Previous: Oregon Outback - Foreword
We met at a cafe in town,
Leap of Taste.
907 Main St. We sat outside, and it was chilly! We got breakfasts, coffee and sandwiches for lunch later.
We bought some groceries, and made our way to the trailhead, getting there around ten. The beginning of the route is the
O.C.&E. railroad trail. It starts out pretty tame, getting more rugged as the miles go by.
We stopped for lunch at an overlook, and then rode maybe 300 yards around a bend to see picnic benches and an outhouse. Ha! If you are at mile marker 32.5, go just a little further up the trail.
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Gummi bears always make me feel better, on the trail.
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Soon we were bouncing across lumpy fields, shooing cattle off the trail, following the beautiful
Sprague River.
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BOUNTIFUL RESOURCES
THE KLAMATH INDIAN RESERVATION
"The Kamath Indian Reservation had one of the finest stands of
pine timber is the West, combining excellent quality with
exceptionally easy logging."
From its creation by treaty in 1864, the
Klamath Indian Reservation
was viewed eagerly by those who wanted to exploit is resources.
First, the
Oregon Central Military Wagon Road Company
gained a grant to take thousands of acres out of the Reservation
along the Williamson and Sprague Rivers. Next came grazers
wanting to place their livestock on the reservation's meadows.
And finally came the lumbermen. The
Bureau of Indian Affairs
was an eager participant in fostering grazing leases and timber
sales to non-indians,
Between 1918 and 1930 the Klamath Reservation produced half the
saw logs of Klamath County. The bountiful resources of the
Reservation were so staggering that in 1956, Congress provided
for transfer of hundreds of thousands of tribal acres into the
Winema National Forest
to protect the local economy from immediate over-harvest of the
forests.
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Greg rides toward a rainbow in distant hills
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At Godow Spring road, we cut right, off route, to the tiny place called
Beatty, where we bought some food at the
Palomino Deli & Mini Mart, and filled our water tanks and bottles for a long, dry stretch; a bit over 6 L for me, planning on a dry camp that night.
The lady who ran the store grumbled about the last bike riders, who had locked the pump incorrectly, and cautioned me to let her lock it when we were done. That was our hint that Mark and Mark were in front of us, improperly securing water pumps, and otherwise on schedule. Adam bought the only package of locally-made, freeze-dried salsa. We were all a bit envious. We continued, I stretched the pace a bit, unwisely. At about mile point 57 the route actually departed at a very rough section of the railroad bed, switching to nearby
Sycan Rd. I hadn't loaded the route that day on my
Garmin, and because I was charging ahead, I rode it for a bit before Greg and Monty called me to turn around. I wanted to get to a ‘good camp site,’ recommended by the route maintainer, at 64 miles, but we settled on a nice, flat spot off Sycan road, in an area of burnt pines, at about mile point 59 on the route. We had a nice night, set alarms for 6:30, and spent our first night on the trail. At camp that night, Adam realized he left his
titanium cup at the waterfill station in Beatty. I had a collapsible cedar summit cup which I lent to him for the rest of the trip.
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