Day 11 - from Salt Creek Recreation area to Fairholme campground

Day 11 – from Salt Creek Recreation area to Fairholme campground

Again, the herd of turtles strikes.  We have a nice breakfast – my mother is a wonderful cook, and is a firm believer in having tasty food with all endeavors – as a result, between us, I believe that with all of the equipment that we have, if it were all set up at once, Sharon and I could cook for a small army (albeit in 2 quart pots on 5 burners, a volcano stove (a wonderful creation) and a solar cooker.  At one of the campsites, we could do even better, as we can cook over the campfire as well.

In any case, by the time we finally got everything stowed and the camper lowered, etc. it was between 2 and 3 by the time we left the campground.  I swear, one of these day we’ll manage to get on the road while it is still AM.

Riding out of Salt Creek and past Joyce, it was a steady uphill, with some amusing sights:

A fun wall on Joyce-Piedmont road

Just after I started the downhill portion towards Crescent Lake, I passed a couple of women on nice road bikes who shouted “do you have a …”

The women in need of allen wrenches

Once I determined that they needed tools, I said that yes, I probably did, and we all pulled off the road.  Apparently the headset on one of their bikes was working itself loose, so with the help of my handy dandy bicycle multi-tool, she was again on a safe bike.  In the meantime we were swarmed by insects, for the first time for any of us on our respective trips.

In the swarm

This also gave me a chance to have someone take a picture of me with my camera.

It turns out that this was a somewhat embarrassing case of the shoemaker’s children having no shoes, as one of the women is a bicycle mechanic in Port Angeles – if you’re reading, please tell me your names and the name of your shop.

Immediately after that, I met up with Sharon at the crossroads where she goes east to meet US101, and I go west to catch up with the Cedar Railroad trail.  It turns out that the Cedar Railroad trail was not my brightest moment.  It’s a very nice trail, and would be a great hike, or a nice run on a mountain bike.  On something with a 32” track, however, it’s not so good.  For example, the bridges.  This bridge just wouldn’t work:

single track bridge

I just fit on this bridge:

Barely squeezing onto the bridge

Then there are the rockfalls, which have been cleared for the path, but, for some strange reason, they never thought that anyone would be crazy enough to try this on a trike, or anything else quite so wide.

One of the rockslides

Thus, it took me nearly two hours to go five miles on the trail, alternating between riding, portaging, and doing the trike equivalent of the jeep rock crawl.  After knocking the fenders askew multiple times, I just gave up and pulled the fenders entirely.

Eventually, about 2/3 of the way through the trail, it became what I was more on less expecting with a name like “railroad trail” – something 3-4 feet wide with relatively mild grades.  I just hadn’t figured on the effects of the railroad being stapled to the side of a 3000 foot mountain (rockslides, washouts, etc.)  This is what I get for not researching my off-map routes.

After I finished the trail and met up with Camp David Jr. road, it was an easy ride down to the campsite.  On the way, I passed the Camp David Jr. campsite – another Clallam county campsite, and if I’d known it was there, I would have aimed for it in the first place – Clallam count has wonderful campites.  Both Dungeness and Salt Creek are Clallam county campsites.

Pulling into camp, we set up the camper

setting up camp

and Sharon cooked a lovely meal of Buffalo burgers over her Volcano stove (really neat contraption) which we had with a salad – did I mention how good a cook my mom is? (insert cooking pic here).

Cooking on the Volcano stove

Total mileage: about 17 miles, including portage

Speed: very slow – carrying 60+ pounds of ungainly trike is slow – portage is not my favorite word.