Well, here is another beautiful gravel ride along yet another river in a thick lush forest. This time we drove the short distance to Tillamook to ride what started as an out and back to “Lake Tahoe”, but turned into a lollipop type ride.
On Google Maps when I zoomed waaaay in I could see a tiny lake on the map called Lake Tahoe. No, not the big one in CA, this is a mere puddle compared to that. The pictures looked delightful so we planned a gravel ride out and bike to see it. This route had active logging on a section of it so we pulled over for a couple huge trucks hauling out logs. Be alert.
The ride started on pavement for a short bit until the road turned to gravel. From there we followed right along the South Fork Trask River on a nice gravel road that wound through a picturesque fall wonderland of leaves. The climb is mostly gradual but it’s still a lot with the longest sustained section being 9.8 miles and 2,007′ of climbing. We made a turn by Summit Creek and climbed some more up to Lake Tahoe. Unfortunately, this time of year the lake is not impressive. It was more swamp like than anything.
At this point we were planning to just turn around and go back but we decided to push on and make a loop of it. Well, that involved even more climbing but gosh, it’s so pretty out here we couldn’t help ourselves. And quiet! We only came across one truck out enjoying the forest. It’s a maze of logging gravel roads out here and you could ride for days, but we routed out and down Miller Road along Boundary Creek and then along a long downhill section along the East Fork of Trask River before finally coming to the road we started on. It was a difficult ride and we were both tired afterwards.
