Day 11: July 2 Baker City to Hell's Canyon 70 miles

Thursday, 7/2/81
Hell's Canyon campground

I'm at the bottom of Hell's Canyon! Biked 70 miles from Baker today. I'll start early so I can climb out while it's cool. It's only 4:30! The reason I made such good time is it was downhill almost all the way. Except for one hot, long, steep five-mile stretch after lunch.

Two of my fellow travelers have caught up with me. I'm not as fast as I thought.

Baker City & Blue Mountains.

Oregon Trail monument.

The two other riders who joined me were Jack, 63, and Bret, 34. They belonged to a bicycle club in Michigan. They had flown to Portland with their bikes so they could ride the TransAmerica Trail (It's just a route--not really a trail.) to its end in Yorktown, Virginia. (It starts at Astoria, Oregon.)

Rick, 19, joined us too that evening. He had ridden up the coast from San Francisco, across the trail and, upon reaching Virginia, planned to ride up the east coast to Boston. Quite an undertaking! I never met anyone who knew maps like Rick. People from anywhere in the country would tell him their hometown and he knew it, the towns around it, and the highways approaching it. The only town that stumped him was Clifton, Kansas, He knew how the streets were numbered in Seattle and he had only been there once, as a child.

From here on, the four of us rode together, more or less, all the way to Denver.

Due to the canyon walls, the sun set at about 6 PM.