Climbing. Climbing. Climbing.
Things are coming together, in a way. I leave on my tour in 18 days, and I’m trying to get myself both mentally and physically equipped. I’m fortunate enough to have some really good gear lent to me, including a set of large Jandd panniers, a nice down sleeping bag, and a lightweight stove. But right now I’m looking at the rest of items on my list that I haven’t procured yet, maps for instance. So tonight I did a bit of research into my route.
I’m first going to be traveling West from Portland to the Pacific coast, and I’ll cross the Oregon Coastal Range in my first 70 miles. Made up of many small hills, my route will accumulate about 4,600 feet in climbing before I get to the ocean. Once I make it to the shore I can follow a pretty flat and well traveled route all the way South and into Northern California.
Over the border I’ll head East relatively soon, with 140 miles of mountain roads ahead of me. At the junction of Interstate 101 and CA-299 I’ll turn East and enter the Klamath Mountains, and this is where it gets kind of intimidating.
Instead of many smaller hills with restful descents in between, the first two major hills are black and white: all climbing, or all descending. Starting at about 100’ above sea level, I’m going to climb to 2,300’, descend to 1,000’, climb to 2,800’, and then descend down to just above 600’ at Willow Creek. This is all in less than 40 miles. This is madness. This is only the beginning of madness.
Then there’s the 1,800’ more of climbing in the 23 miles between Willow Creek and Del Loma, after which it gets relatively flat for 25 miles or so. Right around Weaverville and Douglas City the road swings skyward again, climbing 1,900’ in the shadows of the Sawtooth Mountains. After a short drop back down I’ll begin my final ascent, climbing about 3,200’ in 20 miles to straddle the Trinity/Shasta county line. When I get into Shasta I’ll immediately descend toward Redding, and back into the blessedly flat central valley.
This last section of my tour —from the coast to the valley— would take less than three hours to drive. I’m hoping I can make it in three days.