Trans America Trail - 2008

 

Day 18 – Medford, Oregon to Port Orford, Oregon.

 

Miles: 182 (road distance as per GPS)

 

Hotel: Castaway by the sea, Port Orford, Oregon.

 

 

 

Commentary:

 

Today was the last day and I was determined to have a good long day on the trail and come out on the Pacific.

It started with me riding up I-5 to the Quines Creek turn-off and gassing up there.

I headed back over I-5 and got on the trail. More woods riding and I was going up into some spectacular scenery.

There appeared to be some logging going on here and there but a lot of it was pristine.

 

           

 

I stopped here to take a few pictures and look out over the hills.

It was cold again and the interstate miles had chilled me to the bone but now I was back in the slow woods riding I warmed up.

 

 

The riding was very good, in the pics below I had stopped for a ‘bio-break’ and the clouds were rolling past.

I was on the top of a ridge and took some pictures. The clouds then rolled away and there was an estimated 500 foot cliff to my left side.

Nothing too dangerous, just had to stay on the road!

 

                 

 

I think I was about 50 miles in when my GPS and the road book diverged.

The road book said go left and my routes on the GPS said straight.

As the road book was accurate to that point I decided to continue with it.

At 57 miles the road book described turns that just weren’t there. I looked at the map but the scale was completely out, the map was too high level.

I had left the forest roads and was riding along ATV trails that had trenches cut across them by the foresters.

The trail was pretty water logged to, some really deep puddles.

 

Anyway, I got to a point were I tried to retrace me tracks and look at all the options.

I did this for about an hour but no luck. At that point I had a few options:

• Keep going where I thought the trail went.
• Ride back to where the GPS went off an then use that trail.
• Ride back to Quines Creek.

 

The 1^st option was not a good idea as this country was pretty wild and there were loads of roads and trails all over the place.

The second option was better but I hate to back track which also discounted the 3^rd option too.

I decided to try one last option - throw my lot into the hands of the GPS Gods:

I programmed shortest route, destination = Port Orford, GO

 

Amazingly the GPS picked out the tiny forest road I was on and said continue for 3.4 miles !

I zoomed out and saw that sure enough it had found a route to Port Orford.

The route did take me through the town of Powers, which was on an asphalt road, so I thought I’d pick up the trail somewhere along that road.

 

           

 

The ride out of the forest took me through some logging areas where the foresters were working.

There were bulldozers and tree clearing machines all over the place but they let me by with a wave.

They were probably wondering what on earth I was doing out there!

 

This part of the ride was pretty miserable as the clouds had come in and rain had started so the road became a quagmire full of rocks.

I wound my way down out of the forests into Powers and looked for a gas station, but there was none.

I then tried to find a way back on the trail, but was met with one locked gate after the next.

This was a pity really as I wanted to ride down to the beach.

I took the detour and got into Port Orford via asphalt. It was pretty late then so I got into the motel over looking the bay.

Not a bad place, good views too. I sent a text message to Jonathan who was half an hour away on his BMW.

We met up and went for some food.

 

 

It must be said that I don’t have any negative feelings about this. On a trail that covers thousands of miles this can be expected.

In Oregon especially there will always be problems; foresters use bulldozers and other heavy machinery to cut new roads at will.

As such it would be impossible to keep the maps up to date. The only way is to navigate around this.

The GPS is a great help with this.

 

Journal Quote:

 

Last day dawned and I was off at the crack of dawn! Took a long cold ride up to Quines Creek and hit the trail there. All went well for an hour or two then the GPS went off track – the route I had didn’t match up. Then I got totally lost!! Double backed a few times and eventually got tired and programmed a route to Port Orford. Got to a place called Powers then the GPS tried to get me to go on small roads. Decided to skip this and head straight there. Waited a couple of hours then JR arrived.

 

Tomorrow I’m going to take some pics on the beach and go back and see Crater Lake with JR. Good to see him again.

 

TAT gets 10/10 from me!