Our first day included a detour that added several miles and several hundred feet of elevation for water, pushing our bikes up a mile of sandy singletrack to our first camp, and all three of us toppling over sideways at least twice. Once we’d scarfed down rehydrated backpacking meals, the three of us were snuggled up in the tent by 8pm and Sage read us a bedtime story to lull our tired bodies to sleep.

We’d shared our camp with two tattooed bikepackers from Portland, Eric and Isaac, who had arrived at the site just after we had and rolled out of camp the next morning as we savored our coffee. Unlike the previous day, champagne gravel and road descents carried us out of the forest and into a landscape of yellow grass and scattered pine trees. Sweeping vistas of lava rock beckoned us down into the widest part of the river. More comfortable on our heavy bikes, we sped downhill in pursuit of water and a good lunch spot. 

We hit a campground on the edge of the river around 2pm and 24 miles into our day and used the spigot to chug bottle after bottle of water, trying to replenish our bodies. We made oatmeal and coffee with our little stove and ate cured salmon, pickles, candy, and had a little bit of the whiskey we’d brought. 

On a rocky forest road around 5pm, we hit mile 35 of the day and the three of us confidently agreed we could pedal the last 10 or so miles to our campsite in not too much more time. That is until Kristie, who was in front, pedaled up to where the road abruptly ended and dropped off towards the river. She stopped, got off her bike, and pushed it to the top of the rollover before turning around to me and saying “are you f**king kidding me?”.

I pushed my bike up to meet her and saw for myself where the road had turned into a steep, dusty piece of trail, no more than a foot wide, that dropped off into the river on one side and became a sheer, forested wall on the other. ‘Let me check the map, are you sure this is the trail?’ I asked. But we could see tire tracks and footprints from our Portland friends and we knew this was the way.

The trail, or lack thereof, combined with a mess of down trees we had to hoist our bikes over made it so that every time we even considered getting back on our bikes, we hit another obstacle. After what seemed like endless skidding down hills in our clipless shoes and pushing our heavy bikes over obstacles, the trail finally veered back into the forest where we were able to continue pedaling. The sun had dipped low into the sky and we pedaled as hard as our tired bodies would allow us towards camp. When we finally arrived just as the sun had gone completely down, Eric and Isaac, (who had gotten there hours before us), greeted us, excited that we’d made it. Now camped right on the banks of the Metolius, we dunked our tired bodies in the frigid water while our dehydrated meals stewed. We scarfed back as many calories as we could before crawling into our sleeping bags and promptly falling asleep. 

Morning arrived much colder than it had the day before. Sage shook me awake at 6:15 and I shoved my tired head back into my sleeping bag and grumbled ‘no’ at her. But knowing we had miles to cover, we dragged ourselves out of our tent and shuffled around camp wearing our sleeping bags like capes and warming our sore, tired bodies with coffee and oatmeal. We were low on food and all three of us felt pangs of hunger even though we’d just eaten as we packed our bikes up. 

 Two massive, sandy, rocky, hill climbs and one stop at Suttle Lake Lodge for french fries and cold sodas with Eric and Isaac later, we arrived at the last big, gravel descent of our trip. What we hoped would be an easy gravel descent from that point was actually the loosest, sandiest, dustiest, chunkiest, worst road we rode the entire trip. All three of our hands white knuckled our bars and tried not to hit our brakes as our rear tires fish-tailed. It seemed as though at every point where we thought we’d been tested enough for the day, this route had some new challenge waiting for us around the corner. 

 I don’t think any of us had ever been so grateful for a section of that ride to end as we were when we hit a different forest road three miles later. Shortly after, we turned onto pavement and pedaled back into Sisters where Sage’s truck waited for us. We unclipped, hugged, and flopped onto the ground. As we laid there astonished we’d all made it out in one piece, we heard a voice from behind say, “Congrats! You did it!”. We sat up quickly to see Eric walking towards us. We’d bid him and Isaac goodbye after our lunch but they’d waited for us in the park to make sure we finished the ride. Although we hadn’t ridden together, the moments we’d shared with them along our trip had been silly and pivotal and we’d been grateful to see them at each camp.

We made plenty of miscalculations and mistakes (except for how many times we’d each topple over sideways, we nailed that) and ended the trip as dirty, smelly, and sweaty as any of us had ever been. But we all also pushed through moments of fear, being beyond tired, hungry, and dehydrated, and helped each other through them too. We laughed a WHOLE lot. We talked about things locked in deep corners of our brains and as light as what we put in smoothies. Kristie crushed every single climb with the most positive attitude and Sage took the cleanest lines through every chunky bit of the ride so I could follow her. Despite being strangers days before, Sage and Krisite had formed the most incredible team throughout the ride. I can only hope they weren’t too traumatized by letting me talk them into this route and that they’ll let me sandbag them again someday. 

 More about our trip can be found in print in Issue 8 of Trails Magazine. The route we rode was created by the folks at DirtyFreehub.com and can be found here for anyone else looking to sandbag their friends.