Oregon ‘23-‘24 El Niño Schralpadelic Rumble Thread

[TBS]

Sisters,Oregon needs a Hwy 20 by pass with no exit ramps.

What Sisters really needs is a dispensary

Is that black/brown modern housing development across from you being received well? Or resented? I keep seeing them pumping it in IG. The firm that designed them is pretty good.

The one on North side of the highway?
The one that was supposed to be affordable housing for employees of Laird Superfoods?
I like the style but $600-700k for 1000-1200sqft seems a little rich.

[interloper]

Business opportunity? Bobs Buds

[TBS]

The opportunity was when Sisters Bakery was for sale.
But the voters refused to amend the City Charter to allow cannabis sales.
They did approve a 3% tax on cannabis sales though

[SchralphMacchio]

The one on North side of the highway?
The one that was supposed to be affordable housing for employees of Laird Superfoods?
I like the style but $600-700k for 1000-1200sqft seems a little rich.

Was that deed restricted in any way?

Eugene is trying out Community Land Trusts ... a land trust owns the land, individual units are sold (initially and through resale) on a deed restricted basis to income brackets based on census median income for the area, the individual units have 99-year leases from the Land Trust, the City offers grant money and deferred/exempted charges to developers who use the money to purchase & develop the land and establish each individual land trust. It's an interesting model, a developer just proposed a 36-unit Community Land Trust right down the street from my house.

[TBS]

^^^No

The development was started by a principal of Laird and a developer, as a way to get their employees housing at a reasonable price. Then Laird left Sisters so the need to house employees went away.

This project and one other use up all of the buildable land in the area. More houses means moving UGB.

[interloper]

Ridiculous. Same as Redmond, no dispensary.

[SchralphMacchio]

Bummer they left. For retail coffee I actually quite like Laird Superfoods.

Of course, I’m a loyal 5+ year subscriber at Sisters Coffee though. They ship same day as roasting, it’s so fresh when I get it that I won’t even brew it since it gets better until day 4 or so. Got my box of Tanzania Peaberry, Columbia Bourbon, Peru Rita’s del Inca, and Papua New Guinea Peaberry arriving today!!!!

[TBS]

Sisters Coffee is good stuff, no doubt.

For a roaster closer to you try Wandering Goat. Was good stuff when we had it delivered to our software company in PDX. Havent tried it in 15 yrs though.
https://wanderinggoat.com/

[SchralphMacchio]

At risk of offending someone, I’ll just say I much prefer the roastery in your backyard to the one in my backyard [emoji1]

[k2skier112]

Found a couple of gems while going thru dads old slides

Summer 1970
skiing at 8yo on Spirit Lake

[Verde]

SW bowl of Mt Jefferson was fun earlier this week. Good corn up high, sticky down low.

[teledad]

Heading to Bend this weekend and Oakridge for a couple days next week. Bringing the bike. Looking for suggestions.

Bend - I rode the Phil's trails and Mrazek to Tumalo Falls a few years back but it was all a little meh. Looks like Funner/Tiddlywinks might be better? Anything else to check out? (Other than the brewpubs.)

Oakridge - thinking Alpine or ATCA one day and either Larison/Hardesty or Dead Mountain/Lawler Rock for the other. Thoughts? I tend to like flowy/fast stuff rather than slow tech. I'll be shuttling in Oakridge but not afraid of a climb or two.

[SchralphMacchio]

SW bowl of Mt Jefferson was fun earlier this week. Good corn up high, sticky down low.

Rad!!! That’s been on my list for a while. How was the approach and exit? Skeeters?

Heading to Bend this weekend and Oakridge for a couple days next week. Bringing the bike. Looking for suggestions.

There is an Oakridge thread in Sprocket Rockets with lots of details. I don’t ride much in Bend so I’m not a supreme source but I live near Oakridge and have a lot of info.

