To The Falls!

Date: Sunday, March 25th, 2007 Leave: 7AM Return: Noon-ish Distance: 70.4 miles Average speed: 16.4 mph

Ben and I met at the Tideman/Johnson Park rest area at 7AM on Sunday for our biggest ride to date: the wonderous (and far off) Multmonah Falls, which is about 35 miles east of downtown Portland. The weather was pretty iffy, a little drizzley and cold, but not unbearable on either front. We set off heading west on the Springwater Trail, keeping a nice and easy, but steady pace on the flats of ~17mph or so. Both Ben and I have ridden this portion of the Springwater several times, so we made really good time up to 182nd, where we turned north and rode up to Stark and turned east again. Stark is your typical large street bike path with lots of junk and debris in the way, so it wasn't long until Ben was gifted with a flat rear tire. It was just cold enough that waiting the 5 mins or so for him to change the tube had completely chilled me to the bones, and I was stoked to get back on the road... only to find that we were at the top of a 3/4 mile descent down to the Sandy river, which chilled me even further. As if on cue, as soon as we got to the bottom of the hill, Ben was flat again, so on came another 5-10 minutes of standing in the now increasing rain freezing our asses off.

While changing the tire just before the Sandy River bridge, and at the base of a fairly significant climb, three guys rode past us, at least one of which was on a fixie, which quickened Ben's tire changing pace and got us on our way, although we never saw those guys again. The climb up through Corbett warmed us back up, and was uneventful save for the fact that it began absolutely DUMPING rain on us... so much that it was ridiculous and fun to be trudging through the sheets water. The climb is not very steep, but pretty long and ends as you can either start the climb up to Larch Mountain or descend down to the Vista House and ultimately Multnomah Falls.

The quick descent down to the Vista House is really fun, especially after ~5 miles or so of climbing. We stopped at the Vista House and soaked in some more rain along with the spectacular (even in shitty weather) view. The stop was ultimately long enough to cool down again, which, given the descent from the Vista House down the historic Columbia River Highway, proved to be somewhat of a wool-headed move on our part, as by the bottom we were both frozen stiff again. Despite the cold, the only thing I could think during the descent was, "holy shit, we gotta climb this on our way back!"

The ride from the Vista House to Multnomah Falls is so awesome, especially on a bike. I have driven it several times in a car, but never on a bike, and it was just spectacular. There are so many falls and gorges and things that you miss at 35mph in a metal box that just jump out at you when you're on a bike. We were passed by only 3 or 4 cars, all of which were very careful and gave us lots of room, which was nice because it was still a colossal Oregonian downpour in our faces.

Getting to the falls was awesome, simply because it rules to roll up on a bike to a place that's a fair ways away from civilization, let alone that it was dumping rain and witch-tit cold. Ben snapped this picture of me with my shitty camera phone, which works even less in the rain -- thanks Cingular! I had a couple shots of espresso at the coffee stand and filled up my water bottles and we were off back up towards the Vista House. We took it easy on the climb back up, but even still it proved to be far less daunting than it seemed on the way down -- the more big climbs I do, the more I realize this is pretty much always the case. Still, getting back to the Vista House and up into Corbett felt great, and just as we crested the top, the sun came out in full force. It was totally a moment of shining awesomeness for me, and I think I began to annoy Ben with all my, "boy, this sure is awesome!" talk.

The ride back was pretty uneventful, but there was a bit of an annoying head-wind that made it less enjoyable than it could have been. I made it home to an empty house and took a shower and proceeded to construct an ass-kicking omelette with about 10 pieces of turkey bacon that tasted like it was made by the Specialized Angel.