Sunset

Walked down to London bridge to see the sunset

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Today I drove the 350 miles from Bend Oregon to Seattle Tacoma International Airport for my flight to New York.  The route follows the length of the Cascade Mountains from Bend down to Puget Sound.

Its starts off as high desert, lots of old volcano’s can be seen; apparently they are cinder cone volcano’s.  There are long tubes inside in which it’s possible to go down some distance, they are formed when the volcano discharges lots of ash and gas into the atmosphere.

I took a few photos of the route along the way, nice clean and smooth roads and fantastic scenery.  The very large volcano is Mount Hood.

Farewell Bend

Last night in Bend OR tonight.  Finished five straight days of high desert mountain biking.  did around 130 miles of riding, conditions ranging from sleet and almost freezing temperatures to clear sunshine and 30 degrees.  altogether a fantastic holiday in a mountain biking mecca.  The best are I found was Phil's Trails, starting from Phil's Trailhead.  It's an enormous area, I don't know the length of all the trails, but it must run to much more than 100 miles.  The quality is excellent, as I said before the trails are smooth and sandy, every turn is bermed.  There are very steep and technical ups and downs, the rock gardens are amazing, so much work gone into this area.  Further away are still more of hundreds of miles of trails, just can't do it all in one trip.

There are lots or varmints and critters on the trails, big birds, cougar (didn't see one), deer and thousands of chipmunks, they are everywhere, very inquisitive, though wild, I attracted a couple by throwing pieces of bananas, they are too clever though and just pick it up and run away with it.  They seem to come in all sizes, with different stripes of different colours...very interesting  

Although its high desert is covered in pine trees, none seem more than 50 years old, there is lots of evidence of forest fires in the past, so I suppose that is how the forest is controlled, at least in former times.

Extinct volcano's are everywhere, they are all over the place, they call them "Buttes".  Lava is everywhere, I think the last volcano erupted about 6.500 years ago. 


So back to Seattle in the morning and an overnight flight to New York.  Trouble is hurricane Earl is also headed there!

Bend Oregon

Arrived in Bend for five days mountain biking. Although I have ridden 5 days in a row before, I have not done five days serious mountain biking before in a row, especially at above 4,000 feet.

Anyway I have found the altitude no problem at all, still go uphill as slowly as before!

Hired a bike, Trek 4500 hardtail, only just acceptable.

The trails are well marked and all seem to start at trail heads where you can park. There are no other facilities, like coffee shops etc!

All the trails, being in the high desert are very dry, dusty and sandy, but the surface is fantastic, fast rolling and smooth, at least between the rocky technical sections.

Basically the trails are like the very best of UK trail centres, except thay are wild and this is no trail centre, but of the rock gardens and the like are mad made. So the riding is superb. When I say high desert its not like a sand desert, its rocky, with lots of vegetation and millions of pine trees.

For the three days I have been here I have managed around 20-30 miles a day, not too much but enough. On the remote sections you are a long way from any help. so taking it carefully.

In the next post will give a bit more info about the particular trails.

Biking the Golden Gate Bridge

Biking the Golden Gate Bridge is a big attraction, every day hundreds and hundreds of people do it.  A lot of them ride to Sausalito and take the ferry back to Fisherman’s Wharf.

I rented a bike in advance, a “mountain bike”.  What they gave me was nothing like a mountain bike, a Fuji something, very heavy, although fitted with an air shock.

Overlooking the Pacific

First I rode out the Golden Gate Park, which is a natural park some way to the south of the bridge, lots of natural trails and very steep climbs.  Spent a while there before reaching the Pacific Ocean, along the coast to the bridge.  There are cycle lanes to both sides of the bridge, but only one opened at any one time.  The path is shared by pedestrians as well.  There is no safety netting above the guardrail, on a windy way it would be scary, it’s a very long way down, being higher up on a bike makes it worse.  The traffic noise is tremendous, which detracts from the experience, but it is a road bridge.

