Wow, what a mad couple of days…

I left the route planning to Bitchin’ Betty, hence I headed north from Winston on the Hwy 138 toward the north entrance to Crater Lake Park,  rather than the route which I had looked at, which was on more minor roads and entered at the South. This was both good and bad! The bad is that the North entrance was closed due to a huge wild fire! This meant that I had to carry on past the park and circle right around to come back up from the south which virtually doubled the 110 miles the Sat Nav had initially calculated. The good however is that the route along Hwy 138 or the Umpqua Hwy, followed the river of the same name along a beautiful valley, almost touching the river in places as it meandered through the mountains. The river ran over a series of waterfalls, large and small, as well as numerous rapids which I would guess must make for some great rafting and kayaking when the water levels are higher.

It also meant that as I stopped at the various falls and hiked up to the viewing points, I gained some exercise and got to talk to quite a few people. One couple that deserves a mention are a mother and daughter (I think!) stupidly I didn’t even get their names but they gave me some more tips on routes and during the conversation it transpired that the daughter, who would be around 25 – 30, was a firefighter! When I jokingly asked why she was there looking at waterfalls instead of firefighting, she said that she had just finished 17 days straight duty and was now having 3 days leave! Inanely I said “ wow that sounds dangerous!”, to which she casually replied, “ yes, but it’s great fun, I love it” Huge Respect to her. She was quite a petite young lady and other than the fact that she looked extremely fit, nobody would ever have guessed that she had such a tough and demanding job.

With so many stops to look at the waterfalls even the 110 miles took me twice as long as you would expect, but then I had to ride straight on past the north entrance for about 16 miles before I could turn south and do a complete box shape to come in  The  the southern end of the park. Whilst I have ridden through a lot of smoke over the past three months, this was some of the worst with the fires burning right up to the edge of the road in places along a stretch of about 4 miles. There were thousands on acres of woodland burning right across the northern Crater lake park. Fuel was also now becoming something of an issues, as whilst I had left Winston with over half a tank, or about  200 miles worth, I’d now ridden around d 150 miles without a sign of a gas station and the Sat Nav was indicating that the closest was long the closed road. Eventually I found a run down looking place by the main highway, filled the bike with gas and myself with water and an ice cream, both of us were, once more, happy and in harmony. It was still a fair distance to the park entrance and I arrived around 3.30pm. Asking at the gate about camp sites the (English) girl on the gate told me there was only one and suggested that I book in straight away as it filled up quickly…too late, it was full! I wasn’t worried as something always turns up so rode on around the eastern rim road.

For once all the stories that I had heard hadn't been exaggerated, the lake was stunning, and surprisingly it the roads and parking spots were not too busy. I guess arriving late can sometimes be just as good as arriving early. The water was quite still without so much as a ripple; the colour was a deep rich royal blue, quite unlike the lakes along the Icefields Parkway a couple of weeks ago, where they were also turquoise. Thankfully the smoke must have been either going straight up or more likely blowing gently in the other direction which is why so much was across the northern road. Either way, it left the view crystal clear and as I was 6500 ft up nice and cool. I visited a few of the viewpoints before I spotted a sign pointing down a side lane saying “Campground”. I turned around ( I’m getting really good at U turns now) and rode the 3 miles indicated on the board. I arrived in company with a car with a young couple in it. At first glace there appreared to be plenty of space as everything was well spread out. However, on closed inspection every numbered site was occupied. I rode around a couple of times spying out the options. There was certainly plenty of space, as I said, but most was covered by scrub and not really suitable for a tent. Then a found a plot on which there were already two tents set up (badly!) but it was a very large spot with a nice little corner by the entrance on which my bike and tent would fit just nicely. There was nobody about to ask if they minded, so I took a chance, after all it was away from the existing tents with my bike screening me still further.

I’d just finished eating my dinner when the occupants of the site Jake and Jessica arrived back. I went over to say Hi and said that I hoped they didn't mind me gate crashing there pitch. Jake replied that it was fine but that they were expecting a few other later in the evening and he didn't know how many… To cut a very long story at least a bit shorter, there were eventually 9 of us altogether on the little pitch (well little for that many!) There ages ranged from 22 to 26, and they were all work mates at the park intent on partying…. Even as I had first spoken to Jake he had thrust an ice cold beer into my hand. It was one hell of a night. By the time I headed off to bed at around half past midnight I’d drunk far too many beers, I’d “shotgunned” my first beer and taken a couple a of  “shots” with them. Oh and been fed hotdogs and freshly cooked corn. What could have been a nightmare ended up as one of the most extraordinary and fun nights of the trip so far.  So if any of you are reading this guys, my sincere thanks for a great party to Jake, Jessica, Ty, Twist, Bri, Ross, Erica, Caitlin and Risky. I'm now looking forward to welcoming Ross and Bri to the UK at sometime in the future, and who knows perhaps a couple of the others too. As I had managed to bring absolutely nothing to the party and they wouldn't even let me pay for the site, I though the least I could do the next morning was to keep the kettle boiling and make coffees as each in tern stumbled from the slumbers. So yet again it was a late start, in fact my latest yet as I reluctantly left the gang and pulled away just after 11am.

The Party Gang minus two (they had to be up at 6 for work!!!)

1st Lt. Jared Landaker's Family

I headed back to the lake but it wasn't long before the wind turned and the smoke started to cloud the view so I headed on and out of the park. But not before I had met a few more wonderful people, including the family of the pilot of the American Forces helicopter, Morphine One-Two, which was shot down over Iraq in February 2007, killing all 7 people on board. Jared’s Mum, Dad, Brother and Sister-in-law were all on a trip to Crater Lake from their home in Big Bear, California. After talking for a while and of course the obligatory photographs, I've now been invited to their home for a few days, where I'm to be taken around some of the best Californian biking roads. Wow!

I also met a couple of Harley riders at one view point and got talking to Steve and his pal. Whilst he was riding a Harley Steve actually ran a BMW dealership in his home town, which it turned out was just by Fort Bragg, the base where John and Shannon whom I met up on the Dalton Highway were based. This is the couple, riding F800 BMWs who were so helpful to me when I broke down on the way to Prudhoe Bay. In fact, it was Steve who sold them the bike that they were riding. How’ss that for a coincidence. After all I’m something like 5000 miles south of the Dalton now! So once more phots and emails exchanged and Steve has promised to contact John and put him in touch for me. When he and Shannon (nor Sheena as I called her in this blog at the time) left Coldfoot I was really too completely knackered to thank them properly and so would love to catch up. John is actually one of the elite Golden Eagle Parachute team based at Fort Bragg. Whether I’ll get up there to see him I just don’t know, but I’ll be checking my maps carefully over the coming days.

I dropped out tof the park and headed for Medford and the road through the giant Redwoods but as I ran through Medford and made a rather abrupt stop at a set of lights, the stop was rather more abrupt than I had intended, something was clearly not right with my front brake. I had already guessed what the problem was, but a quick check confirmed that I had lost one of the calliper fixing bolts which of course allowed the calliper to turn slightly with the wheel as I applied the brake. I had though that the thread was a bit suspect when I reassembled it and now it had come back to bite me. It could have been a lot worst, with the luck of the Irish, it had happened in a big town right opposite a motorcycle shop, and whilst they didn’t have any Helicoils, they knew a man that did, AutoZone. And the man at AutoZone knew of a nice little camp site just 3 miles from the shop where I will sort the problem and be back on the road by lunchtime (hopefully… So alls well that ends well!