Day Two: McCully Forks to Spool Cart Campground
Our first Road Angel
May 21, 2024 75km
"It was 28 degrees (F) when we left camp," Wenda says. It was cold with ice in the waterbottles. We break camp after breakfast of coffee and oatmeal with dried strawberries that Wenda provided.
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Rachel takes off early as she know the first hill right out of camp will be a chore for her. She's never been a good hill climber and this is a training shakedown ride after all. The first is a hefty climb through forest and just below the summit Wenda and Patrick catch up with her. "I've been working on my steps for bone health to stave off osteroporosis," Rachel has been thinking as she pushes the bike, cycles and pushes the bike then cycling to the summit.
We are taking photos at the sign of the Blue Springs Summit, Elevation 5864 ft. Only a couple of cars have passed us when as we are finishing the photo, a truck stops and the driver asks while looking at a credit card from pouch, "Is one of you a Wenda M.?" He had found the pouch that Wenda had lost somewhere on the climb. She had just noticed it was missing and here a road angel returns it to her. "I figured this belonged to a cyclist," he says.
The descent is awesome through forests and meadows and we quickly reach Granite, we appreciate the temporary repreive of climbing. We were not expecting much from Granite, but we are still disappointed that there is nothing here, no cup of coffee for cyclists. At the junction we continue straight onto National Forrest Road 52 and start the second climb of the day, another long push. The road signs still indicate the road is closed for the winter, but there does not seem enough snow to still block this route. We do find lots of rocks and some fallen trees that probably still need to be cleared to declare the road "open". At the top, we stop for an extended food break then start the long descent to the North Fork of the John Day River. There is a trailhead and a large campground at the bottom.
The third climb is more of the same through forests towards Hwy 244. We have a nice decent through a huge ranch on private land and the scenery of a nice oxbows of the Grande Ronde River through the ranch land. The original plan is to free camp near Johnson Rock along Grande Ronde river.
We see a few opportunities but with the predicted wet weather tomorrow we decide to continue on to Spool Cart Campground and get closer to La Grande. Just after this decision we see two nice dispersed camping spots but we continue on another 7 km to the campground.
Just as we arrive, the sprinkling of rain starts, we quickly pitch the tents. Mosquitos are out, and this gives us the opportunity to try our new mosquito repelling gadget that some Swedish friends recommended taking to Scandinavia this summer. It seems to work.
We have a tumeric rice with carrots and onion with two sauces: a curry and a paneer.
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