Ooof
The weather yesterday was supposed to be “cloudy AM, clearing PM”, so Stasia Honnold and I decided that this would be a lovely time to ride up to the top of Larch Mountain.
Well, the “clearing PM” part of the forecast was a lie – not only was it cloudy (and periodically drizzly) all day, but the clouds were at ~2500 feet, which, conveniently, is 1500 feet below the top of Larch Mountain. We were cold on the climb up the mountain, and freezing on the way down until we got to about 800 feet and fell into the layer of warm air that filled the Willamette Valley.
But the blackberries (and, at higher elevations, thimbleberries & salmonberries) are ripening, so the trip got interrupted periodically to pull off to the side of the road and forage for berries.
Comments
The sad thing is that I had a windshell, which kept me from being completely frozen on the way down. Wearing shorts didn’t help very much, though, and the windshell didn’t cover my face, so it wasn’t quite the protection of my dreams.
Comments are closed
Unless there are no clouds anywhere in the sky and there is zero chance that you’ll be out after dark, I feel that a wind-stopping shell is mandatory equipment for all forays above 3000 feet. Also, blueberries!