Day 3 - Sept 10th

There was no rain in the morning, and the forecast was a 40% chance of rain in the afternoon.  Hopefully we’d finish before any rain started.

The route took us into the western outskirts of Bend.  At one point Todd wanted to see the Deschutes River that runs through town.  I followed him on a brief detour without finding the river before we rejoined the main route.

We passed some nice looking houses along Skyline Ranch Road, then turned right onto SW Century Drive (Highway 372).  We climbed on this road for a while, under mostly sunny skies.  There were clouds in the sky but nothing threatening at the moment.  On the way up we had some nice views of Mount Bachelor.

After reaching the top of our climb, we descended briefly to today’s lunch stop.  After lunch, we started the descent along Forest Service Road 45.  The descent is very gradual, and I was enjoying the descent until the skies opened up and the rain started.  I could see somewhat clear skies ahead of me, so I was pretty sure if I kept going I’d clear the rain.  So I kept going and eventually left the rain behind.

We stopped at the rest stop at a fire station.  The skies were still clear when we arrived, but almost as soon as we left the rest stop, the rain started.  And then the deluge began.  This was the hardest rain we’d biked through yet.  The roads were narrow, with traffic, as well, so this was not a fun part of the ride.  The rain continued, unabated, all the way into La Pine.  It only started petering out a bit as we approached camp.

We arrived in camp soaking wet.  While we were in camp, the rain would stop for a while, but then start again 20 minutes later.  It was on again, off again, mostly until sunset.  At one point it cleared up enough and the sun came out and I tried to put out a drying line, but then it started raining again.

One thing to note about La Pine is that the camp was lumpy.  There were large lumps all over the ground, making it almost impossible to sleep in the tent and even hard to just walk around.  It was for sure my least favorite camping spot on the trip.