Over the Hill and Far Away……….

We left Weed early this morning and got on Highway 97 towards Bend. All through the 60 miles or so to the Oregon State Line we could see Mount Shasta looming up in the rear view mirrors. It was some distance into Oregon before we finally lost sight of her but by that stage we could now see snow-capped mountains ahead of us in Oregon.

We had ridden these roads 5 weeks ago when we first set off and although we’re now used to amazing sights we could still appreciate the beauty of the scenery we were riding through. We turned off on the road towards Crater Lake and climbed up into the mountains. After a while we actually began to see snow by the roadside and by the time we reached Crater Lake we were in a snowy landscape which was such a contrast to the 90F heat on the road we had just turned off, not to mention all the deserts we have ridden through recently.

Crater Lake, as the name might suggest, is a lake that has formed in the crater of an extinct volcano. It has a smaller volcano, called Wizard Island, inside it. The lake is the deepest freshwater lake in the US and because of that it is remarkably blue. It is also breathtakingly beautiful.

On the way up there we clocked 5000 miles since we first set off. Dropping back down from there we had about 100 miles to cover before we got to Bend and we arrived there mid-afternoon after having ridden about 240 miles today and a grand total of 5117 miles since we first set off 5 weeks ago.

After checking into our hotel we headed off into Downtown Bend for a well-deserved couple of beers and a very large and expensive meal which involved probably far too many oysters and shrimps.

Tomorrow we will be mostly wandering around Bend, handing the bikes back and eating and drinking too much……

Appropriately enough our next stop after the cannabis capital of California was a place called Weed. Normally we use Google to give us the distance between any two places but inputting “Garberville to Weed” gets some really weird results! Anyway it was a long way so we made an early start in cool and misty conditions with the temperature gauge reading 54F.

We got back on 101 but soon took a detour onto the “Avenue of the Giants” which is a smaller road running parallel to the 101 which winds through the Redwood trees. The 101 is known as the “Redwood Highway” and provides plenty of entertainment for the tree aficionado but the Avenue takes you right through them and they tower above the road on either side.

It was an absolutely beautiful ride and its grandeur is best summed up by Mark’s achingly poetic remark when we stopped to view some particularly large trees – “Ayup, yon’s a big b*gger”. Wordsworth could not have put it better. 

Soon after that we turned onto Highway 36 which runs over the Coastal Range mountains and connects with Interstate 5. This is a really spectacular road that winds through the forests and then drops down into green fields that are very reminiscent of England. Unfortunately for the first 25 miles or so we were stuck behind a convoy of three large, yellow, school buses which crawled up the hills at between 30-40 miles an hour as an ever-growing queue of vehicles trailed behind them. Had it not been for the amazing scenery we might well have lost the will to live. Finally they pulled in and let us past and we were free to enjoy the rest of the road as nature had intended (ie leaning into corners on a high-powered bike).

Towards the end of the 36 we were running low on fuel and were relieved to see a gas station only to find that they had run out of gas! They were however at least able to provide a bottle of water and assured us that there was another gas station in 5 miles. 

Having filled up, we were on Interstate 5. We’d covered 190 miles at this point and had another 80 to go to get to Weed. By this stage the temperature had risen to nearly 100F.

We’d travelled this road on our second day out and it was interesting to compare our feelings then to our impressions now. We’ve been so far and seen so many amazing things over the last month but nevertheless you could never get tired of riding this section of road. There are wooded mountains on either side, we crossed over the beautiful Shasta lake and up ahead was the massive Mount Shasta which is 14000 feet high and is still covered in snow. 

Weed nestles under Mount Shasta and is a small town of only about 3000 people. It seems to survive on serving the truckers and other travellers on the Interstate. Apparently two years ago it actually snowed here at the beginning of June – which makes us appreciate how lucky we have been with the weather on this trip.

Tomorrow we plan to get back to Bend which is just over 200 miles north of here.