The Cave Lake starting point just south of Lakeview was much greener and more lush than I had imagined! It was fun to meet and chat with some of the other bikepackers.
The race starts on a steep-ish climb. I was initially just chilling in the back, but gradually began catching up to people. A couple of riders and I encountered some tricky trail-finding for a little bit. We finally found our trail and turned onto a singletrack through a burn-section. Just then we heard a loud crack and a boom! A tree had fallen down right next to us! I heard that one of the riders got this on GoPro. This was a good reminder for choosing where not to camp.
The day got hot on open gravel roads heading towards Cox Creek trail, and I squirted water on me a few times. The trail went through another burn area. It was beautiful in its regrowth, with many wildflowers, and had some fun moments, but a lot of it was starting to disappear under the brush.
I missed and had to backtrack for the turn to the start of the Fremont NRT. The start of this trail (not pictured) was pretty overgrown! It descends into a drainage, where I was bushwhacking just below the “trail”, which took a while for me to eventually find.
I finally made it to Moss Pass just after sunset, around 9pm. There were three gals setting up camp for the night. One of them was asking what my highlights were for the day and I had trouble recalling them because all I could think about was that last bit of bushwhacking. 😂 I really wanted to stop and chat and make my dinner, but all I had was .5 liter of water, so I needed to go a quarter of a mile away to an “unnamed spring” and was going to find a camp spot there.
The spring was off-trail, down a slope which I tromped down in the dark, but I wasn’t finding it. There wasn’t a flat campsite here either. Since the next “unnamed spring” was only 3 miles away and right next to the trail, I decided to just go to that one instead. When I got there, I saw that there was a dead mouse floating in the trough. The “critter stick”, a wooden plank that is typically placed in spring troughs so that small animals can self-rescue, was sitting on the ground next to the trough. Luckily there was a small trickle of water on the hillside away from the dead mouse and I could get a little bit of it into my water filter. But I needed to go find a better water source and a flatter camp spot that wasn’t up on the ridge in the wind.
I ended up climbing that whole big ridge that night, missing Morgan Butte fire lookout and many signed “Scenic View” areas, regrettably. I ended up finding a running stream within a couple miles of the Chewaukan river. I got more water and decided it was too late to make my camp meal and that all I wanted was sleep. After searching for a camp spot there, I realized there was nothing but dead trees overhead, so I had to move on. Luckily I found a safe spot in a meadowy section .3 miles ahead. It was 2 a.m.
To my dot-watcher friends, it had looked like I made a race “move” on the women’s field, but really all I could think about was water and a suitable camp site. I try to keep my priorities in order these days: 1) Be safe 2) Enjoy the experience 3) Finish and then, and only then… 4) Try for my “A” time goal. I always have a B and maybe even a C time goal. Riding at 2 am wasn’t part of my plan, but it was better than perching my bivy on a steep slope or out in the wind with no water. This accidentally put me ahead of the other women in the grand depart, and I would not see them for the remainder of the race.
Day 1 stats from my account on Strava :
Oh, and the camp move occurred after stopping the Garmin. 🙄
