Well, unfortunately I got off track from my weekly schedule of blogging, so I guess I will finish the post I started when I got off track. It was a 130 mile bike ride over two days with about 10,000 ft of elevation change. As one can imagine, I was quite tired on Sunday and Monday of that week, and then continued the trend of not blogging until now.
On the first weekend in May, I went to Ben Country. Although I had been on a few bike camping trips, this weekend ended up being the most challenging yet. The ride out on Saturday was with a large group and plenty of breaks for people to catch up and eat food. Overall, it was a sunny and enjoyable day, but rain did threaten to ruin all a few times during the trip. Luckily, I had all of my gear, and every time I put it on, the threat of rain went away and the sun came back out. The crew riding out was a joyous rolling festivity, as we moved up and down the hills, and through the hike a bike section. We collectively missed an important turn and retraced our tracks up a couple hundred feet. At the end of the day, we were greeted with a terribly terrifying, invigorating, and winding 12% grade decent down 800 feet to camp with a cliff off to the side. Luckily, everybody made it down without incident.
Almost as if it were planned by Ben himself, the raindrops started to fall as soon as I set up my tent and made my way to the fire. Shortly after the remaining riders joined the festivities, the kegs arrived, and the fire was re-purposed from cooking to providing warmth. The eventual arrival of morning and the return trip was far from anybody’s mind as the Fireball was passed around, and highlights of the trip and trips past were shared. The revelry continued later than I could manage to keep my eyes from closing, so I returned to my tent, neither the first nor last to leave the fire.
Once again, the morning greeted us, but it is always nice to be in the middle of the forest knowing that your bed is 65 miles away, and you must traverse it by bicycle to get there. After some more of the crew awoke, I found the first group leaving, and decided to join them for the ride back. This group decided to make the second day as much of an adventure, although much less rowdy, as the first with a climb up to the top of Bon Jon pass at 3000 feet, and then a beautiful decent all the way to town at sea level. The worst was done, but there was still 40 miles of rolling hills until the ferry ride back to Seattle. While flying down the slightly wet dirt roads of the pass, my mud-soaked pants, shoes, panniers, and drive train helped me realize the importance of fenders. I asked about which type of fenders to buy while we were waiting in line to get on the ferry. As we departed the ferry to go our separate ways, I picked up my bag, and saw the dirt pile beneath where I was sitting. I was quickly given the name “Pig Pen”, and posed for photos showing how rad I got on the trip. After showering, I immediately went to my computer to purchase new fenders from Amazon, just in time for the dry summer!
I then was drained for the rest of the week at work, wondering when I would return to the forest to camp by bicycle, and if it could possibly be more fun.