San Francisco, CA

Once I arrived back in Portland I retrieved my car and started heading back south. I was thinking of camping in Oregon for the night and trying to make it to Oakridge, OR the next morning for some mountain biking, but the forecast was even worse now than the week before when I passed by, so I bypassed that and made it back to the Shasta Lake area where I had camped on my way north. As I passed through the mountains in Oregon I could see that there was a decent covering of snow on the ground up above 4000’ meaning mountain bike season in the area was pretty much done for the year. I had resevations for the night in Pescadero at a hostel that is in the former lightkeepers quarters of an old lighthouse, and since Oakridge was out I had some time to kill. Originally, I left San Francisco out of my plans since I had been there a few times before and thought that I should spend my time exploring other areas, but with no where better to go I decided to spend the afternoon by the bay. I drove in and parked at the Marin Headlands where I ditched the car and unloaded my bike. Being the birthplace of mountain biking, I figured I had to do some riding around there and took off on a fireroad that led me down to the beach below the Golden Gate Bridge. Despite the history in the area, mountain biking has been pretty much eliminated from the headlands with bikes not allowed on any trails, but the fireroads were good enough for the casual ride that I had in mind. After cruising around the headlands for a short while, I rode across the Golden Gate and headed for Chinatown for dinner. Once fed I headed back to the car, and remembered that I no longer had my tailight, which was either stolen in Portland or lost on the train to Seattle. Fortunately, the streets were lit well enough that I was visible to cars and didn’t have to worry much, especially considering that I only had a short ride until I reached the Presidio where there was virtually no traffic. I made my way back across the Golden Gate and found an attendant waiting at the other side to close the gate for the night as soon as I got off. Fortunately I wasn’t any later than I was, or I would have been in trouble. After loading everything back into the car, I headed to Pescadero for the night so I could tell everyone that I spent the night in a lighthouse.

Vancouver, BC

I arrived in Canada via train and promptly received a grilling from the customs official. Apparently, anyone with long hair is a drug smuggler because the border patrol seemed very suspicious of me. Regardless, they let me in and I rode Mikey over to the hostel where I was staying. Once settled in I grabbed some lunch and set out for Stanley Park to take on the 10 mile Seawall greenway ride. This ride follows the boundary of Stanley Park, Vancouvers version of NY’s Central Park, which is mostly along the waterfront with excellent views of downtown as well as the surrounding mountains. The next day, I had plans to take on the Grouse Grind and see the Lynn Canyon Suspension Bridge (the lesser known and much cheaper sibling of the famous Capilano Suspension Bridge), but unfortunately I was too late in the year to take on the Grind, which was recently shut down due to winter conditions. The weather that day was pretty chilly, with highs only in the 40’s and rainy during the morning, making the 10 mile bike ride to Lynn Canyon pretty unappealing. I checked the bus routes only to find that I would need to take three different routes to get there, taking a little over an hour each way, so I decided to scrap that idea. Instead, I went over to the Granville Island Public Market to check things out there. Once done, I went to Chinatown and then back to Stanley Park, this time to do some hiking through the old growth forest. As it turns out, there are a lot of unmarked trails in the park that are not shown on the map, so I just picked one and wondered around for a couple of hours until I crossed one of the marked paths, which I followed back to my bike. By this time, it was beginning to get dark so I headed back to get ready for my return to the US.

Seattle, WA

The next morning, I woke up and immediately put on my backpack and rode my bike down to the Amtrak station. Since I was planning on staying in hostels that were downtown in both Seattle and Vancouver, BC, parking a car was going to be a headache, so I left my car parked for free in Portland and took the train up north, which turned out great. The train was no where near full, so I could use the empty seat next to me to stretch out, there was an abundance of power outlets so I could use my laptop for entertainment, and I was able to roll my bike right up to the baggage cart where it was put in a bike rack for the trip. Once in Seattle, I went and dumped my things at the hostel, which was just across the street from the famous Pike Place Marketplace. I went down to the waterfront and walked around the parks there, then went by the Space Needle and strolled through downtown on the way back to the hostel. The weather was exactly what you would expect from Seattle; dreary, chilly, and light rain. Walking along the Puget Sound in those conditions made it tough to keep Death Cab songs out of my head. The next morning was still cold, but surprisingly sunny. I picked up a morning coffee from the first ever Starbucks store and spent some more time strolling along the waterfront. I had plans to go to two museums that day, The Experience Music Project and The Museum of Flight. I decided to see EMP first and went there in the late morning. The museum was excellent with good exhibits about the Seattle music scene and a little about the evolution of some musical instruments. At the end of the museum, you even get a chance to play some music yourself with the interactive exhibits. When I finished there, I got on my bike and headed for a restaurant that I had in mind for lunch to grab a bite to eat before catching the bus for the Museum of Flight. Shortly after leaving EMP I stopped at a red light, and when I went to pedal away my chain came off of the gears, causing me to lose my balance and fall over the handlebars, landing on my chin. A very nice lady that was returning to work helped me to assess the damage and let me come back to her office building to find the nearest Urgent Care center. Once I knew where to go, I put my chain back on and pedaled away, only to find when I arrived that there was an hour or more wait at Urgent Care. I waited in line and when I saw the doctor, received five stitches on my chin. By this time it was late afternoon and far too late to make it to the Museum of Flight, so I called it a day and got ready to head to Canada the next morning.

