Next up after Smith Rock was Peterson’s Ridge, near a little town called Sisters. After the Three Sisters series of volcanoes nearby. Which begs the questions “Why is it always Three Sisters, not Three Brothers?” But google confirms that it is sometimes Three Brothers, just less often.
We’d been told Peterson’s Ridge was a must-do ride, with great views. I’d vaguely assumed it must be on a ridge, and so would have awesome views. This was all lies and trickery. The trails was very nearly entirely flat, and was 95% in the forest, with views of nothing but trees. Pictured below is the “view” at the “summit”.
It is quite a nice view. The snow-capped volcanoes are very pretty. But we had to stop and look at it, as you could only see it for a few metres. On the plus side, there was a picnic table and a chipmunk there, and a big rock to sit on so as to promote greater enjoyment of the View.
It was an ok trail. Perfectly fine. But just don’t go into it expecting a ridge, or great views, or particularly thrilling riding.
Next up, I convinced Alex that we should go and ride Mrazek. And that was fun riding. Gradual uphill over many kilometres. Still not much in the way of views, although it felt like there really should be, and nearly would be at a few points. Just one really technical rocky section. Otherwise it was very much like a flatter version of Frisbee Ridge in Revelstoke. A nice consistent climb uphill, but then fantastic fun once you turn around and point your bike in the other direction – the sort of trail guaranteed to have Finn whooping and hollering at Alex “Faster Papa, WHEEEE!”.
The final big ride was the McKenzie River Trail. We weren’t sure if the single trailer would make it over some of the technical riding higher up on the trail, so we decided to do an out and back ride starting from the lowest point of the trail.
And for all that we were following a river upstream, it really didn’t feel like we were going uphill at all. The trail meandered through ferns and mossy trees, and the river burbled happily.
Everything was green.
We even released the Kraken from his trailer to go for a run.
Crossing all of the trail bridges got a little tiresome though. And so, when about 10km along, we reached one where the trailer would not fit, and instead jammed, we were pretty happy to turn around and head back.
I’m sure the upper part of this trail might be really fun, we hardly rode any of it. And it was quite pretty. But just a little boring (sorry McKenzie River trail).
And so ended our Oregon bike adventure. Well nearly. I went out alone the next morning on the local Bend trails and rode a really fun and fast loop, before jumping into the car and driving until we got to Canada. We camped the night; the next morning it started to rain on us, and by the time we got back to Canmore, our bikes were coated in ice, our deck had a foot of fresh snow on it, and biking in sunny 25oC weather was nothing but a distant memory.