Day 6: Off the grid in Joseph

My Cycle Oregon week ended up being only about 275 miles of riding and 12,000' of climbing. If the week had gone as planned, it would have been close to double those numbers. To non-cyclists, those numbers may sound crazy, but I was really looking forward to pushing myself each day. But I also wanted to enjoy the scenery in Eastern Oregon and the visit to Joseph definitely satisfied that.

Today we spent the day eating, hiking, and goofing around Joseph, OR. After a fantastic breakfast at the Old Town Cafe we headed up to Wallowa lake and the tramway above it.

The gondola ride up was beautiful and only a little bit terrifying as we floated hundreds of feet above forests and ended up at the top of Mt. Howard at 8,000'.

We walked the couple miles of trails to get to each overlook and enjoyed the views. The terrain is unreal, you can see the glacial moraine that formed the dam and made the lake. You can see agricultural fields next to pristine prairie land. You can see the ancient sedimentary rock that is being cut into canyons by rivers. The weather was perfect and eventually we took the tram down.

Back on the valley floor, we skipped the three mini golf courses but did do some go carts. After, we checked out Wallowa River which was filled with salmon.

We spent the rest of the day relaxing around Joseph.

Overall it was a fantastic trip despite things not going as planned. I’m looking forward to doing some normal length rides when I get home and I hope this week helps out my bike racing in the future.

Oregon is a beautiful place and when you get to experience it at 18mph while looking around instead of 65mph in a car, you notice and enjoy a lot more of it. I’ll likely do more Cycle Oregon events in the coming years and I look forward to experiencing small towns, beautiful scenic places, and all the roads in between.