The heat remains extreme. The mercury is somewhere north of 95 degrees at the time of my writing this, an evening in Oxbow, Oregon. A stone’s throw across the mighty Snake River from Idaho. I’m sitting on a concrete bench in a campground that baked in the desert sun all day, and even now in the shade, the surface still feels like a cast iron pan that’s only had a few minutes out of the oven. A guy who is camping in an RV told me that, during the heat wave ten days ago, it was 128 degrees here. It’s 5:30 p.m. and the sun is dipping ever so slightly toward the western canyon rim above the site. I’ll cherish the moment my campsite becomes fully shaded.
Every day is between 95 and 99 degrees in this rugged, epic environment of endless sagebrush, high peaks, big climbs, silent canyons and painted hills. Despite the heat, morale remains high. I’ve experienced some challenges that I’ll write about in the second subhed.
Cycling
This section, from Mitchell to Oxbow, was divine. I had high expectations for central and eastern Oregon mostly stemming from a sociological interest in my home state’s high plains. These are places far from the state’s urban centers I haven’t explored at all and I was curious.
A caveat: the winds generally blew in my favor during this portion. I say generally because the wind switched often in these several hundred miles. But I never had to truly battle the wind. On July 7 I left a cafe in Richland, OR at 10 a.m. I’d just met two other cyclists, a couple in their 60s from Pennsylvania, who were headed the opposite direction. That’s west, straight into the gale.
Tough stuff. The wind here, like much of the West, governs whether your ride is sublime, hard or straight-up miserable. I don’t care what your gender is — that shit will put hair on your chest.
But the beauty here is simply epic. Approaching the Blue Mountains is legendary. Strawberry Mountain is huge, so ancient that its caldera has eroded away. Leaving Baker City is mind-blowing. The switchback climb out of Richland is so far my favorite of any pass I’ve ridden so far. Seeing Eagle Cap high in the Wallowas above verdant Halfway is unreal. The green, fast waters of the Snake are a glorious sight in this drought-wracked environment.
If you’re riding in the heat, the only option is to get up early. I’m typically on the bike between 5:30 and 6 a.m. I’m not a morning person and still these early hours of the day have proved blissful. The air is cool, the canyons windless. No cars are on the roads. It feels as if the road was laid just for you.
And the towns on the route are friendly, even bike-centric if you’re on one. The TransAm is on highways that generally don’t have good shoulders, but traffic is mostly very, very light, and drivers in my experience were really respectful. Even the logging trucks gave me huge berths.
A few obstacles: the rapid back-to-back-to-back passes over the Blue Mountains: Dixie, Tipton and Sumpter. Dixie kicked my ass. More on this below.
For lodging, an Adventist church in Dayville doubles as a “hostel.” I personally did not have the best experience here because of the heat. They generously allow you to camp on their lawn or sleep indoors on the floor — the small sanctuary is just steps away through a door — but the heat was too oppressive inside. So I camped on the lawn. This posed a very specific problem for me because it happened to be the Fourth of July that night and it was pretty loud in town.
From here you can camp in Prairie City or over Dixie Pass at Austin Junction. I had a great experience in Prairie City — it’s a thriving little town with many restaurants, bars and a Forest Service headquarters — and would have loved to camp there, but I still had some fight in me so I tackled Dixie and made it to Austin. I camped at the state park there, which is like a half a mile off the road.
That state park, which I’m forgetting the name of (and I don’t have wifi while I write this), has the most impressive hiker-biker site I’ve ever seen. I should say sites, plural, because it’s like a small complex. There must be eight sites and they’re all grassy, amply shaded. In the middle between them stands a birdhouse with electric outlets in the post. Only $8. Christi, or Kristi, who runs the lone restaurant and lodge situation at Austin Junction, said she wasn’t accepting cyclists at the moment. Typically you can camp there if you chat her up, I’ve heard.
In Baker City I stayed with Judy, a Warmshowers host. I really enjoyed it.
Now I’m at Copperfield campground, just down river from the Oxbow Dam. Multiple people told me this site was gorgeous and I’m somewhat disappointed. It’s just a big, average RV site. However there are trees, and trees make shade, and that’s all that really matters in this situation. I can’t tell if I’m unimpressed with the campground only because I’m exhausted.
The best food I’ve eaten recently: Charlie’s subs in downtown Baker City. They appear to have a cult following in town. The cafe in Richland served up a stellar breakfast, and they also do smoothies, and they open at 7 a.m. currently six days a week. Their cups of coffee are unreasonably large.
Body update — 1,200 miles in
People who know me know that I’m an under-developed stick. This is the first time in my life I’ve had a bottomless appetite. Weeklong backpacking trips, of which I’ve done many, had far less influence over my diet than bike touring. On a big tour you’re throwing out calories like a pigeon lady with bread crumbs. I’ve never experienced anything like it.
I haven’t weighed myself, but I’ve clearly lost weight already despite the ridiculous amount of food I’m eating. My wrists feel frail.
