Orcas mnt biking

This was the 2nd Annual Orcas Island Spring Break Mountain Bike Hang. Here's last year's roll up. We lost Rory this year to illness. But we gained Pat and Betsy.

These trips are never what you picture them to be. Planning and fussing for weeks ahead of time, you get this idea in your head of how it will be. In my experience, if you're with cool people,  it's always a great time -- even if it's not what you think it was gonna be. The rain got us. And Betsy had a bad fall that resulted in a trip to the minor emergency center. Neither of these events took us out, but they changed the experience in a fortunate way: we bailed from our camping site (with dignity) a day early to spend the final night at the Rosario Resort, where the beer did flow and the oystered did be shucked... or whatever. It was good.

We found an insanely wonderful way down Mt. Constitution. The trail is switch back nirvana with deep green forest. All down with lots of interesting little technical features: rocks, roots, slick, roll outs, etc... So much fun. This was also the trail where Betsy shanked her ankle -- she ended up spraining it really bad. I should've taken a shot: pretty gruesome. She was able to ride down on it, but as soon as she sat down and rested, her foot exploded into a puffed up painful thing. But the trail was rad. And for sure something to plan the next trip around... by shuttling to the top, a gang of four could get in three rides each in a half a day.

Betsy.

This picture doesn't capture the greatness of this section of trail. This was along the SW corner of Cascade Lake. The trail was super fun and tricky -- it reminded me of the Mega Church section of the River Trail, but way longer. Great stuff.

Pat. Ripping it down the switch backs.

Eberly.

Betsy.

Note the tarp solution. This is all Alex. This was the second, improved deployment of the tarp: optimized for precision location draining and  guyed out to avoid tripping and clotheslining the campers. Sailing has added to Alex's already vast practical skills by piling on a bunch of knots and various styles and lengths of rope.

A dam. My bike.

Pat? Alex?

Alex planned on stealing oil from his Rohloff to lube the quick release cam on Betsy's borrowed bike, but it turned out the hub was dry. He ended up finding a wad of grease on his seat post.

Homebound. It's a long haul from Spokane to Orcas Island, around 10 hours. Ideally: we'd spend three solid days riding for this kind of transport stage, but you take what you can get and when the company is good, it's for sure worth it.