May 19, 2018
Day One! Rock Springs campground
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Official start day! We were up bright and early, loaded the bikes up and headed out at 6:30 for a quick Starbucks breakfast. We meandered our way through SE Portland and then got on a nice 15 mile section of the Springwater Corridor bike path. We passed by a huge nursery in Boring, OR with acres and acres of Japanese maple trees. I can only imagine how many years they’ve been established and what an investment that requires. We hopped on Rt. 26 and started the long climb towards Mt. Hood. The shoulder was nice and wide for most of it, but there was a ton of traffic and a few people didn’t really care to give us much space. A slow 3500 ft climb up to Government Camp was rewarded with Mt Hood Brewery and a chance to get off the bikes for a bit. And then we turned a corner and started another shorter climb. (Sucker summit). But soon we got to cruise downhill for a few miles, then a few more miles of climbing as we rounded Mt. Hood. We thought we’d have a glorious downhill cruise for 6 miles to Rock Springs camp, but the last 3 miles of road had crevices all the way across the road every 1000 ft from seismic activity. Oh well, at least we weren’t climbing.
We got to camp and met our friends Alex, Brooke, Johan and Celia who’d graciously hosted us in Portland. They’d driven up earlier and got the last tent site available (score!). They cooked up a great dinner, we strolled down to the reservoir to watch the sunset and enjoyed some tasty s’mores by the fire. Perfect end to day one!
Today's ride: 85 miles (137 km)
Total: 3,835 miles (6,172 km)
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