Homecoming

We’re pushing our bikes, again. The deep, powdery moon dust underfoot is a bit of déjà vu after dropping down into Sisters, Oregon, for a resupply earlier in the day. Last night’s climb out of Bend began inspiringly enough, the sun setting through towering pines a dramatic and welcome change of scenery after a month on the parched California coast.

Written and photographed by Morgan Taylor

The creeks rush with clear water, a sight we haven’t seen in what seems like forever. The pine forests remind us of those in eastern British Columbia, where a couple months earlier we set off on this great journey. Another perfect wild camping spot reveals itself around every corner in this latticework of national forest roads. Just give us some water and that’s all we need.

We immediately feel at ease on the eastern slopes of the Cascades. Maybe it’s knowing we could be back home in ten days’ riding if we wanted to be, or knowing we’re closer to where our hearts reside, in cooler and less populated places. Or maybe it’s just that we never really felt completely relaxed during our time in bustling California.

Yet it’s only our second day in Oregon, and we’re already scheming how to get off this route. We didn’t set out to suffer, and after 60 days of meandering around British Columbia, Montana, Wyoming, and California, we’re doing just that. We’re on a modified section of the still-in-progress Oregon Timber Trail, a route admittedly more suited to bikes with larger tires and lighter loads, but we’re keen to give it a try.

A question arises for me: what level of discomfort are we willing to endure for the experience of being alone in far-off places? I’m not just talking about the usual discomfort of bike travel, the things that come to mind when family and colleagues back home think of us out here: sub-freezing wake up calls, bugs, lack of showers. No, those things are wonderful. I’m talking about the moments where you’re pushing – in this case literally pushing – only to come up short of your intended camp spot, to struggle to find a place to hang your food in fading light, to clear a spot for your tent amongst logging slash, to shovel what you can into your mouth before collapsing into your sleeping bag, exhausted.

Just like yesterday, the road surface is ankle-deep, unrideable. We trudge toward a dot on the map. This time, we’re even pushing on the flats and on some downhills. Just a few more miles to the oasis promised on the other side, but forward movement is agonizingly slow. The day’s last light progresses through soft pastels of pink and purple. Beautiful. Night closes in on us, the flickering beams of our dynamo-powered lights surging with each step forward. This is what we wanted. Out of drought-ridden California, back to familiar climes. Right?

As we draw nearer to the forest service campsite we’ve been aiming for, every pullout along the way is occupied with RVs, ATVs, and gas generators. Unbeknownst to us, we’ve happened upon a popular recreation site on the last Saturday in August. Any chance of wild camping here is out the window, so how we happen upon an empty site at the end of the campground in complete darkness is beyond me.

We wake in the morning to learn that our neighbors had booked two sites, not knowing how big they were. We had quietly made our way in there, as bicycle travelers can so easily do. They’re happy to have shared the space and pass on some strudel, which we gladly accept while we pore over maps, looking for an escape route.

After two days traversing backcountry roads through incredible volcanic landscapes, we lay our options out on the table and make a decision: off the route, back to pavement at the nearest opportunity. We linger in the warmth of the morning, enjoying another coffee. Have we accepted defeat, or simply pushed off in a different direction, hoping not to fight another uphill battle?

Thinking back to my first experiences with bicycle travel, now more than a decade ago, I’m comforted in knowing there are many reasons people deviate from their planned course. In this case it wasn’t solely mileage or elevation, but the unexpectedly soft road surfaces that slowed our pace. We’ve admittedly made the common mistake of biting off more than we can chew.

Departing from the campsite, we follow a flat and sandy doubletrack, eventually coming to a gate with an idyllic road stretching beyond it. “Closed to all motorized vehicles,” the sign reads. Is this our promised oasis? Within a couple hundred yards we’re pushing our fully loaded bikes downhill, tires cutting deep into grainy sand, no other tracks to be found. The mellow gradient then gives way to steeper, chunkier terrain, with sharp rocks protruding into the only rideable line. In the moment, our struggle is all-encompassing. An hour and a half into our riding day and we’ve covered less than five miles. We’ve got to get off this route.

The opportunity presents itself when the chunky trail drops off a shelf and onto a dirt road. We take it. Our questions about whether going off route was the right choice are quickly dispatched when our deviation takes us right into an ancient cinder cone, an amphitheatre of porous red and black rock. The cinder cone is an unexpected chapter in this story, an experience even outside our imaginations. We make lunch, surveying the changing landscape from the summit and shooting photos for fun rather than for documentation for the first time since our arrival in Oregon.

Back on the shoulder of a four-lane highway heading toward the coast on a Sunday afternoon, the traffic noise reminds us why more and more bike travelers are seeking routes that keep them off roads like these. Fortunately, the shoulder is wide and clean, the grade mostly descending, the road surface clearly displaying its origin as volcanic fragments. Easy miles are energizing and refreshing when you’ve been struggling for days.

It’s late afternoon when we arrive in the small town of Detroit, splitting up to suss out the store that seems ravaged by the weekend’s crowds. A half-gallon of chocolate milk and a bag of chips right now, makings for burritos later in the evening, a half-dozen eggs for breakfast. This is the life.

Tracing the paved roads that parallel our scrapped off-road route, we leave the main highway and begin our climb along the Breitenbush River. The sun disappears early in this deep valley, and it feels more like home than anything we’ve experienced in the past two months: lush sword ferns, blankets of salal and moss, towering hemlock, fir, and cedar. We’ve crossed to the west side of the Cascades and it’s more than just a homecoming. It’s a confirmation that we’ve gone in the right direction.

Despite being off the route we’d planned, we happened upon one of our favorite types of roads. Over the course of this trip we’ve come to find that the roads motorcyclists flock to are also ones we like to travel on: decent road surfaces, nice corners, and a distinct lack of heavy vehicles. We began our journey on BC’s Highway 31a, and more recently found our way to California’s Highway 33. Now, here we are on Oregon’s NF-46. They’re out there, though you usually have to go out of your way to find them.

Empty camp spots line both sides of this winding road, but we’re once again fighting for the last shreds of daylight and keep turning the pedals, looking for just the right refuge. When we finally make our choice, with the river rushing in a canyon below and the road just out of sight, we’re greeted by a neat pile of kindling and a few splits of dry wood.

Something feels different when morning comes. There’s a magic about this place, an unmistakable character we knew existed but had forgotten about after so much time on the road. Soaking it in, we enjoy the cool Cascadian morning, finally feeling a sense of completeness we hadn’t realized was missing.