Category Archives: national park

bikes, Canada, city, family, friends, hiking, MTB, national park, roadtrip, travel, USA, vehicles

Back to Canmore – Roadtrip Complete

2 Comments

To finish off the three months of driving I decided to drive all the way back from Vancouver to Canmore in the middle of the long weekend. The logic there being that Jasper would be a zoo on a sunny holiday weekend & I’d be better off checking it out a little later when there were less people around.

So Saturday morning I set off on a wonderfully sunny drive east across BC. The traffic was pretty good & BC was beautifully forested – it really is a large province when you drive across the bottom in one day. After Kamloops I was back on roads I’d driven before & there was a half-hour wait near Shuswap – but I had the Kindle out so I wasn’t too fussed. Over Rogers Pass & coming into Golden there was an ominous big cloud of black smoke billowing into the sky. I was near the front of a queue for almost an hour as some poor family watched their RV incinerate. The rest of the drive was uneventful & I was soon driving below familiar peaks – just they had a lot less snow (almost none) on them than I remember. It was a little odd getting closer to Canmore – being away for three months & doing so many other things must have lessened the blow of leaving such a great place as I wasn’t too concerned that I’ll be gone in three weeks.

So that was it really, just under 22000 km, 87 days, 13 states, two provinces, 45 MTB rides totalling a thousand kilometres, at least 15 National Parks & 5 National Monuments, only 2600 photos & 435 gallons of gas. What a great trip! We were blessed by the weather – notably it never got really hot, as it did the last time I visited Utah, Nevada, Arizona & California in 2009.  Highlights are hard to list as there were so many. But I’ll try anyway:

A separate list for the riding highlights, which is even harder as I rode so much quality singletrack.

That’s that – thanks again Valerie for coming along for the ride & sharing the experience (& financing a lot of it too!).  I’m in Canmore until mid-August before flying back to London to catch the last of the English summer.  Mum’s coming across to England for the last few months of the year, so it’ll be great to see her & plenty of other friends & family in the UK.  From then on, I only have vague ideas as to what I’m going to do with myself… But riding better figure in there somehow.

bikes, GPS, MTB, national park, roadtrip, travel, USA

Crater Lake National Park & first Bend ride

Leave a comment

Back on the national park trail we left Medford & headed north towards Crater Lake. Driving through a few small towns there were a few extra flags out lining the main streets & many firework stalls as well – as you’d expect on July 4. More scenic driving continued along rivers (the Rogue – another great name) & beside forests – a brief interlude was stopping to see a natural bridge. This one was a little different to the ones we had grown used to in Utah – made out of an old lava tube. The outer of the flowing lava cooled & solidified while the molten lava kept flowing, leaving a tube that the river now runs through since the lava has long since stopped running. With the river running so high, the river didn’t disappear completely (all that water couldn’t fit down the tube) – but you could see where the water was coming out of the tube with quite some force. A different interesting little diversion.

River exiting the tube

Ordinarily, the river would flow completely underground here

We hit the snow line at about 1500m as we continued towards Crater Lake. It got thicker & thicker & at the Visitor Center, it was two to three metres high in parts. With an above average 16m of snowfall last winter & a late spring, it was still very white & only one hiking trail was open (& that only for the long weekend). Crater Lake is actually in a caldera of an old volacano that collapsed on itself. I was expecting the lake to be beautiful, but this was something else – perhaps the most jaw-droppingly amazing thing we’ve seen yet on our little drive. With water only entering the lake as rain or snow & no rivers or streams exiting the caldera, the water is brilliantly blue. With the shelter of the caldera rim as well, there was no wind to cause even a ripple on the surface. Add to that the clear sunny day & the snow around the rim – the sum was something fantastic. Here are a few pictures – more here.

With a bit more driving on Valerie’s part we eventually got to Bend late afternoon. After settling in to the motel, I couldn’t resist getting straight out & hitting a trail in what is one of the top MTB towns in the States. As it was getting late & there were fireworks to go to later, I found the Mrazek trail on Garmin Connect. It was close to town & as an out-and-back I could make it last as long as I wanted – fitted the bill nicely.

It was a great introduction & a lot of fun. Mostly a (very) gentle climb on a nice wide dirt trail (bit of a shock to be back riding in dust after the previous snowy rides!). There was one section that had a few switchbacks that were markedly steeper & there were some technical rocky step-ups to negotiate; but I dug deep into the recesses of my riding brain & remembered all I’d learnt in Colorado & Utah & cleared them all. I continued steaming up the trail in a high gear until I figured I had better turn around at seven o’clock.

As I expected all the way up, going down was neat. I don’t think I realised how twisty it was as I was climbing, but I quickly found that I couldn’t go as fast as I’d imagined I would. Still, not having to pedal as much is always good; although I did spend quite a bit of time in the big chainring – it’s not often that happens for me on singletrack. My short little evening ride turned out to be 24km – but it didn’t take long, so there was enough time to get home, shower, grab a meal & then find a good place to watch the July 4 fireworks.

Launched from a small hill just east of the center of town, the show didn’t start until ten o’clock. After a rather monotonous first five minutes (it wasn’t bad, just all the same sort of firework), a bit of variety was finally introduced & it turned out to be a really good display. At over twenty minutes, it was also quite long for a Bend-sized town. Finishing with a flourish it was well worth having headed out to see them – plus we got to sift around various street parties with fireworks going off all over the place.

national park, roadtrip, travel, USA, vehicles

Redwoods

Leave a comment

Leaving Sacramento on another fine day, we headed north on the Five through many miles of cropping land – even saw quite a bit of rice, which was surprising. Getting off the interstate & driving west we were quickly up in the hills & going past Clearlake. There was still quite a bit more time at the wheel before getting to the Redwood Highway. I must have been getting tired as I drove straight in to a really big tree. It was just as well that we came out the other side relatively unscathed.

