Aparna asked for a bikepacking trip for her 46th birthday, so I gathered some of our favorite people -- Ani, Elisa, and Nicole -- and that's what we gave her. We scoped out a whole bunch of 3 day-2 night routes but the weather basically told us that staying in lower elevations in the rain shadow of the Cascades would be our best bet for a weekend bikepacking trip. And so even though I had just done the Oregon Stampede with Bill, I offered it up as an option because sometimes a route is so good, it feels like your lucky day when you get to ride it again... even if it is just a month later! Plus, I was itching to camp in the amazing dispersed site that Bill and I saw in the wildlife refuge and everyone was sold.
There isn't much to say here that wasn't said
last time, other than if you are lucky, you can time it like we did and accidentally overlap with the
Gorge Gravel Grinder and a
special women's gravel camp so that as you bike through and around Dufur, you get to see a gajillion rad women and femmes on gravel bikes and they will cheer you on with so much gusto, you feel like it's your birthday. Oh wait, it really was Aparna's birthday!
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| A cool old abandoned church right outside Grass Valley made for a great "getting started" photo. |
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| Bike joy. |
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| There are no pictures of beautiful descent into this canyon because it hailed on us. It hurt. That is all. |
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| Ani goes shopping for a book... a surprisingly robust and progressive selection! |
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| The beginning of so much climbing through the wildlife refuge. |
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| Sunny skies and the perfect campsite. It was a mansion of a campsite perfect for 5 tents and 5 bikes. |
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| The grand Columbia River. |
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| The campground had firewood and ice so we chilled our happy hour drinks. |
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| We nabbed the second to last campsite available... they were super nice and let us spill over a bit. |
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| "You're the best... no you're the best!" Us after a few drinks in... and then when we ran out of booze, we invited the van lifers next door over and hinted successfully that we were out of booze. |
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| Blue skies, snow capped mountains, and this crew. |
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| The Friend school with the birthday gal... left our mark. |
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| The long road and open skies back to the car. |
A few tips for cycle tourists:
- While Bill and I parked our car successfully in the Grass Valley city park, it is a tiny parking lot. Since we were going to have 3 cars, we called the market in Grass Valley and asked for permission to park there since it has a large lot, and they were fine with it. Just asked us to park at the back and leave notes at our car.
- Speaking of which, the market in Grass Valley has a surprisingly robust selection of snacks, food, and most of all beer, wine, and liquor. The selection of booze there was superior to the store in Dufur (which was decently stocked).
- The map for this version shows the sweet designated campsite that is right along the river. Nearly all of the other designated campsites are dry camping, so if you are biking this clockwise and that site is full, you will want to filter water there to carry with you. If you bike this counterclockwise, you may want to bring in extra water.
- We saw a LOT of hunters in the wildlife refuge. They were all very nice to us, but we felt unsettled being five women, and three of us being women of color. They tend to come in from the north side of the refuge, so we didn't realize how many hunters there were camped out until we biked out. So if you bike this counterclockwise, you will pass by nearly all the campsites before you get to the one along the river.
