Oregon CDR North - Part 2
I woke up at daybreak on Monday morning, with clear skies overhead and that chill in the air that means autumn is on the way. Summer, as usual, has passed by too quickly, much like this trip.
Neither 10guy or I were in much of a hurry to pack up and depart, and I enjoyed a double serving of coffee while swapping my air filter for a clean one and pulling the chain adjuster on the DR’s rear axle back a couple more notches.
We finally got underway and found ourselves on gravel roads that took us through recent logging operations.
There were plenty of nice vistas.
Despite my misgivings about gravel, I felt a little more confident today than I had been on this trip. There were a few sections of extremely deep, soft gravel, and even some areas of pea gravel, and I motored through without any troubles. I’m still not very fast in corners, but hopefully speed will come with experience.
When we reached FS Road 15 heading to Big Lake, it was nearly 1pm and we had to make a decision: ride on to Big Lake through the closed Santiam OHV Area, or turn west for home.
We decided to head west and take the long way home, piecing together a route from interesting looking roads on the GPS. Our Benchmark map showed a point called “Wolf Rock - Largest Monolith In Oregon” so of course we had to take a look.
It was a really big rock. Very impressive. We marveled at it for a while and wondered if it was suitable for climbing, as most of it looked very crumbly and unstable.
After we got back home, I did some research on Wolf Rock and found the following photo, which made me laugh.
I also found this wonderful video of Wolf Rock, which shows off the scale of the thing.
Continuing on, there were other points of geological interest along the way.
And more vistas to see.
We reached Sweet Home just in time for dinner and a root beer float, and I rolled into my driveway right as the sun set on a most excellent trip.