Tiddlywinks and Funner are a lot better than Phils (and Whoops) in my opinion, much faster riding. FYI, the top part of lower Tiddlywinks is closed for a while as it’s getting totally rebuilt. I think the rest of the trail is open according to chatter on BendTrails FB, so if you ride it you’ll be bypassing a jump section. Funner is fast and mostly mellow with a few smedium sized drops that are all very straightforward.
Lone Wolf is a jump trail if you are looking for that kind of stuff. I’ve heard good things about South Fork, and Tumalo Creek is a cool area to check out in general.

How much time do you have to ride? McKenzie River Trail is a classic but it’s 1.5 hours from Bend (once you add in Sisters traffic) and Oakridge. The road connecting McKenzie Bridge and Oakridge (Aufderheide Dr) is one of the most beautiful drives in all of Oregon and has some gorgeous natural hot springs that are commercially managed (Terwilliger/Cougar). Also great fly fishing on this road on N Fork Middle Fork Willamette.

Oakridge-
There is little to no slow tech in Oakridge proper, just more at the high elevation trails above Oakridge like out by Waldo and Timpanogas. It’s a lot of fast vert, the kind you want to make sure your brakes are well bled for with ample pad life right before your trip.

Tire Mountain (part of ATCA) may not be clear/dry yet. It’s a bit early in the season for that, check with any of the shuttle ops, Willamette Mountain Mercantile, or Kevin Rowell at USFS Middle Fork Ranger District for info on that.

If Tire is no go, Alpine is worthy on its own. Easy to combine a morning Alpine ride with an afternoon Dead and Larison for a full day. Dead pedally berm flow at the top and high speed narrow singletrack at the bottom. Larison has like 10 pedal strokes and otherwise drops 2800 ft in under 3 miles … faaaast sidehill ripping with a few small side hits. Larison is fast enough that even if your legs are spent from a full ATCA, you can still add it in at the end of the day.

If you have a lot of time, Moon Point just got cleared, that trail is super duper awesome and in a wildly beautiful area up the Willamette River headwaters. Shuttle operators will often combine this with Larison since it’s on the way out there (and it’s way out there, over 1 hour from Oakridge to the upper TH). Middle Fork Trail is also in this zone but practically zero chance it’s clear yet.

If you want the opposite of Bend, ride Eula Ridge. The shuttle operators are required to offer it as a guided ride only, but there are ways to commercially shuttle it by booking a Hardesty dropoff shuttle that picks up at Patterson Mountain Y (pickup point for Lawler), and it’s sometimes referred to as the “Not Hardesty” ride. It’s the steepest sustained trail in the area, steep enough that 29er rear wheels will be buzzing your scrotum for a good quarter mile of continuous turns. By itself it’s not a long trail, most of the time is the 1000 ft uphill pedal to start and then only 25 mins to bottom after that. So this trail is often combined with the other two nearby for the “Hardesty Portal Triple” which is Hardesty, Eula, and Lawler. Thats a very worthy way to spend a day of riding. If Alpine is the “crown jewel” of Oakridge then Lawler is the “Steak and Shrimp platter” which has everything Oakridge offers all in one trail, stupid tight switchbacks, high speed flowy loam, old growth land before time forests, jumps, berms, a massive wall ride, and a little bit of shale, talus and micro chunk. If I could only ride one trail in Oakridge for the rest of my life - I think I might choose Lawler over Alpine.

My recommendations for 2 full days of riding are Hardesty triple (or Leula double if you want to save your legs) and ATCA/Larison if you want the classics; sub out Alpine for Moon Point if you want to see less people and get a more wild and primitive Oakridge experience (at the expense of less riding and more driving).

Happy trails. PS - bring fast tires, Bend is slow and Oakridge has near infinite traction this time of year. Dissector front and back is most ideal, Assegai front back and you will be complaining about having to pedal downhill in Bend.

