Day 25 - the PACIFIC OCEAN

The Final day - the Oregon Hills - do those clouds look ominious to you ?

Rather than ride 15 miles down the highway, we drove the truck, and then attempted to find somewhere to park up - we located a great little grocery store in Fortune Branch where the owners very kindly allowed us to park in their lot;

 

As we had 144 miles to do, and some past reports over the last couple of years indicated that the trail was impassable - requiring a lengthy reroute, we finally sorted out the fuel carrying on the KTM (pity we hadn't done this days ago !!)

 

Whilst tuning the bikes (ok, patching them up!), Don appeared to chat; (he was later to text us a particularly accurate weather report later in the day)

 

It was only earlier in the morning - and 'Phil from the desert' was already whining about the cold - I thought it was just like trail riding in Wales;

 

Whilst pulled over at the end of a trail section, we bumped into Ellis and his partner who were camping in the area - he gave us a heads-up on the status of trail riding in Oregon;

 

We then climbed higher into the Oregon forestry;

which offered us some great views into the valley, and over the clouds

 

All to soon, we climbed up into the clouds - we rode along one particular ridge for half a mile or so, and all that was beneath us on either side was tree-tops and a sea of cloud. What a shame, the view must be awesome on a good day.

 

All to soon, the rain started, and got heavier, and heavier. With 140 miles of forest, we refuelled under a tree;

 

On route through the misty forest, I rounded one bend to be confonted by what appeared the be the rear-ends of 3 horses, as they dashed into the forest, I realised that they were Elk - awesome !

 

We sloshed through some interesting (and slippery) ATV trails for another hour or so, until we finally descended beneath the cloud, and into sunlight;

Here's Phil trying to muster a 'thumbs-up', but is too wet to do so :-)

 

Totally sodden, and with the wind chilling us to the bone, we tracked onto a more direct gravel trail to the coast. With the dust finally damped for the first time in 4800 miles - Phil was finally able to ride right on my tail - which made for a great chase down the mountains, on the twisty gravel trails.

 

Finally we arrived at the Pacific - Hooray !!!

 

Oregon has been unbelievable - over 500 miles of forestry trails - superb!

 

After checking into a cliffside motel, we headed over to a local diner for lunch - ordering anything hot - soup, hot chocolate, pasta - anything to try to warm up.

 

After lunch (a late lunch -4pm), I left Phil at the motel, and I got back on the XR to ride the 135 miles on the highway back to the truck - and then drove the 135 miles back to the motel.

 

By the time I arrived (10pm) Phil had already dressed up in his party outfit;

(Apperently he had been to the only shop in town (the grocery store) that stocked clothes, so that he had something dry to wear.)