Sandy and Sheryl’s Excellent/Crazy Bicycle Adventure
My friend Sandy and I are not cyclists. I have done some long rides – but only because I could take my time and dawdle along at about 10 mph on the flat, and take untold hours to reach destinations that “cyclists” easily do in half the time. Sandy hasn’t done much cycling and especially so in recent years as she wasn’t sure how her back and neck would hold up ever since she had surgery on her back and then later cracked some vertebrae in her neck in a car rollover accident. But we had heard from a couple of sources that the paved bike path around Diamond Lake, Oregon was flat and “…you can see the lake from the path all the way around it.” We were told at the entrance to the campground that the path was 11.5 miles long, and were given a little map showing the path going around the lake as well as a couple of roads in the area. Seeing as how it was flat and paved I figured it would be pretty easy, only taking a little over an hour, but we would each pack a lunch and a water bottle and really take our time, stopping whenever we wanted to rest, enjoy the views and just have a leisurely time of it. We had already ridden a significant section of the bike path from our campsite to the Diamond Lake Lodge and the path was great. When we stopped to turned around, a friend who was with us decided to ride on past the lodge a bit further and returned with the report that the path was fine and the views terrific as far as he had gone. Sounded good.
Just before leaving the campground at 11:30 – I grabbed a gallon water jug that was about 1/3 full and strapped that onto my Tour Easy recumbent bike, just in case. (I have a bad back – herniated disk - and can only ride a recumbent.) I hate to be exercising without enough water, and it was a warm day – so who knows – we might need it. After about half an hour of very gentle pedaling we stopped by a little lake/pond with a bench and sat down for an idyllic lunch which we shared with some very friendly little birds who all but ate out of our hands. The ride was unfolding just as planned. Then we resumed pedaling. The bike path though became less well groomed and we started seeing patches of snow, but it was still very easy to ride, so on we went. We had heard that the road on this west side of the lake was not yet open due to unusually heavy spring snows. I thought that the road must have been higher up on the hill than our path, and so more snow. We had heard nothing about the bike path being impassable. We had also heard nothing about the bike path going up and away from the lake.
As someone once said, “…the adventure begins when the first thing goes wrong.” Those are true words. Sometimes various things play into turning an outing into an adventure. In this case it was the somewhat gradual and intermittent snow deposits on the bike path that at first were just a bit annoying. Our husbands were fishing at Davis Lake and my husband called us around 1pm and said that he had noticed from a boat launch on Diamond that there appeared to be snow on the bike path on the west side and he thought we might want to head back to a road if we heard cars on a road, and not try to go all the way around the lake. At that point we still had the whole day ahead of us and had only had to drag our bikes through a few small snow fields before hitting the pavement again. So we weren’t ready to quit at that point. We were quite chipper on the phone. But then, slowly we began to realize that we were gradually going up to higher elevations. This would not have been at all alarming had the path been clear, because it was a very gradual rise. But we had no idea just how long we would continue to go up and how much snow we might have to drag our bikes through. You couldn’t ride on the snow because it was so soft from the warm sun.
The campground entrance lady said the map she gave us wasn’t detailed. What an understatement - as it turned out to be pretty much a worthless, pathetic thing as every sign we saw along the path had no representation on the “map.” Also, the further we went along the west side of the lake, the thicker the trees got, the further the path went inland from the lake (which was impossible to tell from the “map”), and the less we could determine where we were. We knew we were still on the paved path because we would come off of the snow covered parts and down to the bare pavement, and we could also see the blue triangle path markings up in the trees. It was becoming a bit of hard work at this point, pushing/dragging our bikes. My recumbent bike in particular was a struggle, partially because of its unwieldy length at 5 ½ feet long and its considerable weight at 30 pounds - not counting all the water, and our fleeces and some food and other stuff that was tied to it. Oh – and I forgot about the 6 to 8 pound heavy duty chain and lock that I carry on my bike. (This bike was expensive and I carry this heavy chain on it to deter theft. I am not sure exactly how heavy it is because my scales aren’t the best and give different readings each time I use them – but it is a VERY HEAVY chain and lock.) Anyway, I was hefting this 40+ pound, unruly bike up and onto the snow and then pushing/dragging it along the snow until we would hit a patch of dry pavement again. Sandy was doing the same with her upright bike and I was worried about her back and neck, etc. After one particularly long stretch without seeing any pavement, we were both getting pretty tired and stopped to discuss turning around and going back. Sandy wasn’t enamored of the prospect of turning around and going through all that effort, when we had perhaps already come half the way. Of course we couldn’t tell from the map. I felt the same as she. We figured – even if it got worse – we still had daylight until almost 10pm. Not to worry.
