The (should have been) dry side of the Cascades

There were 4 riders saying they would join the fun today. Two of us showed up.
Dave and I started off from Hood River this morning on a quest to ride the Cherry of a Ride route........one week late because we "had to ride" the Monster Cookie Metric Century last week.


We started out on the section of the Historic Columbia Gorge Hwy that is closed to auto traffic. Here we travel through the Mosier Twin Tunnels.


The weather was drier on this side of the Cascades than it was in Portland, but still surprisingly wet for a place that only gets 12" of rain a year. We had a light but persistent rain for the first 25 miles. The light rain wasn't totally a bad thing, it helped keep us cool on our climb of 7 Mile Hill.


The Gorge is just full of blooming wildflowers this time of year. A very pretty ride indeed.


Since the official Cherry of a Ride was last week we had to take care of our own nutrition and hydration needs. Here we stopped to refuel before climbing Chenowith Creek Rd.


At mile 31 we were back down to river level in The Dalles and had a nice view of The Dalles Dam before climbing back out of the Gorge.

After a bit of climbing we were on Emerson Loop Rd and in rolling wheat land. The weather here on our eastern most section of the ride was dry and warm.



There were some classic rural eastern Oregon views.



After a stop at the water I stashed the night before for a refill we began the ride back down to The Dalles.


We would arrive back in The Dalles at our 80 mile mark, but for the last 4 miles into town we were treated to some moderate rain. We made a very slight detour to Safeway where we had a balanced diet....1 corn dog, 1 V8 juice. (balanced because it's one junk food and one healthy offering!)


We soon were on the Rowena Loops making our way up to Rowena Crest.
(Lupine in full bloom)







From Rowena Crest we enjoyed a fast descent to Mosier, but not before riding through some of the heaviest rain I've every biked through, complete with lightning and thunder! Once done with that we pedaled back through the Mosier Twin Tunnels and back into Hood River where after 106 miles with 11647 ft of climbing it was time to enjoy the fruits of our labor!


Even with more rain than we had expected it was a good ride.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
...............Road Bike.....LifeCycle.....Total Miles
Today...........106...............0................106
Jan total.......501.....+.........30.......=.......531
Feb total.......614.....+.........0........=.......614
March total.....860.....+.........0........=.......860
April total.....790.....+.........0........=.......790
May total.......106.....+.........0........=.......106
Year to date...2906.....+.........30.......=......2936
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