Six months of planning, watching the weather, reading snow reports, following highway openings, crossing “T’s” and dotting my “i’s” – none of that matters when I can’t control the weather.
Before I left on my journey to Yosemite National Park, the weather in Central Oregon was 85-90 degrees. I was watching the weather closely when I decided to leave a week early because a cool-down was forecasted for the region. The weather was predicted to be in the mid 60’s in Central Oregon. I chose to leave so I wouldn’t be submerged into suffocating 90 degree weather, in the shade, after nine months of cycling in 50 degree rainy weather.
With all my planning, I couldn’t predict that a large low pressure system would drop out of the Gulf of Alaska planting itself on top of the Pacific Northwest while I was cycling to Yosemite. The low pressure system would make riding difficult by lower snow levels, kicking-up Southwesterly winds, and bringing dangerous crosswinds all while forcing me to stay out of my planned mountain route, thereby keeping me on US Highway 97.
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| Looking Down Upon Madras |
I’ve previously used Oregon State’s published Bicycle Map finding it to be accurate. Because of this, I placed a good deal of trust in said map which allowed me to deviate from my planned route, if circumstances forced me to do so. One never knows what conditions may arise on these journeys, such as: poor road or trails, and maybe bad weather. The Oregon State Bicycling Map offers information detailing main highways with stats such as: summit passes, and most importantly shoulder width on the main highways. This time though, I found the maps shoulder data of US Highway 97 very misleading. Most importantly, the first 140 miles stated to have a shoulder of two to four feet. It doesn’t. The first 140 miles (Klamath Falls region) of US Highway 97 has an average shoulder width of 2 feet, or less.
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| Snow Storm in La Pine, Oregon |
Reaching Klamath Falls by pedaling south on Highway 97 from Madras was a very spine-tingling feat. On more than one occasion I was forced to leave the shoulder ditching the bike (and myself) into the soft gravel culvert. My eye was continually fixated onto my review mirror watching, and hoping, the traffic would drive around me. This southerly riding was made all the more challenging with a wind racing northeasterly, blowing out of the southwest, effectively pushing me into the middle of Highway 97 where cars, jacked-up pickups, buses, RVs, and large noisy semi-tractor-trailers, would pass me by at 60 MPH; sometimes only leaving me with a cushion of 6 inches. And that wasn’t the scary part of the highway. What’s worse is when two oncoming vehicles are taking up both lanes of the highway…
My decision to abandon my trip was made suddenly on the 26th of May 2013. I took the back roads out of Klamath Falls, Oregon, meeting highway 97 approximately 11 miles south of the city center of Klamath Falls. Pedaling to meet up with the highway was a cold process riding directly into the winds that were racing out of the Southwest. The days forecast was for 15-25 MPH Winds with gusts into the 40’s. Again, the weather forecast was accurate. When I came upon the highway, turning southerly, I could see the storms off in the distance. With the winds, low traffic on the highway (Sunday of Memorial Day Weekend), and the high winds trying to push me into traffic, my decision to abandon the journey wasn’t a hard decision to come to.
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| Killing Time wearing two coats cause it’s cold |
406 miles of a 750 mile trip to Yosemite had been completed as of that Sunday. None of those 406 miles had been originally planned and routed. Riding up Mt. Bachelor would find me traversing through high winds, rain, snow, and sleet. And now I was coming upon Mount Shasta, where much of the same weather was on order. When I came upon the intersection of Highway 97 south of Klamath Falls, I perceived the end.
There was a bend in the highway which was a dogleg to the left that rose and then fell away after the turn which created a blind corner with impaired sight distance. The traffic was light that day, although the semi-truck traffic appeared to be one truck per every thirty seconds, on average. I sat at the side of the road counting the trucks. I was nervous because the dogleg had a shoulder of no more than six inches coupled with high winds pushing me into the road. Not only that, the dogleg shoulder led to a drop-off into a culvert about five feet deep leaving me with no options to bailout should a truck race around the corner.
This situation had me nervous. If traffic were heavy I would have just forced myself onto the shoulder making myself visible to traffic, and thereby forcing them to swerve around me. But, being that there wasn’t traffic, and the only traffic on the highway at 8:00amwas commercial truckers, I felt very nervous about negotiating this dogleg. It wouldn’t take much for a trucker to drive through this dogleg corner with impaired sight distance coming up behind me and ending my life. With no traffic on a Sunday morning, and bad weather, who’d think a cyclist would be pedaling south towards Mt Shasta with a forecast of snow, high winds, thunderstorms, and cold temperatures? I wasn’t about to tempt fate. I turned around heading back to where I came from.
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| Storms awaiting me south of K Falls. End Game! |
I stopped at a rest-stop on Highway 97 and consulted my maps. The only way around was for me to head east and cycle clear around Mt Shasta meeting CA. HWY 89 South of Mt Shasta, California. This route would force me well above the snow level which was hovering around 4,000 to 5,000 feet. My bypassing of the last 75 miles from Klamath Falls to Weed would have me cycling mountain passes at 7,000 feet. That wasn’t happening… I had to abandon my journey.
I rented a car and safely drove home.
The Naturally Aspirated Adventures of Tim 