We realized at one point that we were following a lone rider’s bike tire track in the snow. It had been probably made a few days previous and we figured – at least someone had made it around the lake - and so would we. It was reassuring to see that track. But we were starting to encounter more debris on the snow. At first there were branches here and there that we removed or maneuvered around. But then we started getting bigger and bigger branches and then whole trees lying across the trail that were too big for us to move. At first we could snap off enough bits to make room for us to lift our bikes up onto the tree and climb up with them and lower them down the other side. But this wasn’t exactly the bike ride we had envisioned. And we were getting tired. My arms and legs were getting fatigued enough that when we came off of a stretch of dry pavement and had to climb back up on the snow covered path – I had to take a running start to get my bike enough momentum to struggle to the top of each new snow field’s plateau. We were both stating to second guess ourselves a bit.
Then the bike path crossed an actual road. The road was completely snow packed as far as the eye could see. This was a “crossroads” in more ways than one for us. We could see a sign up a ways on the road but couldn’t read it. Maybe it would give us a clue as to how far we still had to go? The problem was that it appeared the bike rider’s tracks in front of us had gone across the road and on up the bike path, and also it appeared they had gone up the road toward the sign. We guessed the rider had done both, before deciding which way to go. I left my bike with Sandy and walked up the snow packed road until I could read the sign. We had reached an area where there were Recreational Summer Residences, but the road wasn’t opened yet and no one was in any of the homes. We had no idea where that road would go – or if it would dead end or what, as it - of course - was not on our “map,” just as this area of recreational residencies was not on our “map.” We opted to stay on the bike path, and by now we both felt we had worked too long and hard to give up and we thought it could possibly be more work to retrace our route than to keep going on. But now we were wondering what we might find at the end of this lone bike rider’s tracks. Would we find a dead cyclist? Maybe a nearly dead one – with a busted leg? Would we see his tracks slip over a ravine? Would we find an abandoned bike? That was when I started thinking about some of those episodes from the TV show “I Shouldn’t Be Alive” when the weather would change and a freak late spring snow would blow in and white out conditions would apply, the cell phones wouldn’t work and someone would get injured, etc… A snowy night in a storm with only a light shirt/fleece and a couple of plastic bags didn’t exactly sound like fun.
The fallen over trees were getting more troublesome. We plowed our bikes around one bend to find the snowed-over path blocked by several trees that had fallen from the hillside above the path and stretched across it and down the ravine to the right side of the path. This was right in the middle of a u-shaped bend in the path. The snow cover was thick enough that I didn’t notice that there was a stream flowing down the ravine under the snow. The only way I could see to get my recumbent across the trees was in one area of the treefall where I could remove enough stuff to climb up on it with my recumbent, push it over the trees, and then lower it to a spot near the edge of the path, but slightly on the drop off to the ravine below. It was not terribly steep right there and I figured I could get a good footing and push my bike back up to the path. Sandy was calmly cautioning me saying things like “…let’s take our time, no need to rush, etc.” As I lowered the bike and tried to find my footing, both feet broke through the snow and my left leg sank to my knee and the foot was dangling in the flowing icy stream beneath the snow, while my right foot was beneath the snow and my right knee bent in a bad way with my bicycle on top of it. I couldn’t move, and I couldn’t move the bike. I looked up at Sandy who was standing frozen in place for a moment watching this horror show develop. I said up to her, “I think I need some help.” She answered in her wonderfully funny understated way, “Do ya THINK?” and then we both just burst out laughing and couldn’t stop until the tears were rolling down our faces, and until I realized that my contorted knee was hurting more and more. Sandy somehow got down to me without busting through the snow herself, and helped get the bike off me so I could very carefully get that right knee unfolded and the right foot out of its hole, then the left and we both gingerly raised the recumbent up to the path. Sandy went back for her bike and since it’s much lighter we were able to heft it higher up and get it over the fallen trees, further away from the ravine, and more in the middle of the path. (I decided during that bit of adversity that if I were in a foxhole in a war some time – I would choose Sandy to be in it with me.) Oh – this is also one of those spots where the mosquitoes found us in droves. Thankfully I had thrown some spray in one of my bags, and even though it was old and didn’t really spray anymore – it fizzled enough to get some on our skin and smear it around. That was about it for us, though. We thought we had had enough of these fallen tree crossings and we were looking for any alternative. Oh – and we had lost the lone rider’s bike trail now. It simply vanished once we got to the other side of that tree blockage. Hmmm…. what happened to him? Did the tree knock him down the ravine when it fell? Could he be buried under the tree? We struggled on for a bit longer when the phone rang. Bryon said we didn’t sound at all cheery, and when we said we might end up making our way to the lake somehow and he might have to find us with the boat, he got a bit worried, I think. As far as we could tell - the bike path ahead was completely covered in snow and the numbers of potential obstacles were daunting to us in the extreme. Some time back we had heard a snow plow, but we couldn’t tell where it was and what it was plowing. Now we didn’t care and were looking for any alternative way out when we spotted a road in the distance and immediately looked for the best way to cross country over to it and say good riddance to the path.
