An experiment in multi-modal technologies

Hello friends and readers,

I’ve decided to start my blogging career by writing about a nice day in the summer of 2021. The pretext of this ride is that Dan had recently sold his mountain bike, and yet, I wanted to go on a bike ride with Dan, so I needed to come up with a route that he, David, and I could all do. In the height of July. That would bring us to some new sights and sounds. And that we could get to and from in a day. These conditions crossed out our usual stomping grounds of Wasco county due to the heat and repetitiveness of our many trips there. The coast range, while cooler and wilder, rarely provides much in the way of views and feels like a waste of a big summer day. Other places are less appealing yet and were not considered.

I became interested in a slightly forgotten portion of Gifford Pinchot National Forest while looking at hikes on Washington Trails Association website. Gifford Pinchot NF is my favorite local forest and I’ve been fortunate to spend many days on its roads and trails, and even a few of its peaks. On the bike side, I’d done a few gravel rides before in the Southern Gifford Pinchot forest, many Mountain Bike rides in the central Gifford Pinchot, but there is one last zone of Gifford Pinchot, the Northern edge, that despite its proximity to Mt. Rainier, is perhaps the least recognized.

There, nestled right up to the edge of the Mt. Rainier National Park, was a short but dramatic little hike to an old fire watchtower, High Rock. High Rock is as dramatic of an outpost imaginable. It sits balanced on a basalt knife edge, a couple thousand feet above the forest floor below, it is literally tethered by chains to keep it planted. To the north, soaking up the whole horizon is Mt. Rainier towering above. To the west, Mt. St. Helens, Hood to the south, and finally Adams to the east. High Rock sits next to an area that I know as Osborne mountain for its backcountry mountain bike trails, but until researching this trip, somehow I’d never cottoned on to the existence of this lookout.

Perhaps…. we could go see the lookout AND get a big ride in? Would combining two different activities result in a sweet treat, or just a briney grind…

I set a route that began north of High Rock in a little hamlet called Ashford. We drove up early to Ashford on a warm Saturday in July, thankful to be past the brutal 115 degrees heatwave in late June. It was during that sweet-spot in summer 2021, when everyone was finally vaccinated and we still believed that was enough to ensure that none of us could catch Coronavirus. David and I had taken off our usual clipless pedals and were using flat pedals with hiking or MTB shoes. Dan chose to ride in clips and bring a spare pair of hiking shoes.We parked up in Ashford and made short work of getting riding, heading east for a couple miles on the National Park highway, before turning southwards, crossing the Nisqually River and getting onto a very quiet gravel road that began ascending the western flank of the Mt. Osborne zone.

It was pleasant but effective climbing, and the feet ticked off by the hundreds, then, at mile 10.5, we turned left onto a side spur, and began climbing a significantly steeper and chunkier road. The road was fine at first, but higher up, there were washouts, ruts, and babyheads. We shifted down into our easiest gears, hung our heads and got on with it while the sun also built its intensity. David had decided to stretch his legs out early and had disappeared from me and Dan, but as is usually the case, he’d pay for his spryness later.

Eventually we turned a hairpin and had some excellent views to the south and finally, started to see some parked cars up ahead. Despite the general remoteness of the area, the one place everyone goes in this neck of the woods is High Rock. As we got closer, there were probably 40 vehicles haphazardly parked around this island in the sky, and to our surprise, several tents with info and pamphlets about the Sand Mountain Society.

We learned that a small crew was up at the lookout at that moment, painstakingly deconstructing it, board by board, nail by nail. Cataloging every piece, packing it all up, and then airlifting everything out by helicopter to be professionally cleaned and restored, before using a helicopter to once again bring everything back in and put it all together again. The most insane jigsaw you’ve ever heard of.

We stashed our bikes in the woods, Dan put on his running shoes, and we started climbing the trail. It was a busy trail containing an equal mix of weekend warriors, college students, and serious hikers, and then three goofy dudes in bike shorts trying to speed hike around everyone. But vibes were mostly good and we hiked up quickly and into the stunning sharpness of this lookout tower at the edge of the world.

We spent a good 15 minutes soaking up the views, chatting with a couple of crew members of the Sand Mountain Society and some tourists, before jogging back down the mountain to our bikes to continue to our journey.

The next section, from a bike perspective, was probably the highlight of the day, absolutely empty gravel roads with great views of Rainier occasionally popping out, massive trees, fun descending, everything you could want. The day was going swimmingly, with the exception of Dan’s left shoe, which had lost a screw and was refusing to clip in. So he put on his running shoe on his left foot only and we got back to it.

We started descending like mad, losing a couple thousand feet and getting very close to Packwood. I’d made a stupid routing decision that saved us a few miles but had us trespass through a gate, hike through a slash zone, and then pop out right next to town. It wasn’t so bad in practice, but there were enough warning to signs to tell us we’d get hell if we were caught. Fortunately that didn’t happen and we strolled into Packwood, which during the summer is filled Rainier tourists, PCT dirtbags, droves of touring motorcyclists, and of course a fair collection of local backwoods folk. We headed to the grocery store and grabbed tons of gatorades, chips, bars etc., and then mozied a couple of blocks away to dig in.

It was peak afternoon, and after stuffing ourselves, the miles of riding and hiking were setting in and I wasn’t particularly enthused for what awaited, but we had to get on with it. To complete our loop, we need to ride the road accompanied Skate Creek, a middle-sized river that climbs 1400′ from Packwood over the course of 13 miles. A pretty tame grade, but we were fully cooked and it took a bit over an hour to get to the highpoint. This was a surprisingly pretty segment of the day, with plenty of people camping out on the banks of the river. We hit the top at about mile 48 on the day and had a nice 13 mile coast back to the Nisqually and then to the car. In the end, we were out for a bit over 7 hours, so almost a full day in the office.

This was the highlight curly bar bike ride of the summer for me, and I hope to ride up here more in the future. It’s a lot closer to Portland than most people think, you just have to make peace with the always annoying I-5 N drive. Til next time!

For those who are interested, here is the strava file, but I’ve got to insist, at mile 32, stay on road 47 and don’t follow our dumb tracks to Packwood. https://www.strava.com/activities/5571065518