Sleeping in Trees

Number of miles: 377

One of the unfortunate consequences of moving immediately prior to starting a bike trip is that my belongings are all inaccessible, or at least in a state of severe disarray; I often have trouble locating what I need to bring along with me, or just outright forget to pack something. In this case, I ended up leaving Eugene without soap or towel; no major consequence for me, per se, but I pity the person who finds themself in close proximity to me for the next few weeks, between my infrequent bathing. Far more significant, though, was my neglect in packing a sun shirt, which protects me from the relentless evil rays of the afternoon, and, as a bonus, protects me at dusk from mosquitoes, with too tight a weave for them to penetrate. Compounding this problem was the bottle of sunscreen that I set off with, it having expired about three years ago. Now, most everything comes with expiration dates these days, and some matter, and some really don't. Turns out they matter for sunscreen. I lucked out during the first few days biking, with overcast weather, or cool enough temperatures to warrant long sleeves, but on my fifth day I got royally torched on my arms, shoulders, and tops of my legs, making everything, even sleep, a painful and difficult task. (Everybody do yourself a favour: watch this, and act accordingly.)

But I get ahead of myself. The ride from Eugene to the coast was splendiferous; I followed the Smith River, a well-maintained, but utterly forgotten scenic backroad through the Coastal Range. The Smith River lazily carves its way through towering cliff faces covered with sword, bracken, and delicate maidenhair ferns, past waterfalls and moss-carpeted cascades, on its way out to sea. The forests were rife with wildflowers, with wild irises, foxgloves, and giant cauliflower heads of hogweed bursting from every surface. It was an excellent time and place for foraging: fiddleheads, miners lettuce, oxalis, and salmonberries were in abundance, with thimbleberries not far behind. Even crawdads could be found in great numbers, if I were ever brave/desperate enough (I'm not). In the forty-mile stretch along the Smith River to Reedsport, I was passed by four cars.

Sunset at the Oregon Coast.

The coastal route of southern Oregon was largely forgettable until Gold Beach, where the highway starts following along cliffs overlooking the ocean. The powerful coastal winds were at my back for much of the day, and pushed me down to the state border with relative ease. I was hoping that the border between Oregon and California was a latitudinally arbitrary measure of statehood, but in fact, the landscape changed within minutes of crossing, the public beaches of Oregon giving way to miles of nothing but heavily-farmed agricultural fields. It stayed this way until just north of Crescent City, with small stands of forest giving a glimpse of what lay ahead.

Roosevelt elk grazing in Redwood Creek valley.

Redwoods! After spending a day biking through, walking in, and sleeping in, the redwood forests, I am convinced that no amount of prose, measurements, statistics or comparisons will do justice to describe the humbling experience and grandeur of standing in the middle of a redwood grove. They are truly a marvel of nature, simultaneously difficult to comprehend but easy to accept. And, um, big. Really big. (I read a sign about a particular tree, appropriately named "Big Tree", that told a story of an early settler in the area who wanted to cut it down so he could make a dance floor out of the stump.) To illustrate: I got caught in the middle of a long, steep ascent out of the Redwood Creek valley late in the evening, with both sundown and rain imminent. I stopped and wandered into a stand of redwoods, and found a tree, hollowed out by fire but still very much alive, with ample room for my bicycle and rolled out sleeping bag. I slept dry and peaceful that night, nestled snugly inside of a tree, insulated on three sides by four-foot-thick walls, the fourth opening to a sloping hillside of forest shrouded in mist.

Redwoods embraced in fog.

I awoke the next morning with the fog still clinging tightly and thickly to the mountainside, obscuring visibility to just a few metres, with many miles of a winding, 20% grade climb still before me. The mist dewed up in my sorry excuse for a beard as I strained and sweated my way above the clouds, and up many more miles of desolate, sunny dirt roads, to finally descend into the next valley over. I quickly left behind the lush and damp old growth for a drier and much hotter, but equally beautiful, climate: the Klamath River watershed (cue the aforementioned sunburn).

Morning mountain dew.

As luck would have it, my debilitating blistering coincided with my arrival in the tiny little town of Orleans (population 600), to visit my friend, Stormy, for a couple of days. (Recuperation is far easier with an abundance of reliable shade, aloe, a soft bed, and some goddamned functional sunscreen.) I first met Stormy in Pittsburgh two summers ago, during the G20 protests in Pittsburgh. An activist and media specialist, she works here in tandem with the local Karuk tribe on issues such as resource management, dam removal, and native harvesting rights.

It is easy to see here, more than other places I've been, that water is the fundamental life source of the region. All life is centered around the magnificent confluence of rivers in these mountains; the hills are a dry, prickly, forbidding place, but every gully, fold or valley is burgeoning with creeks or tributaries or outright raging rapids. In the afternoons of summer, everybody's work stops early, and folks spend the rest of their day at the river. It has fed and sustained populations here for millennia, and the forest itself seems to flow down the mountains along the same gradients, orienting itself in the direction of the water. Its importance is even reflected in language: the Karuk word for "good-tasting", I'm told, more literally translates as "pretty close to salmon". I was hoping to get out in a raft or kayak while I was here, but the rivers are all dangerous torrents of snowmelt right now. Another time.

The confluence of the Klamath River and Bluff Creek.

The weather has thus far been incredibly accommodating; the days have been mild on the coast, the nights pleasant, and I've only needed to roll out my tarp once. (I love sleeping without a tent, but it's funny how many times I've woken up in the middle of the night with a squirrel or chipmunk crawling on my head. Seriously. It's a thing.) It's much hotter inland, though still quite bearable. I set off again in the morning, though, back toward the coast, where cooler temperatures prevail, at least for now.