[kinkilla]

I can attest to South Fork being worth it, bring bug spray though. Second that Tiddlywinks is getting some major work done, but Tyler's Traverse is fun and Funner is good. Royal Flush is a good time for a jump line. South Fork is the only one that feels like proper downhill riding, most of the Bend area trails are just fun pedaling up and down around the forest with some rocks thrown in every so often. Not necessarily the most inspiring riding but it does get you fit.

If you do make it over to the Mckenzie River area, the O'Leary Loop is a big pedal but has some really fun downhills. McKenzie River trail proper is fun and beautiful.

[kinkilla]

Finally skiied middle sister this past weekend. Boots and skins on around where the climbers trail breaks off from green lakes. Some trail crew came through in the last year and cleared up years of blowdown backlog. Made the entrance/exit much much nicer. Always fun to show friends how awesome volcano skiing is for the first time.

[teledad]

Great beta, thanks. Might try getting to MRT on Sunday while the wife has a clinic. Just put on new pads and bled the brakes - looking forward to ripping the Oakridge trails.

[SchralphMacchio]

It’s probably too early for the full OLeary Ridge loop, but Horse Creek Lodge would know for sure. They do commercial shuttling on MRT, King Castle and OLeary. Too bad because OLeary Loop is definitely one of the best rides in the state. King and MRT should be in primo shape. If doing MRT I recommend the Clear Lake Trail side over the west side of the lake - wild razor sharp lava rock and fewer tourists on the Clear Lake side.

[Verde]

Rad!!! That’s been on my list for a while. How was the approach and exit? Skeeters?

Long hike in from Pamelia Lake trail (no permit needed prior to June 15) to PCT.
About 15 miles and 6200' elevation gain; skied from 9500'
No mosquitoes at all, thankfully.

[SchralphMacchio]

I helped my friend from Bay Area plan his MRT ride last year, but I was out of town … long story short the guy didn’t know to get off the trail at the Blue Pool and check it out. Don’t make that mistake, it’s literally 50 feet to the left of the trail where it splits to biker only … it’s one of the don’t miss marvels in the area (and also where I proposed to my wife, MTB knee pads made that super comfy! [emoji12])

[TBS]

^^^ When did your buddy do his ride last year? The Lookout Fire burned the crap out of the area between Trail Bridge down past Frissell Boat Ramp last Sept-Oct. USFS sez the trail is open but I gotta believe there’s a lotta trail bed burned.

And in September ‘22 (last time I rode MRT) the trail was closed from Blue Pool to Bigalow Hot Springs due to fire. Burning trees were falling in the river along that stretch.

Teledad - you may want to check in with McKenzie Ranger station before going. 541.822.3381

[SchralphMacchio]

My friend did it on July 3, same day my neighborhood in Eugene burned while I was out of town! That fire never got within 1/2 mile of my house but we had 8 homes in the hood evacuated with fire like 100 feet from them. 34 acres, largest forest wildfire within Eugene city limits.

I think Deer Creek fire did more damage to the MRT trail tread than Lookout did, all I know is that HCL posted at the end of this last ski season that it was fully open and running great from top to bottom. I remember they had to fully rebuild and reroute the parts that got burned in the Deer Creek fire. For Lookout I know they had crews posted along Deer Creek road long before it jumped the road last July or August.

[SchralphMacchio]

Got some free crap in Eugene if anyone wants early/late season skis or project skis:
https://www.tetongravity.com/forums/...25#post7091225

[::: :::]

7” at tline

[SchralphMacchio]

Teledad, with this last weekend’s rain it should be A++ in Oakridge this week.
I shuttled my wife in Oakridge on Saturday and we together rode in Alsea yesterday, super good conditions before the afternoon hailstorm made a mess of the trail.
Go get it and report back!!!

[SchralphMacchio]

Heading to Bend this weekend and Oakridge for a couple days next week. Bringing the bike. Looking for suggestions.

How was it?

@kinkilla