Friday after work, Lee, Alex, Andrew, Andre, Rory and myself met in North Bend to do some exploratory riding up the North Fork of the Snoqualamie River.
Alex has a very good blog post about it HERE that I will refer you to.
We got to the Lennox Creek fork around 7:30 and had a decision to make. The road splits here into three different directions and smaller groups explored the start of each of them. We decided to follow along Lennox Creek (which had as much volume as the Snoqualmie River at this point). Lennox Creek had the best scenery and comes tumbling down from the Snoqualmie Pass area in a very tight valley.
Wandered up towards the end of the road till just after sundown and made camp just off the road when it became apparent that no better spot would be had.
NOTE: Do not let hammock people pick your camp spots – or they start doing stuff like this:
Hammock people are weird. They are looking for trees X distance apart and don’t care what the ground is like. I have a hammock but haven’t used it yet – prefer my bivy sack. Of course my brain is now on “shucks why can’t I have both” mode – but that’s a different post. And possibly a different project. I digress.
Hammock camp - pic from Alex
So the boys climbed off the road and into a grove of trees to setup hammocks and filter water from Lennox Creek. I brought my small triangular saw and hatchet and Lee and Andre made a fire back up on the road where I eventually laid out my bedroll instead of down in the trees. We sat around the fire eating dinner and sharing a couple bottles of beer that people brought with them, telling stories and the like. It was a nice night.
Lennox Creek - Picture from Alex
I struggled some on the ride up – was sweating a lot and pretty low energy in general. Made food for dinner and wasn’t hungry for any of it so gave it away. Next morning woke up and was not doing well at all. Could feel myself running a fever and couldn’t stop coughing. Not good. Bugs were bad so we decided to skip breakfast – and coffee – and head back down to the cars.
This was a pretty easy ride and I was sucking it big. Got back down to the cars, drove into town and had breakfast at Twedes by 10:30am – the diner featured in Twin Peaks.
By the time I got home I had a 101.7 temperature. I pounded 4 Advil and crashed on my couch for the next 6 hours. Thats pretty much where I spent the remainder of my weekend. Lame.
The trip was pretty and I’m grateful I was invited – wish I could have enjoyed it more. Illin sucks.
The handlebar compression sack worked very well, and I learned some things. Affixing it to the handlebars securely was more difficult than I thought it was going to be – quick release compression straps will not work – they loosen too easily. But I now have a fix for that. The embracing cuff needs to be about 3 inches longer underneath the roll. Pocket tops need to be twice as long so they close when you put something in them. Other than that, it performed beautifully.
This week I’m just trying to get better – next weekend we’re going back into the Suiattle River with a decent group of people. It’ll be fun and, oh yeah, it’s my trip. I gotta get better.
Alex’s camera makes me want his camera.
Onward.