I hesitate to write this part because my aunt Carol, when she reads this, will tell me to shape up. She’s studied sports and lifestyle nutrition at OHSU in Portland for years now, examining how athletes, firefighters and the like feed themselves and how that impacts performance. If there is an expert in nutrition, she’s it, and she’s already been texting me with affirmations to eat. Nuts in particular are good, she said.
I felt the caloric deficiency and the heat and sleep deprivation for the first time on Dixie Pass. It’s a steep pass for seven or eight miles out of the high valley beyond Prairie City, if you’re headed east. Nothing out of the ordinary. I’ve done seven or eight serious passes at this point and I know the deal. Plenty of water, lots of sugar to get you up and over if you need it. Breaks in the shade, plenty of water.
I barely slept the night before in Dayville and felt exhausted all day. Yet at the bottom of the pass a rush of energy coursed through me and I resolved to crest the mountain. For reference, this push landed me at like six miles per hour instead of five. It’s not like I’m sprinting up the damn thing.
Twenty minutes and a few miles later, sweat poured from my temples. It was the early afternoon and the end of my day was just over the pass. So I pushed. With the sun high overhead the ponderosas offered no shade on the road. And suddenly I knew that if I didn’t get into shade quickly I would pass out. It wasn’t an immediate risk, but a serious one if ignored.
I made it to a shady patch, a gravel turnout off the highway. I popped my headphones off and my breathing was ragged and I languidly opened my panniers to assemble a menagerie of snacks: pop tarts, chex mix, candy, and the dregs of a powerade I topped off with water to retain the taste. And I laid down in the dirt with my head propped against my back pannier and just ate and drank a virtual bucket of water — knowing that as much as I wanted was down the pass, if I could just get there. I laid there seven or eight feet from this lightly-trafficked highway in the gravel and watched an unmoving ponderosa for entertainment. It was surprisingly beautiful, that unassuming turnoff on Highway 7.
I knew that it was only becoming hotter as the minutes ticked by. I had maybe two miles left of pure climbing. When I stood up the road was blinding in the glare, like fire, and I was light -headed. A mile later I threw my bike down in a measly strip of shade and laid on the hot pavement. Another mile and I began coasting down the long stretch to the restaurant at Austin Junction. I then devoured a big huckleberry shake in like three minutes.
The interaction of extreme heat and my shrinking fat stores pushed me to double-down on food. At the suggestion of a lovely man I met in Dayville, a seasoned cyclist named Steve, I purchased a bag of protein powder. This is already really helping. I’m also forcing myself to eat literally double of whatever portion I’d typically have. And “forcing” is the wrong word choice here. If I make it for myself, or if I buy it, I have no problem eating it.
It’s hard work but rewarding riding out here. I feel good, despite the hiccup on Dixie, and riding a minimum of 50 miles per day. I’m usually done by 1:30 p.m.
Encounters
My spirit animal during this section is Nick. I’ve never met Nick, even though twice in four days we’ve slept in the same house. Nick arrives very late, near 10:30, when I’m in a twilight between wakefulness and sleep. I first heard his hushed voice in the Mitchell hostel when one of the hosts walked him to his bunk. The three of us original occupants had long since hit the sack.
“Thank you,” he whispered to her again and again, loudly. I heard the click of his bike as the tires rolled in the dark.
The host sounded tired and said it was no problem, no problem. I heard Grant — another guy named Grant — shift in his sheets next to me. I was less annoyed and more interested in this person who’d arrived after nightfall.
“Thank you,” he whispered again. “Such a rough day. So freaking hot out there and that pass just took way longer than I expected, I ran out of water and…”
And I fell asleep.
In the pre-dawn morning I found he’d pulled the curtains around his bunk. I tip-toed my bike past his at 5:30. A bit of a hap-hazard pack job it seemed to me: an oversized tent and some other large bag strapped under his handlebars, no front rack, and a lot of weight on the back. I walked through the doors and into the morning and found I’d have a headwind that day, so I immediately forgot all about the guy.
Until Judy walked me through her home in Baker City.
“There’s another cyclist arriving tonight. I hope that’s OK with you.”
“Totally,” I probably, and politely, said.
“His name is Nick.” She looked at me. “Ring any bells.”
“Nope.”
We sat in the heat in her living room and talked for hours about her career in medical illustration. She’d produced a portfolio of these high-resolution, intricate photos of mosquitos and their eggs she took with the Smithsonian’s micron camera — her last job, she said, and one she had for 13 years — when her phone rang. She put it on speaker.
The wind howled through it.
The man was exhausted. Demoralized. Defeated.
“These passes, man. I’m still a couple of hours out. I should get there around 10:30. If that’s too late for you to accommodate me, I understand.”
Judy accentuated her words one at a time. “It is absolutely not a problem. There is a place for you here, whenever you arrive. I’ll get your bed ready for you.”