As we approached this tree that you could drive through, a bit of a queue was forming as some complete muppet was trying to get a big Dodge Ram (that’s a very large pickup) through the hole. He was pretty stuck & holding everyone up. Somehow, I think with quite a bit of panel compression, he eventually got out the other side & everyone else could stop laughing & drive through. Most amazingly, that tree with the big tunnel through it is still growing strongly – incredible trees.

Further north we dived off the 101 & took the much more scenic Avenue of the Giants (the old 101). There were plenty of opportunities to stop & wander around various groves of the Californian Redwoods – well, those groves that remain after extensive logging in the late 1800s & early 1900s. Having grown up near & spent so much time hiking & biking around the Redwood Grove in Rotorua, NZ, this was really special to see the originals in their natural environment so close to the coast. (The Rotorua ones were planted during the Great Depression, along with many other species, to see what grew well in the area. That grove is still doing well & a very pleasant place to stroll or ride – some of the best trailpark riding in NZ is close by.) Able to grow well over 100m tall & for a couple or three thousand years – these are definitely the tallest living things on earth. To see so many of them was just fantastic. As I mentioned before, they can still continue to grow well despite scarring, holes & hollows in the base of the trunk. It was a little weird standing in the center of the base of a still living hundred metre tall tree.

Needless to say we spend a lot of time wandering around with crooked necks & jaws dropped. It was so nice & cool down on the ground & quite dark too. With light poking through the canopy & my snapshot-only photo ability, it’s rather difficult to get the proper impression of just how tall these trees are. But here’s a few token pictures to satisfy those who can’t abide all my words (not that such people are still reading).

A fallen giant – as the wood decomposes so slowly, dead trees can stick around for hundreds of years providing shelter for all sorts of plants & animals.

For some reason I’d decided on three nights in Eureka – which is not really all that big of a town. It had clouded over nicely by the time we arrived & the wind had picked up making it hardly attractive. Still we have a room & the historic downtown which I discovered this afternoon is quite nice (although with a strange lack of red, white & blue for the upcoming holiday weekend). Today we had a pretty lazy day, driving north to Redwood National & State Parks. I was feeling rather lethargic (I think excusable after two months on the road), so didn’t go for a ride (it would have mostly ended up being on the road). We walked through a few more groves (the Lady Bird Johnson Grove was particularly good) & marvelled at the magnificent trees a bit more.

(Because these trees are so old & so weathered being near the coast, their bark is grey-brown. If you want to see red Redwoods – go to Rotorua.

Taken for the meadow – not any Redwoods

national park, roadtrip, snow, travel, USA

Yosemite

Leave a comment

We’d started to hear over the previous few days that due to the huge winter snowfall & the very late spring, the rivers in Yosemite National Park are running very high. Consequently, the waterfalls were supposed to be spectacular. As we drove towards the park, we noticed easily that the Merced River (this river flows out of the Yosemite Valley) was high & in many places nothing but a raging torrent.

Our first big stop in the park was after eventually getting a park to walk the short distance to Bridalveil Falls. Seeing quite a few people returning rather drenched, I grabbed my rainjacket out of the car & wandered up. From a distance, the fall looked like this – you can see part of the spray cloud at the bottom.

Not far up the short trail, the river started to overrun the trail – being recently melted snow this was pretty chilly through flip-flops/jandals. At the viewing point the spray was so intense I was quickly quite wet (glad I put my jacket on) & could only just see the top of the falls.

Yosemite Falls & a flooded meadow & boardwalk.

We rode the shuttle bus around a bit further & walked up to see more waterfalls – this time Vernall Falls. The Merced was still thundering down this narrow steep part – the noise was fantastic. The nice wide trail was paved, but steep in parts. The final staircase was another path to a sound drenching & the view was somewhat obscured by a dead tree trunk.

After lunching near Vernall Falls, we returned to the valley floor & did the nice easy Mirror Lake walk underneath Half Dome. The highlight of this was the bear cub that came wandering along on the way back. Rather it ran along & then bolted across the trail. Mama Bear was nowhere to be seen, so that was great news.

The shuttle still doesn’t cope well with the gongshow that is summer in Yosemite, but we eventually got to the bottom of Yosemite Falls (the fifth highest in the world).

That was pretty much our day in Yosemite Valley. I enjoyed my visit so much more this time – the tremendous volume of water flowing & the sound associated with it was incredible.

Packing up in Merced we again headed for Yosemite – this time to drive over Tioga Pass & then head north through Nevada to South Lake Tahoe (which is back in California, but only just). Our only real break from driving was walking to Tuolumne Grove (giant sequoias). The largest living things on earth (by volume), it goes without saying that these things are pretty big – they can get old too, up to three-thousand years. This is a hollowed out trunk of a long-ago dead one to give a sense of size.

Almost immediately after leaving the grove, we started to come across more & more snow. The views along the road were beautiful with snow still capping the high points – it was well gone last time I drove this road.

Still a little bit of snow at Tioga Pass (just under 10000ft/2900m):

Out of the park, we lost elevation a lot quicker than we’d gained it & were soon driving north through west Nevada. I was surprised to see the scenery gradually change into nice green pastoral land – I’d never expected to see black-faced sheep grazing in Nevada. I’m well pleased to be travelling roads I’ve never been on before.  With a big climb up & then down, we were at Lake Tahoe in no time.