Day 7 June 28, Leaburg to Prineville 122 miles

Wild Rhododendron near Proxy Falls

Sunday, 6/28/81
Prineville, OR City Park

Got up at 6:00 and climbed McKenzie Pass. Took five hours, 22 miles. Great scenery on top, see the pictures. 

Ride into Sisters was nice, but short. What a change! From almost rain forest to almost desert in one day. Fantastic! Lunch in Sisters. Camped in Prineville City Park. Sprinklers came on twice during the night.

McKenzie Pass was the worst climb of the entire trip: twenty miles of steep switchbacks up and over McKenzie Pass. There was a less steep alternate route over Santium Pass, but it was longer and less scenic. I never even considered it. A couple of weeks later in Montana, I heard about a guy who climbed half way up McKenzie Pass, gave up, turned around and took Santium Pass. Talk about doing things the hard way!

Three Sisters, McKenzie Pass

I stopped half way up McKenzie Pass to hike in half a mile to two of the prettiest waterfalls I have ever seen. That helped. I did some climbs later on that were shorter and less steep than McKenzie Pass, but were nevertheless much more uncomfortable. The difference was the weather. McKenzie Pass was on the west and therefore the cool side of the Cascades. All the other climbs were on the east and therefore the hot side of the Cascades. The difference was most noticeable.

McKenzie Pass lava.

At the top of McKenzie Pass, surrounded by the snow-covered peaks of the Cascade Mountains, is a huge black lava flow with a complete absence of life, which is a characteristic of relatively fresh flows. It was quite disconcerting to see it up here in the mountains instead of down in eastern Oregon where one expects that sort of thing.

That night in Prineville City Park, I was with with two other bikers. The mayor said it wasn’t policy to allow camping in the park, but they’d let us do it just this once. What he forgot to tell us was that the automatic sprinkler system comes on at 1 AM. I never hopped out of a sleeping bag so fast in my life! I managed to wedge my helmet in the sprinkler closest to me and thus averted disaster. The other bikers were all right because they had a tent. It was a bit noisy since the sprinkler nozzle was only four feet away from the tent and was spraying water with a force that would normally send it 25 feet. Eventually, the water subsided and we drifted off to sleep again, only to be awakened at 3 AM with a repeat performance. It was generally a bad night.

Llamas outside Sisters, Oregon.

Looking back at the Cascades from Central Oregon.