Portland, OR

I left California first thing in the morning heading to Oregon. I was hoping to stop in mountain biking hotspot Oakridge, OR to enjoy some of the trails, but the weather was cold and threatening to rain, so I opted to save some time and stay on the freeway. I made it to Portland sometime in the late afternoon, with enough time to check into the hostel I was staying at and explore the downtown area a little bit before dark. I made it downtown in time to check out a few stores and pick out somewhere to get dinner. One of the most prominent downtown businesses is Powell's City of Books, which claims to be the worlds largest bookstore, which takes up an entire city block and is four stories high. I went inside and promptly got lost wandering around the giant store. I did eventually find my bearings and was able to pick up a good used copy of Keroauc's "On The Road," which is any road trippers bible. The next morning I was up bright and early, ready to hit the town. The weather was pretty wet and rainy, but I thought of that as being a part of the Pacific NW experience so I hopped on my bike to go. It did not take very long to realize that this was a mistake as my jeans got soaking wet and I started to freeze. Fortunately, Portland is the kind of town where you can pull over pretty much any time and walk into a store to buy a new pair of Gore-tex pants for half off, which is exactly what I did. I went back to the hostel to change into dry clothes and set off again. I went down to the waterfront to hang out around the waterfront park, and see Mill Ends park, the worlds smallest park, which is right next door. While I was in the area, I went to grab some lunch at an all veg chinese restaurant in Chinatown and continued exploring downtown, this time in the area of Portland State University, and made sure to scout out a good route to the Amtrak station where I would be heading first thing the next morning.

Waterfront Park

Yosemite National Park

I woke up in California and made sure that the Sierra mountain pass roads were still open, then headed towards Yosemite. I came in the eastern entrance, which goes over the highest pass in the Sierras, just shy of 10,000ft. I underestimated the length it would take to drive from the entrance to the visitor center, which ended up taking a couple of hours, and put me at mid morning before I could check out the trail maps and decide where I would be going in the afternoon.


I decided to get out of the valley and hike to the summit of Sentinel Dome, a easy day hike that I had plenty of time for, and would take me away from the crowds of the valley trails. To get to the trailhead, I had to drive for several miles of constant up hill where I would turn off onto Glacier Point Rd. to park. Unfortunately, Glacier Point Rd. is currently under construction and shut down to one lane, meaning that I would have to wait for about 20 mins before it was my turn to go. I put the car in park and started changing into my hiking gear and making sure I had plenty of water to take with me. Just a minute or two before we were allowed to go on the road I noticed that some steam was starting to come from the hood of my car. I pulled over and watched as everyone else headed on to their destination and waited for my overheating engine to cool down. After moving the car, I saw a pool of antifreeze beneath where I was waiting and popped the hood to find that I was nearly out of coolant at this point. One of the construction workers was kind enough to donate a jug of water so that I wouldn't have to dip into my drinking water supply, and I coasted back into the valley to by some antifreeze. Once that was taken care of, I decided that it was too late in the day to attempt to start my hike and that I should take the car for a test ride to make sure there were no bigger problems with the engine. I remembered that just south of the park is Sierra National Forest, so I headed that direction into the town of Oakhurst, CA to resupply and plan out where to go from there. Once done there, I made my way back towards the park and found a road to camp on within about 100 yards of the park entrance. Once the sun came back up, I headed into the park to get on the trails while they were still quiet and the hike went off without a hitch this time. This also left me with some time to hike down and see a few giant Sequoias on my way out of the park that afternoon. Once out of the park, I headed to Stockton, CA for some dinner on my up north. I ended up camping that night in Northern CA, near Shasta lake, with Oregon in my sights for the morning.

Lake Tahoe

I got to Tahoe with plans to spend the afternoon riding the Flume Trail neat Incline Village, NV. I took a little time when I first arrived to walk around the beach that belongs to some country club and then went to find some lunch to fuel up for my ride. Once fed, I drove and parked at the end of the trail. Most people opt to shuttle this ride and eliminate that 10 miles of road riding to the start of the trail, but I decided to save my money and ride it out. Once to the end of the road, I went into the state park that leads to the trail head and climbed up to Marlette Lake, which fed the flume that the trail is named after. Years ago, this lake and flume were used to get water down to the lower elevation mining towns in Nevada, but in the 1980's the flume was removed and a trail is left on the side of the mountain in its place. Almost the entire trail is perched on the side of a steep dropoff with great views of the lake at all times from a few hundred feet above.


I originally planned to spend the night somewhere along the Tahoe Rim Trail and spend a little more time at the lake in the morning, but the weather forecast wasn't looking too great, so I started making my way south after dinner in South Tahoe. I made it down into California before stopping for the night in Stanislaus National Forest. Fortunately, the border stop at the NV/CA state line didn't stop me for too long, but I wonder why such a thing is even necessary. Regardless, I made in and was in striking distance of Yosemite for the following day.

Back on the Road

I finally got my car back last Tuesday, 11/3/09, only 6.5 weeks after taking it to the shop. I loaded up on Wednesday morning headed towards the west coast. On the way out of Colorado, I stopped by Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, which was just off of the highway that I was on. I spent around an hour and a half there, driving around to the various overlooks, but not taking the time to do any real hiking.

Black Canyon of the Gunnison

Once finished there, I got back on the road and made it to Salt Lake City where I stopped for an oil change, per the engine manufacturers recommendations. While there, the mechanics found a defect in one of my front tires and warned me not to go any further with it in that condition. They referred me to a tire shop where I got a new set of front tires and was back to driving. After being without a car for so long, I was actually slightly enjoying being back behind the wheel, and considered driving straight through to Tahoe, although I would only have a couple of hours before sunrise by the time I got there. I pulled over at a coffee shop in Elko, NV to weigh my options. Fortunately they had an exterior outlet and free wifi that I could use since they had long since closed. I spotted a plot of BLM land near Winnemucca and set my sights there for the night. This turned out to be a great spot, since the interstate exited off directly onto the dirt road where I was planning to camp, meaning I never got more than five minutes away from the freeway. The next morning, I packed up camp and was on schedule to be at Tahoe by mid morning.