Stevenson Canyon Hike & Bike

Yesterday afternoon I biked up to San Diego's Stevenson Canyon for a hike. The trail's only about a mile long and has to be done as an out-and-back hike on the same trail. See the trail profile below... it's not a hard trail. 

Stevenson Canyon Trail Profile

Up near the trailhead the trail and the creek are one.

Then it widens out into a broader canyon. There's a water and sewer main running the length of the valley and a primitive road that is the hiking trail.

While this MAY be public land I don't this it's a designated park.

Stevenson Canyon Bike Rout - 17 miles

Oceanside Museum of Art Bike Ride

This weekend I biked up to Oceanside on Saturday and back on Sunday. On Saturday I took the train up to Sorrento Valley and biked the remaining twenty-seven miles to Oceanside. On the return trip on Sunday I missed a major turn off and ended up biking all the way back to San Diego. Which really only added another ten miles to the return ride.

The art museum had an opening Saturday night for the new show "California Dreaming: An International Portrait of Southern California". My cousin PJ's husband Craig had a piece[above] hanging in the show.

Another favorite from the show.

Audubon Bird and Bike

This morning I went bike-birding along the San Diego River with an Audubon group.  The group saw nearly 70 birds of which I saw about half of them.  Lucky for me this is only about a half mile from home.

North Bayshore Bikeway Bike Ride

This afternoon I took a bike ride heading north along the Bayshore Bikeway towards downtown San Diego.  But a couple of miles south of downtown it was getting late and I turned around and headed back.

I'll give it another try sometime but will ride the trolley downtown instead.  It sounds like I can take my bike on the trolley so I plan to bike from a downtown station over to Balboa Park for a look around.

The whole ride round trip was about 16 miles with about 10 of that on the Bayshore Bikeway.

Imperial Beach - Bay Rout Bikeway

Yesterday I took a bike ride over to the ocean to Imperial Beach at the south end of San Diego Bay.  A big part of the rout was on the Bay Rout Bikeway.

I rode a little over 20 miles through the course of the trip but the actual rout as mapped out above in about 8.5 miles one way.

The rout goes by the South Bay Salt Works.

South Bay Salt Works has been in operation since the 1870's and produces 75,000 tons of salt yearly.

The public fishing pier at the end of Evergreen Avenue in Imperial Beach.

The light wind looked just right for the beginner para-sailors.

IB is a popular place to surf but I guess not today.

There seemed to be a lot of people fishing from the pier but I didn't see anyone actually catch anything.

American River Bike Trail - Sacramento, CA

Today I biked the American River Bike Trail, or at least 14 miles of it, that starts near downtown Sacramento and runs along the American River toward Folsom Reservoir 33 miles away.











You can read more about the trail at: http://www.trimbleoutdoors.com/ViewTrip/180072

I stopped at this nice lunch spot along the way-- there were lots of really great places to stop.

California State University footbridge across the American River.  At this point I decided to turn my ride into a loop and take an alternate rout back to the start on Sacramento streets.  It turned out to be a little trickier than I expected but the Google maps on my smartphone got me through.

I wish I could have figured out how to get closer to this...

Biking on the the Kettle Valley Railway

 I left Darrington Bluegrass Festival campgroud on Monday morning and drove to Hope, British Columbia to bicycle the section of the Kettle Valley Railroad located near Hope. 

I stayed at the Coquihalla Campground on the outskirts of town-- an easy bike ride to the store, library, and bank.

As it turned out a section of the Kettle Valley RR goes right through the campground.  And as you can see there's a campsite right on the old roadbed.  That's not where I camped though.

There's a portion of the Kettle Valley RR (KVRR) that goes through Coquihalla Canyon outside of Hope.  A series of five tunnels had to be driven in order to construct the rout-- here are two of the tunnels.

 The weather took a turn for the worse on Wednesday so I headed for the Canadian Okanogan on the east side of the Cascades and hoped for dryer weather.  I ended up in Coalmont, a little town on the KVRR, that was originally settled because of a nearby coal mine.

I spent two days in Coalmont.  The first day I biked the KVRR south towards Princeton, BC and the second day north to Tulameen.

The last time I biked on the KVRR was about 10 years ago.  When I was there this time I found the trail to be REALLY rough to ride.  I don't remember it being that way before.  Ten miles or so per day was about all I wanted to ride on the KVRR.

 My campsite on the Tulameen River.  According to the locals climate change has arrived in the Canadian Okanogan.  The mosquitoes were pretty thick-- unusual for July-- and the pine beetles are wiping out the forests.

Seattle Bicycle Sunday

I had to get out of my condo this afternoon so my real estate agent could have an open house.  My friend Diane and I took a bike ride over along the west shore of Lake Washington.  As luck would have it Lake Washington Boulevard was closed south of the I-90 tunnel all the way to Seward Park for the third of this year's Bicycle Sundays.  Check out this Seattle Times article for more information.

Crater Lake Bike Ride

On Tuesday September 14th, I biked the Crater Lake rim road with my friends Perry and Carol. From  the starting point the rim road is 33 miles long and requires 3800 feet of climbing. 

We left from Rim Village, at an elevation of 7100 ft., at about 9:30am.

 Most bikers choose to ride clockwise around the lake and so did we.   As you can see we had pretty good weather.



The whole rout is pretty much either going up or down.  Unfortunately due to a misunderstanding we had to do the worst hill at the end of the day.

There were traces of snow remaing along the road and as you can see here there was still snow down next to the lake.

There are over 30 turnouts and view points along the rout and so many chances to regroup along the way..

Crater Lake was formed when 12,000 ft Mt Mazama erupted over seven thousand years ago with an explosion thought to be forty times more powerful than Mt St. Helens.  The resulting crater filled with rain and snow melt to a depth of over 1900 feet.  It snows so much here that the entire loop road is only open for 3 or 4 months a year.

This picture is taken from one of the lowest elevations along the rout.

Here you can see Phantom Ship Island.