BIkepacking Overnight: Circumnavigation of Mt. Hood

Michelle, a former coworker and one of my good friends who also happens to love bikes, is leaving Bend for good for adventures in France and then bigger and better things in Colorado. We had intended on doing bike tours several times this year, but were waylaid by my dislocated elbow and weather on two separate occasions, and so we were determined to get one last bike tour in before she left. The forecast was nothing but sun and heat and summer wildfires had yet to chase us from this part of Oregon, so off we went!

When I had originally decided we should park at Timberline Lodge, all I remembered was that there was safe overnight parking for my car from the time I did a backpacking trip on the Timberline trail around Mt. Hood. What I did not remember was that it was five miles miles straight up Mt. Hood, elevation gain that I had not anticipated when mapping the original route. As we creeped to the top, we looked at each other... should we park in a pullout? Should we look for a different parking spot? "Might as well at least get a look at the top since we are almost there," I commented to Michelle. And then it was done. Screw it, we got this far so we decided to stick with the original plan. We were going to circumnavigate Mt. Hood and finish in a blaze of sweat and glory. 

We quickly packed up our gear, hit the bathroom, laughed at the fact there were folks wearing snowboarding gear getting in their last turns of the season, and the zoomed down the hill to Highway 26 and quickly connected to the quieter Highway 35. We got to see Mt. Hood peeking out from every which way, and then veered off onto Cooper Spur, which is a quiet access road that runs parallel to Highway 35 and provides access to the more remote Cloud Cap area of Mt. Hood.

Michelle contemplates the many pear orchards we passed... Peartopia, to be sure, but none were ripe and we languished with no fruit stands right on our route. Where were all the cherries and peaches?

Even though there were no farm stands to be found in this part of the Fruit Loop, we relished the gorgeous views of Mt. Hood overlooking bucolic farmland.

We descended into Parkdale, which has all the things a cyclist needs, including water, BBQ, multiple restaurants, a bike shop, and much to our chagrin... fruit stands, but a mere 1.5 miles out of our way. We even saw another bike tourists here! Our stop was short and sweet, just long enough to get water out and water in and to enjoy the lunches we had packed.

Lunch break in the cute tourist town of Parkdale with shade, public restrooms at the illustrious local museum, and purportedly the best huckleberry crepes and pies in town.

As we headed out of Parkdale, the heat of the day was upon us and we were dripping with sweat pretty much all the time. We had enjoyed a glorious descent into Parkdale and the ghost town of Dee, but as we rounded back to head over the north side of Mt. Hood, we prepared ourselves for slow climb out of the valley via Lost Lake road and the Lolo pass road. Luckily, these are both lovely quiet roads and we saw a ton of cyclists, both those out for day rides and others bike touring like us.

Water refills and head dunking happened as much as possible with the 90+ degree weather and blazing sun.

After consulting the topo map, we eyeballed a small plateau in the climbing, a small plateau that happened to come right after the steepest climb of the whole tour at 13%, but before the route turned to dirt just shy of the Lolo pass. It was not an easy feat after riding all day. But we labored through it in our granny gears and rejoiced when we hit the plateau. We were disheartened a bit by the fact that much of this road tracked underneath buzzing powerlines, but we were finally able to get away from them a few miles into the plateau and the riding itself couldn't be beat with empty one-lane roads that forced the few cars there to proceed with caution.

Magically, after the climb kicked our butts, this magical mansion of a dispersed campsite appeared. If we had explored a little more, we would have discovered an accessible creek just a hop and a skip down the road for water (which we had packed it so it was fine), which would have been glorious to splash in to rinse of the dirt and grime of the day.

Dinner time! Don't worry, we did NOT light a fire, we just used the firepit rocks as our kitchen table.

We saw a little trail across the road and literally, in the middle of nowhere 2/3 the way up the Lolo pass, we had our own personal outhouse, complete with a "vacant/in use" sign. 

Since we had set up camp early, I took some time to write in my journal and finish Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey, a book I had taken on two other bike tours but had failed to finish, while Michelle took a nap. I love getting to camp with enough light to make a leisurely dinner (this time, Thai rice noodle soup with a beaten egg, shitakes, and veggies), drink a little wine or whiskey, and having some quality time to lose myself in my journal, my thoughts, or a good book. We both drifted off to sleep in the warm summer night, no sleeping bag or rainfly needed.

Morning came early and we set off to beat the heat. Mt. Hood was hazy in the bright light of early morning as we worked our way up the dirt road over the Lolo pass.

We made quick work of the Lolo pass and zoomed down 10 miles to Zig Zag where we had second breakfast on the stoop of the local cafe, which also served as our water refill station. And then we braced ourselves for the long continuous climb from Zig Zag to Government Camp along Highway 26. Once we hit the turnoff for the Timberline Lodge, we were so happy to be off the highway that we didn't care we had to climb another 2000 feet!

A short rest break halfway up, which also served as moment to enjoy the views of Mt. Jefferson.

With the end in sight, we took one last break before we rejoined civilization to look back on what we had done and to enjoy the views of Mt. Hood.

The last bit of climbing, which was supposed to be our blaze of glory, wasn't too bad. The waterfalls were plentiful towards the base, the views were spectacular, the cars/motorcycles/shuttle buses gave us tons of thumbs ups and support, and there simply was not a better way to end this ride.

A few tips for cycle tourists:

• Our route was about as good as I could get it without making more of the ride on dirt. Michelle has a set up that doesn't do great on dirt roads so I tried to keep the dirt road riding to a minimum. I based our route off a cycling route on RidewithGPS that I had found that started in Hood River and went around using primarily Highway 35, Lolo pass, and Highway 26. Given that we were driving up from Bend, this didn't make sense to us and I'm not sure why that route did use the lovely Cooper Spur alternative to Highway 35. Navigation was easy and I could have easily done it without a GPS, but I did put the route on RidewithGPS and download it for offline use just in case. We rode this counterclockwise for better camping options and to have most of the dirt road be climbing rather than descending.

• The 11 mile section of Highway 26 to Timberline Lodge is a slog of steady climbing with lots of traffic. While there is a decent shoulder most of the time, this was mentally the hardest part of the entire tour. 

• There was plenty of water on the route in the form of small roadside streams, waterfalls, and even bigger rivers, but usually the river access was steep and often inaccessible. We were happy to load up so we could dry camp if necessary. 

• Coming up the Lolo pass, there wasn't much good dispersed camping until the plateau before the dirt road summit. There was one okay site with access to a small waterfall after the 13% grade climb to the plateau, but it was pretty exposed to the road. A few miles down and past all the sections where you track along the powerlines, there is a huge dispersed site with nice soft dirt, plenty of hammock trees, and a rustic outhouse across the road. Even up and through the dirt road section, there were other dispersed sites with fire pits, but most were too close to the road for my liking, except for one that was on a big stream and was tucked back and along the bank. 

• For those wanting more luxurious accommodations, there was a bike-friendly sign at the Cooper Spur lodge and Parkdale likely boasted some sort of accommodations. Both also had full services (water, groceries, food, beer, cafe, restaurant) and Parkdale even had a bike shop. On the southern side of Mt. Hood, Zig Zag, Rhododendron, and Government Camp all boast enough civilization for cyclists to find water, food, and accommodations.