It feels good to be back home with Janet, Hazel, Bear and Jazzy. Well, there’s also Angela, Jen and Kate staying here for now as well. Angela is Janet’s co-instructor for the ENV 398 class, Kate is her co-instructor for the Wilderness First Aid portion of the class being taught this weekend and Jen is taking the WFA with the ENV 398 students. Jen rode with us on the Kissing Bridges ride back in June. Yes, as usual, the house is overflowing with estrogen…

Since everyone was in McMinnville teaching, being taught or organizing gear for the trip, I decided to get the LHT out on the backroads a bit and end up at Linfield College to meet everyone for dinner. After riding my old touring bike on a daily basis recently, the LHT felt rather “solid” with no extra weight from camping gear on it. The Trek frame has always felt a bit flexy, especially in the bottom bracket. The Surly suffers from none of that. In fact, as any LHT rider will attest, the ride of the LHT seems to find its sweet spot when loaded with gear.

The ride included a few of the dirt side roads between the house and Mac. Even with recently added gravel, these roads were fairly muddy. Fenders are our friends, year-round. You’ll find no gram counting weight-weenies in this bike shop.

As the toes started to complain, I ended the ride with some hot tea and a brownie at a local shop…or so I thought. Janet called and asked if I could meet them at the college to help sort our some gear issues. By the time I got there, Angela and Blake (the class TA) had finished with the skis, boots, poles and sleds and done a great job. Once that was done it was  off to dinner of pizza, pinot and salad.

This year the school contributed some funds to help with gear purchases. Thanks so much!!! Gear replacement is an on-going process with this class as much of the equipment has been used extensively over the past 15 years or so. Now that the skis and boots have been upgraded over the past two classes, the tents are likely next in line. We’ll see what Mountain Hardware has to say…

Enjoy the ride,

JS