Day 6 - Road Closed (June 7th, 2024)
City to City: Vida - Sisters
Miles: 56
Miles Total: 340
We tried to leave as early as possible. But as adventures happen, we got started later than planned. My dad thought he had lost his Bluetooth headphones. We searched high and low for them, including removing everything from the panniers. We eventually left and asked our host, Mark, to watch for them. We took off quickly to make it to Sisters because of a crucial ride for the day.
We had forty miles of uphill to make it over Mckenzie Pass. Throughout the trip, people have said different things about McKenzie Pass. Some said it was open, others said it was closed. Some said only bikers could pass through right now, and others said not even bikers could pass through. Some said that a couple of groups of people were going to try to make it through, but they didn't know if the groups were successful.
After about twenty miles of uphill, we stopped to take a break. My dad was checking his phone and saw the Bluetooth symbol at the top of his screen. After further investigation, we discovered that my dad's Bluetooth headphones were in the back of a pannier.
With twenty-three miles still uphill and four-thousand and nine-hundred feet of elevation to climb, we started up the mountainside. Luckily, we had the road to ourselves. With the slope getting steeper, we kept steadily climbing up. The day was sunny, but the evergreen trees on the side provided enough shade to keep sweat from pouring off our faces. We arrived at a rest stop, and while resting, we saw another biker come up. The biker said that he would go on the closed road and that we could make it. We waited a few minutes, and when the man didn't return, we started again. We arrived at the closed gate, looked at it, and walked our bikes around it. We continued up for what seemed to be forever. As we got closer to the top, patches of snow started to appear regularly. With snow banks about five feet tall on either side of us, we knew we were getting closer to the top. The trees had thinned, but being near the snow helped keep us cool. We stopped for lunch and looked at the beautiful mountains.
We quickly stopped at the observatory at the top of McKenzie Pass. On the first level of the observatory, the people who had created it had spaced little holes in the walls in the round room, and underneath the windows were the names of the mountains. Of course, there were big windows, too, for looking at the view in general. We climbed to the top level and looked out. Mountains stretched in every direction. The mountains are beautiful, covered with lava rock fields, and the tops are snow-capped at the tips of some mountains. And standing apart from the other mountains stand the tallest of them all; the Three Sisters Mountains. With powerful and almost vertical slopes, the three beauties are queens of the other mountains. Snow heavily covers half of the Sisters Mountains, and they stand brightly in the sky. The Sisters Mountains stand in a line, almost like they are guarding the gate to the valleys. With all three in a line, the two biggest are on the ends while the smaller is in the middle, protected by her bigger sisters. After gazing at the mountains, we cruised back down the other side of McKenzie Pass. We arrived and set everything up, then left for town. We had soda and beer for our Friday night meal and big hamburgers for dinner.
We were so hungry and tired after climbing the mountain that we were ready for a day of rest. Our host for the night had guests coming over and kindly asked us to be somewhere else until a certain time, so we had extra time and decided to do stretches for cyclists in a grassy area. That night in the tent, two of us could fall asleep. The other person stayed up until midnight, hearing loud music blasting in the town. It turns out that we arrived in Sisters when a big rodeo event was about to take place, and thus, loud music until midnight.
Great story Layla, thank you for sharing the trip. At the rate your dad is forgetting things - he may have nothing left by the time you get across America!!
ReplyDeleteThis is awesome. Sounds like McKenzie pass was a challenging, but beautiful ride.
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