On the warmest day of the year so far, we rode a gravel loop out by Blyn, Washington which is east of Port Angeles. When people think of the Olympic Peninsula in Washington I imagine they don’t get the true grandeur of the landscape. The terrain is VERY hilly and mountainous and our ride reflected that. The day we rode this we only saw a few cars but on the weekend it would get more camper and hiker traffic.
We started on a basically 7 mile climb. The dirt/gravel road climbs pretty easy and steady with a few steeper pitches thrown in. Giant cedars, robust rhododendrons, ferns, ferns, and more ferns. We kept hoping for an unobstructed snowy mountain view but that never happened, just peek-a-boos through all the trees.
I knew the downhill would come eventually and of course it did. After the long descent we turned onto a small paved road that crossed through a beautiful little valley. Wildflowers covered large patches of the countryside and wow was it fragrent!
After snapping a couple pics against such a pretty backdrop we turned onto my favorite road of the day. My favorite road name in a long time, “Jimmy Comelately Rd”, is where we had an encounter. We were happily riding along a field of tall grasses in a valley next to the river and saw a dark moving object in our peripheral vision. With barely enough time, Derek slammed on his brakes as a little bear came bearaling (haha) across the gravel road. Close call and we kept going in case there were more so no, we don’t have any pictures of the rest of the ride!
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