The road we found had not been plowed, but enough four wheel drive vehicles had been on it that we trusted that it went somewhere hopeful. We were occasionally able to pedal little stretches of the road where some of the ruts had melted through to the road’s surface. But mostly we walked the bikes until finally the snow ended abruptly where the snow plows had been turning around at the Thielsen View Campground. The campground wasn’t open yet but we found a worker there who told us the road back to Diamond Lake Lodge was clear and we were about 4 miles from the lodge. Halleluiah! The man also told us that the bike path from the campground back to the lodge was not cleared and had lots of fallen trees and snow on it. We told him that we understood completely as we had just come around the lake on that path from the other side and it wasn’t a fun trip. He told us that the bicycle track we had been following was made by a “…very big man that couldn’t make it all the way and had to be rescued by guys on snowmobiles.” When this worker repeatedly mentioned that the rescued guy hadn’t been able to make it out due to his being so BIG, Sandy said, “…well – we’re really OLD” expecting him to say something like, “…WOW, you guys are amazing,” instead he just said, “Your not that old.” (I beg to differ – my coming B Day I’ll be 65!) We wanted to protest, but we wanted even more to get back to our campground. So we pedaled to the main road and stopped to eat the last of Sandy’s cookies and drank the little bit of water remaining. We pedaled along the clear dry road looking down upon the snow packed, tree-carnage laden, impassible bike path below, wondering if we had stayed on that upper path, and not cross countried over to the road – what would have happened to us and how long would it have taken for us to get back to our camp? As it was our 1 to 1 ½ hour gentle bike ride had turned into a tremendous (for us) effort of 5 ½ hrs. We had almost no breaks other than the few minutes it took to eat our lunch. Occasionally when we were both out of breath and gasping for air we would take a 1 minute “recumbent break” which consisted of one of us sitting on the recumbent’s seat and resting our backs into its back rest, while the other person stood there waiting for her minute to rest. It wasn’t great – but better than nothing – as most of the “path” wasn’t very suitable for sitting on with snow or flowing/standing water on it. We were soooo happy to finally make it back to camp…
That night – I couldn’t sleep because my right knee hurt so bad that I couldn’t straighten it out, and every time I moved a bit it hurt enough to keep me awake. Finally around 5am I got up and found some aspirin to take which REALLY helped and I was able to drift off to sleep. The next day Sandy and I were surprised to be feeling as good as we did! We had both come through with no long term damage. (What’s a few bruises, gashes, scrapes cuts, sore muscles and stuff…?) So, Sandy carried the tackle box, we strapped a couple of folding camp chairs onto my recumbent bike, along with both the fishing poles, rode to the Lodge to get me a fishing license, and then we stopped whenever we could find spots where we could cast our lines and set the chairs out. It was a great day to relax and relive the events of Sandy and Sheryl’s Excellent/Crazy Bicycle Adventure of June 2011. Our big regret though is that neither of us thought to take a camera along for that bike ride, but we weren’t about to retrace that trip - just for some photos. Beware of the late snows of June!