Classic SF mist

The second tower marks the border to Marin County.  My plan was to ride the Marin County Headlands for a while.  There are lots of trails leading all over the headlands, most of them very steep and rocky, a difficult ride with the heavy bike.  I spent about 4 hours riding there doing as much as I could before riding down to Sausalito for a cup of coffee, when I looked at my watch it was already 6 pm.  Headed back over the bridge and took the bike back, feeling very tired and mile long walk back to the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit System) to take the train back to my hotel near the airport.

Art Deco?

Marin Residents

Marin Headlands

When I calculated the mileage was astonished to see I had done more than 30 miles, no wonder I was tired.

Day 4

Out of sequence with the days now. I suppose Day 4 really started at Denver Colorado. This was the first main stop of the day for the California Zephyr, now 16 hours in to the journey. Denver was a bit a disappointment, couldn’t see much and even the station was nondescript.

From Denver westwards the train climbs into the Rockies, from Denver at 5,000 feet up to the Moffatt Tunnel at 9,000 feet. The views were spectacular; the other side of the tunnel was sunny weather. We followed the Colorado River down for many miles, small at first but getting bigger, lots of rafters and kayakers. The photos of the area speak for themselves. Glenwood Canyon was the very best. The scale of this country is brought home by the fact took more than 8 hours to cross only Colorado. As we entered Utah, literally hundreds of miles of desert, canyons and high plains.

Meals have been excellent on the California Zephry; dinner tonight was New York Ribeye Steak with all the trimmings. The next major stop comes at Salt Lake City at about 1 am in the morning, don’t think I will see it. Right now sat in my cabin, in the sunshine watching the cowboys and Indians scenery pass by.

We are still only just over half way to San Francisco after 30 hours on the train, another 24 to go

Night Time on the Zephry

Day 3

In the morning I had a couple of hours to kill before going to the station.

I took the elevator to the 94^th floor of the John Hancock Building to the Observation Deck.   Its 1500 feet tall the same as the full height of Winter Hill, and its 500 feet taller than the Winter Hill Mast! Great views of Chicago and Lake Michigan.

At lunchtime made my way to Union Station to board the Amtrak California Zephyr to San Francisco.  First I had a look around the Union Station, it was the last built grand terminal built in the States.

As I had a room booked on the train I could go to the lounge to await boarding.  The train is made of 16 cars, all double decked, “Superliner”.

My room was on the top deck just two cars back from the locomotive.  It consists of two seats that fold down to form a bed and bunk above that The cars are rather old now, but it’s built well and very serviceable.  Down below are the bathrooms and showers.  There is a free coffee stand along the hall, and a free fruit juice stand at the other end.  folds down..  Its air conditioned and comfortable enough.

On board the Zephyr

   

Chicago Union Station

 

Crossing the Mississipi River

The train left Union Station about 40 minutes late as there was a “mechanical”.  The train rolls south for a short time before turning to the west, it maintains that heading for the next 2700 miles.

The first few hundred miles are made up of flat farmland, millions of hectares of corn and soya beans, totally flat.  We passed through little towns’ right out of the movies, flags flying and chairs on the porch.  I noticed that there was no fence between the rails and the gardens of the houses, where the track ran through a town there was no fence, hundreds of level crossings, at each one the engineer blows the whistle a few times, classic American Train mournful sound.ining Car, clean and neat, great meal of salad, buffalo meatloaf, baked potato and a desert, excellent quality.

Dinner Time on the Zephyr

Night time on the Zephyr and the car attendant makes up the bed.  As the room is on the second level its quiet, no problems and I slept better than I thought I would, woken a few times by the whistle though.  Morning and I set my alarm early, though we gained an hour by crossing into Mountain Time.  Shower and breakfast at 7 am.  The showers would shame some hotels, a bit small  but perfectly manageable.   Crossed from Nebraska into Colorado, next stop Denver.  Although I have been on this train for 16 hours, we are less than a third of the way there!  The crop fields of Illinois and, Idaho have given way to cattle ranches.