I woke up at 10:30 with the dog barking. From the basement windows I saw the white wash of a headlamp and two sets of feet, and two bike wheels. I fell back asleep.
In the still-dark morning, there he was. Sprawled, face-first, on a twin mattress Judy had set in the dining room. A young guy. The room was still uncomfortably hot from the previous day’s sun.
Judy was awake to walk her dog and I stood there sipping the coffee she’d made me for a moment taking it all in. A man who’d slept too little and in his own sweat. He looked how I felt.
It appears that he is riding in the heat of the day, unlike every other cyclist I’ve met so far on the TransAm. Perhaps he’s waking up just a bit too late and riding a bit too slowly to beat the heat. I wonder if I’ll see him again some night.
Nick, if I ever meet you, I’m going to shake your hand. You’re gonna make it.
***
I exchanged few, if any, words with Gingus. The man hurled horseshoes across the lawn to the disappointment and hilarity of the dozens of Dayville locals watching from their vantage, a small hill in the shade. I sat with them. It was the Fourth of July and so hot that I felt like I was being broiled alive as I sat and drank my beers. Too hot for the annual goat roping, they told me, because they were worried that a goat or two might perish in the heat. Devastating news.
Gingus flailed as he tossed the horseshoes. One off the mark. Then another. Always off. He’d grimace when the second one thunked into the dirt, nowhere close to the pole. He’d slump and scratch his goatee with a guilty look.
Maybe he was generally good at the sport, and this was an off-day. Maybe he always sucked. He was perhaps in his 50s, white and deeply tanned and deathly skinny, as if he’d flocked home for the Fourth between Caribbean sailing excursions. He guzzled Bud Lights. Couldn’t hurt at this point, I thought.
“What the fuck was that, Gingus?!” someone heckled him.
“Gingus, the hell is wrong with you man.”
Someone told me Dayville is a town of no less than 120 denizens. It was a tournament and I wondered how Gingus had advanced past a single game. Half the town, easily, sat on the grassy knoll, and all of them agreed Gingus was awful at horseshoes. You could see it in their faces as the game continued.
His name isn’t actually Gingus. I don’t know what it is. They started calling him Gingus halfway through the match. They were relentless. They relished in it.
This worried his girlfriend. I could tell they hadn’t been together long because she looked out of place in the menagerie, as I did, and the mob was not inviting. Rail thin, tanned, with dyed platinum hair, she had the look of a sundowning Motley Crew groupie. I’m sure she has many redeeming qualities but, hey, that’s what she looked like. She’d carried a chair over and sat delicately next to me, which elicited snickers from the rabble because the knoll was too steep to place a chair and she sat awkwardly, perched on the front of the seat, so as to not stain her dress on the grass. Gingus gurgled beers and watched as his opponents, a co-ed and altogether steel-eyed combo, sunk point after point. He dragged his feet as he walked over to her.
“Gingus?” She whispered to him. Only I could hear. “What does that mean?”
“Oh. I wouldn’t worry about it,” he told her, affectionately.
She shook her head slightly. “It sounds like a bad word.”
“It’s no big deal,” he said. “Don’t worry.”
It was clear Gingus and his anonymous partner would easily lose. He began appealing for the other team to put him out of his misery.
***
Steve told me he’s the whitest one in his family. He’s indigenous, a member of the Pine Ridge tribe from present-day South Dakota. A veteran of the 1973 Wounded Knee occupation. He also claimed he smuggled drugs for the real-life inspiration of Johnny Depp’s character in Blow. I’m not sure what to believe. We sat in the shade in Prairie City, Oregon. I was exhausted and ate an ice cream bar. I scratched his dog, Bonnie.
When I left he put his arms on my shoulders.
“Have you seen the spirit?”
“The spirit?”
“On the road out there.”
“I’m not a very spiritual person,” I said. “I was raised Catholic, but I’m not any more.”
“I’m not talking about religion.”
He said there’s a great spirit that unites us all and this land. “I hope you recognize this on your vision quest when the spirit presents itself.” He took his arms off my shoulders and shook my hand.
“I’ll keep two eyes out,” I promised him.
***
I’ve camped for several nights in a row now next to Terry and Morgan, a father-son combo from South Carolina. Good people. I was really tired after Dixie and took a nap in the shade at the state park. When I woke up, Terry invited me to their table and presented me with a pannier full of ice-cold Banquet Beers. We sat and got to know each other. He’s a financial advisor but well-accustomed to dragging his family across the country for road trips, rafting excursions, bike tours, backpacking, you name it. A big inspiration.
Morgan is a smart kid. She’s tall and built and is searching for the right college to continue her interests in biology and natural science but also her sport, rowing. She’s leaning toward Oregon State.
When you’re on the TransAm, or routes like this out West, towns are generally not close to each other. There’s usually only one reasonable option to camp that day in the 50-60 mile range. So even though they’re riding a bit slower than I am, I see them every night.
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