September 23, 2008
Day 27: To Hart mountain
The temperature was 32F at 7:30. About what I expected. Before leaving the campground I walked down a trail to see the Donner und Blitzen river. It's a very popular trout stream. The valley is a basin, so the river flows into a big wetland where the water evaporates.
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I got on the road at 8:40, pedaling 4 miles of washboarded gravel back to Frenchglen. I got to town just after 9 AM when the mercantile is supposed to open, but I waited 10 more minutes for the proprietor to show up. I stocked up because this will be my last store for 2 days.
Frenchglen has a store, hotel, and elementary school but not much else. The population is probably less than 100.
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Heading south from Frenchglen is a steep 10% grade that climbs 600 feet. Then after a small descent the road becomes fairly level.
After 7 miles of pavement on highway 205 I turned right onto Rock Creek road. From here it is 47 miles of gravel to the Hart Mountain hot spring campground. But it will be 65 miles of gravel before I get back to pavement tomorrow afternoon. The road is relatively smooth at first. But the washboards and loose rocks became gradually worse. A car would go by about every half hour, so dust wasn't much of a problem. The road starts nearly level but I know that my destination is 1500 feet higher than the start of the gravel road. Most of the climbing is close to Hart mountain when I was very tired. The last several miles had been recently graded, so the tires had huge rolling resistance through the loose gravel. And of course I had a headwind because I'm going west. Needless to say progress was slow.
It was another long day with many hours pedaling and not very much time resting. The days are getting shorter. Fortunately the weather was much warmer than yesterday. 75F and not as windy as yesterday.
I entered Hart Mountain Antelope Refuge several miles before getting to the actual mountain. The last several miles were steady uphill with a strong headwind, into the setting sun. I saw a couple of antelope near the road.
I arrived at Hart Mountain Antelope Refuge headquarters just as the sun was setting behind Hart mountain. I filled my water bottles because I know there is no drinking water at the campground. Then I pedaled the last 4 uphill miles to the campground (6000 feet elevation) and set up my tent in the fading light. The temperature dropped rapidly but it wasn't as cool as last night where I was at lower elevation.
The Hart mountain hot spring campground is only open from July 15 through October 15. Apparently it's reserved for antelope before July 15. A very nice hot spring is walking distance from the campground. I had a long night soak there, enjoying the view of a million stars.
This was a long hard day. Long distance at a slow average speed. Mostly on gravel, mostly uphill, with a headwind. I will definitely be tired tomorrow.
Distance: 59.1 miles (94.5 km), 51 miles unpaved
Climbing: 2556 feet (775 m)
Average speed: 7.5 mph (12 km/h)
Maximum speed: 21 mph (33.6 km/h)
Today's ride: 59 miles (95 km)
Total: 1,204 miles (1,938 km)
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