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Today i did some geologic sight-seeing and hit my first dirt roads. going east from LaPine on Finley Butte Rd. takes you to the South Ice Caves. this first section was really difficult because crews had just renewed all the gravel on this road and it was like riding in sand or really dry, deep snow. i had both feet out trailing along with my toes buried in the gravel like pontoons, teetering along at 15MPH as far from the center as possible. i was almost riding in the brush just to find some hard ground. it was incredibly tense for the first 10 miles or so, i had to stop and catch my breath a few times. i remember thinking that it was much harder than i remembered it being (riding off-pavement), and that maybe my tire choice was just totally wrong, but in hindsight, i dont think any DOT-approved tire would have made any difference. after a while the road firmed up and changed to more of the typical high-desert dirt/rock and was much easier. at the Ice Caves there are two volcanic tubes facing eachother inside the sinkhole, and the temperatures down inside were cold enough to see my breath.
the closer i got to the openings the colder it got. considering it was in the upper 80s on the surface, it was pretty spooky.
further south on NFD 18 is Fort Rock, a volcanic formation called a tuff-ring. from Wikipedia:
Fort Rock is a volcanic landmark called a tuff ring, located on an Ice age lake bed in north Lake County, Oregon, United States.[2] The ring is about 1,360 meters (4,460 ft) in diameter and stands about 60 meters (200 ft) high above the surrounding plain.[3] Its tall, straight sides resemble the palisades of a fort, thus giving the rock its name. The region of Fort Rock Basin contains about 40 such tuff rings and maars and is located in the Brothers Fault Zone of central Oregon's Great Basin. On June 20, 1925, the Bend Bulletin wrote that Fort Rock was named by William Sullivan, an early resident.
i wish i had had time to hike inside, but i was running out of daylight soon and the skies were gathering clouds. it was clearly raining all around me so i figured it was best to keep moving...
as soon as i returned to pavement in the town of Fort Rock (a little south of the monument) and headed south on Hwy. 31 the weather turned to shit. there appeared to be two different rainstorms on either side of me, like a figure-eight with me bisecting it through the middle. somehow i missed both of them and only got a few small drops on me, blown over by the winds. as i crested a hill and saw down into the small valley ahead i could see what looked like a dust storm about a quarter-mile ahead. i couldnt figure out if it was dust or smoke, because it was both brownish and very thick...almost opaque. i ruled out smoke the closer i got because it was staying so close to the ground and i couldnt see any clear source, but but it was also so humid that a huge dust-bowl didnt seem likely either. about 3-4 seconds before i hit it i realized it was actually a very dense wall of water, wind, and dust swirling around like a frickin' tornado. i had just enough time to utter some profanity and throw my weight forward and down behind the screen to stabilize the front end before i slammed into it at 65MPH. it was like i had jumped into a swimming pool and a wind tunnel all at once. big peanut-sized rain drops, wind gusts from all sides, deafening noise; if the bulk of the wind blast had not (by luck) come from the front of me and instead from the side i would have surely been knocked off the bike, it was that violent. i slowed to 45, a controllable speed, hid behind the screen, and wobbled my way down the highway until it calmed. luckily it only lasted about a mile, then the skies actually cleared and were mostly blue. the road was soaked and foamy with wheeltracks full of stormwater, but the rain was gone and the winds light. it was so weird i wasnt sure what to make of it. later that night the couple camping next to me on the lake said that they had been hit by it too with their camper-topped truck towing their little boat, and had as hard a time keeping it pointed straight. i recognized their truck as the one i had waved past as i was wobbling along at the shoulder. i thought about calling home to see if anyone could find any reports of a tornado near Silver Lake, but i forgot about it once the Hamms kicked in...
