DAY 3
What a a day! Rained for about 80% of the ride and snowed for about 10% of the ride. The morning started out raining as we made our way up Northern California into Oregon as we were headed for Crater Lake National Park Lodge to stay the night. As we climbed up the mountains toward Crater Lake it began to snow, light at first then heavier. Snow was piled to 30 feet high on both sides of the road. As the snow got heavier it stuck to our windscreens and then to our helmet visors. Our glasses were fogged so those had to go. The helmet visors had to be up because of the snow that was sticking to them. You had to look over the windscreen because it was covered in snow. This resulted in snow flakes hitting you in the in the face at 25 mph. So we reached over our windscreens and would wipe off 3 inches of snow from the top of the windscreen and look through that until it got covered with snow again and would wipe it again and repeat and repeat the process. We got to the park entrance where you pay your entrance fee and the ranger said to turn back. It was 6 miles to the lodge and was snowing harder the farther you went. So we made a u-turn and headed back down the mountain. Eventually the snow changed to rain and we were so happy to see rain. We are spending the night in Klamath Falls, Oregon.
Snow and ice still on the windscreen after we came down off the mountain.
Look how calm I am, if this was a video I would be shaking. Note the ice on the windscreen!
DAY 4
What a day again! Left Klamath Falls and headed east to get to Hines, OR. Went about 50 miles and hit the mountains. We could see what looked like rain in the distance, the temperature was about 42 degrees. As we climbed farther into the mountains it was f*%#ing snowing! AGAIN! So, we turned around and headed back down the mountain to a small town we had passed. All they had was a gas station and cafe so we had lunch at this little cafe with the locals. A couple of real characters were sitting next to us and one really nice guy who also road motorcycles and was very helpful. We waited there for about an hour and headed back out. The snow had passed and we got over the mountains. Southeast Oregon is amazing. There are very few paved roads and vast empty spaces. The scenary varied from massive bluffs, sand drifts, miles of scrub brush, and a white alkalia lake. At some points the roads were twisty and other times it was like driving in Arizona, you could see 5 miles down the road. During this portion of the ride we went through a hale storm. Hale makes an interesting sound when it hits your helmet. Temperatures today varied from 41 to 52 degrees. It is normally 70 this time of year. When we are riding along and get chilled we just turn on our seat warmer and hand grip warmers and we are good to go for more miles. We were fortunate to have a heavy rain storm ahead of us that we never caught and we only ended up driving on wet roads. We are relaxing at the hotel now. Ross, the old man, is in the hot tub while I type this.
Views in SE Oregon about 15 east of Klamath Falls.
Beautiful Bluffs in SE Oregon.
You would think we were in Arizona.
This was a fun twisty road that followed the lake along the base of the mountains. Go as fast as you want because we only saw one car every 10 miles.
Simple rest stop with outhouses in the 90 mile stretch with no gas; no running water out here.
