesterday, as we were getting a few things done in Crescent City, we stopped at a local bike shop to look for a few things. While there, we chatted with the mechanic about tomorrow’s ride up the hills outside of Crescent City. In our book, it talks about this series of hills as tricky due to the constant fog, traffic and lack of shoulders. I was worried about how I would manage, knowing how often I need to stop when riding up like that. The guy said, “there are two kinds of riders, lions and mice. Lions own the road, and make traffic go around them and mice timidly hide at the side, leaving drivers with the impression they can squeeze by, which is much more dangerous”. Thinking about this, I decided that I would stop being a mouse and be a lion.

We woke up to another foggy morning, but at least it wasn’t raining, so we packed up our gear and said goodbye to our little home away from home. Thanks again, Katie, for your wonderful hospitality!

We were wearing our winter jackets as we left town at 7:30 and very soon were out of town and heading up the first and longest of the three hills we would climb today. Within a very short time we had to stop and shed layers as we were already sweating. This did not bode well, as we had a lot of hill to get up yet. However, once we set out again, we were feeling much better and got into the rhythm of riding up in our granny gears.

The shoulders disappeared and we employed our lion strategy, staying well into the slow lane (there were two lanes going up so traffic had plenty of room) and darned if it didn’t work! Cars and trucks moved over, having no choice but to do so and we had room to ride up safely! There were plenty of places to pull off as well, so I could comfortably stop and take a break when needed. In this manner, we slowly made our way up the 1200 feet of the first hill.

a sign showing what you would see if there wasn't any fog. They call August "Augmist" in Crescent City - I can see why!

Near the top there was road construction and this worked in our favour once again as our lane was closed to traffic and we were able to ride with even more confidence. We did come to a portion where the roadway was being repaired but there was no one working there. The only way to get through was to ride up with traffic or walk through the under construction part. We chose the latter which resulted in us having to push the bikes up a pretty steep section at the end. It took both of us to push each bike up, but it was short and we felt much more safe this way.

the last bit we had to help each other push the bikes up - pretty steep!

Later, as we were approaching the top, someone in a car leaned out to yell something at us. I’m assuming it wasn’t nice, but really couldn't hear her. Sadly for her, traffic was stopped just up from there and as Jim and I came up, there was the car, stuck in the lineup! We pulled along side and Jim called out to ask her what she had wanted to say. She was obviously pretty embarrassed as she kept her head averted and her hand over her face until traffic was let through. Ha! Sometimes Karma comes along a lot sooner than you think! We had a good chuckle at that and continued on our way.

After the fist climb there were a couple of downs and two more hills to climb before the final summit. The presence of road construction crews meant that we had a much more controlled atmosphere to ride in with lots of spaces with no traffic at all. This meant that we got the chance to really enjoy this beautiful ride through the Redwoods and took lots of opportunities to take pictures along the way.

at least we had time to look up at the trees

not much room for error and in some places, you can see where the trees were nicked by trucks going by

you can see where this tree had been chopped down but an entire ring of new Redwoods grew up around it

where the lumberjacks made notches to climb up to where they would saw

more amazing trees - we can't get enough of them!

Coming down was a blast, and due to the construction again, we were able to ride down much more safely than on a regular day – thanks a lot, Caltrans!

We arrived at the bottom and stopped to congratulate ourselves on making it through this portion of the ride and enjoy a view of the ocean before pushing on towards Klamath. We were stopped to put on some layers again as we were getting chilled when another cyclist approached. He was from Paris and was on a tour from Portland to San Francisco. We noticed he had the same brand of bike and bags as us and he said he had rented them in Portland as part of a tour package. They provided him with bike, panniers and directions and he just rode and would return the rented gear to their store in San Francisco. An interesting way to tour, I guess, but I wonder if the price was better than the cost to bring a bike on a plane, particularly as we have heard that Alaska Air now charges only $25.00 per bike! We said goodbye as this tourer was headed to Eureka and we were going only to Klamath today.

Oh look! It's a giant man with a blue ox - it gets better - he waves and talks to people!

Pulling into what is called False Klamath, we stopped at the Trees of Mystery, where a very tall Paul Bunyan waves at the visitors in the parking lot. It is quite the tourist attraction and something we would normally skip, but Katie had told us about a First Nations museum at the back of the gift shop (and also that they sold fudge!) so we pulled up to have a look.

The display was really very interesting, with displays of First Nations clothing and art from many different groups.

a great little museum inside a very touristy stop. Thanks so much, Katie, for telling us about it. We would not have stopped to check it out if you hadn't.

not sure which group this was from, but I loved the artwork

After wandering through the museum we walked over to check out the fudge.

After sampling several, we made our purchase and headed across the road to the Forest Café to have an early lunch and warm up. It had been pretty cold riding down and we were still feeing chilled. As we sat and waited for our lunch, we logged on to the internet, thinking to book a cabin or room in town rather than camping in the chill and found that today was our anniversary! Ha! We had been so wrapped up in getting over the hill we had totally forgotten! Happy 15th Anniversary to us!

When we realized it was our anniversary!

What? It's our anniversary? What better way to celebrate 15 years of bliss than going up and over a giant hill in the fog?

After lunch we rode the 7 miles down to Klamath, looking for the famous tree that you can drive through. It is a very touristy thing to do, but then again, we are tourists, arent’ we? We paid our $2.00 for bikes and pushed the bikes up the short steep drive to the tree. Apparently the hole in this tree was a result of a fire many years ago and the tree just kept on growing around the hole. The owner of the property smoothed out the hole and started charging people to drive through it. It was pretty cool to ride our bikes through and funny to watch people drive their cars through.

That done, we went up the road to find a little motel I had seen online. Its not much, but the room is warm and we are dry, so it works for us.

no, that wasn't our room, but it sure was tiny!

We enjoyed walking through an interpretative centre for the First Nations group here – it was very well laid out and informative.

a very interesting and well laid out cultural centre for the Yurok Nation

Later, we went to the casino next door for an anniversary dinner which we both really enjoyed. Back in our little room, it was backgammon tonight with Jim winning most of the games, but at least I managed to win two, which is better than most nights! A rare movie watching night and then off to bed. Tomorrow we are only riding about 11 miles but that includes two more climbs – not as hard as this morning’s but still time consuming. We will be camping at Elk Prairie Campground and hopefully will get to see some elk! For now, a quiet night is what we are hoping for.

Today's ride: 37 km (23 miles)
Total: 1,428 km (887 miles)

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