Hills, Trails & Terrain

The weather has been turning crispy over the last week of September. Saturday I realized that I haven't ridden the Interurban Trail yet this summer and might not get another chance before the rains start. In the past I've ridden the whole way starting from Ferndale, making about a 50-60 mile round-trip, but this year my energy level hasn't been up to such a long ride. Instead, I took my bike by car to start from Fairhaven Park, riding only about 16 miles, including a detour into Fairhaven for an affogato to revive me at the finish.

The trail was pretty as ever, the shaded parts cool enough for long sleeves even in the afternoon. At a couple of road crossings there are gulleys that would have had trestle bridges back when the trains were running, but now there are just steep down- and up-hills with a lot of loose gravel. In previous years I've ridden down (and even up once or twice) on skinny tires or on thicker knobby tires, but this time my front wheel slithered around so much that after one try I walked my bike on the steep parts. Not sure whether it was from nerves or poor condition - but the uphill pushes were a good workout for the ol' posterior chain. 

This sign board map is probably out-dated now

Halfway out I stopped at the Fragrance Lake Trailhead lot, thinking I might try riding up the trail for a change, but only about two turns up the hill the upgrade and loose gravel got to be too much for me and I turned down. Instead I went back to Chuckanut Drive, and rode as far as that one viewpoint with the big tree in the middle, where I took in the view of the bay before heading back to town.

When I rode up Lemonade Hill, the last climb on Chuckanut Drive before getting back to Fairhaven, the slope seemed much easier than before, but realistically that's probably because I've usually ridden it at the end of a much longer ride.

On Wednesday when the weather was turning cool and a little cloudy, I went back for another last-chance day trip, to walk the Fragrance Lake Trail that I couldn't ride up. For most of the way the trail is a wide dirt and gravel road, steep enough to make me breathe hard at first when walking briskly, but I huffed and puffed until my metabolism got revved up.

For any mountain bikers reading this: Near the start of the trail is a sign where the Double Down mountain bike trail ends, warning hikers not to go up that way because of the chance of meeting fast-moving (out of control) bikers coming down. The foot trail curves around for about a mile and half, until you come to the top of the mountain bike trail, which drops down very suddenly off the main road. Farther up the hill is another mountain bike trail called the Double Black Diamond; I didn't go that way, either.

Bottom of the mountain bike trail

Top of the trail

About halfway up a small landslide has taken out about half the roadway, enough that trail crews couldn't get their trucks past, but it was easy and safe to walk by and continue up to the lake.

Fragrance Lake is really a pond, only about three quarters of a mile around, but it is clear, cool and pretty, with impressive rock formations along side the trail, mostly weathered sandstone that can be crumbled with the fingers. In a few places there are small footbridges over dry creeks that must have been gully-washers feeding the lake during the rainy season.

A few couples sat here and there at the water's edge but I enjoyed quiet and solitude, listening to birds and wind, and once to some sort of purring or growling and chuffing from back in the brush beside the trail - a mountain lion maybe? We gave each other our space. It began to rain lightly as I walked around the lake, but the leaf cover overhead was still dense enough to keep the rain off.

Fragrance Lake

As I walked around the lake at the top of the trail, several times I heard jet airplanes crossing over the bay, and once a helicopter passed by behind a hilltop ridge, probably from the air force base at Whidbey Island. I had a passing thought that maybe they were scrambling for Iran or Ukraine, but some more deep breathing and listening cleared my mind.

dry waterfall by the trail

Another River Ride

Some photos from another weekend ride on the Nooksack River Trail, past Slater Road. It was a pretty ride with dappled sun and shade, pleasant temperatures and a light sprinkle of rain.

The trail is pretty over-grown with bushes and blackberry vines that will grab your sleeves and scratch your legs. Someone should get out there with a weed-whacker. Also there are some patches of fine sand, not very big but deep enough to grab your front wheel and throw you off the saddle.

At one place where the trail usually washes out during the winter floods, a detour was set up for trail work beyond that point as far as Marine Drive. I had to lift my bike over the sand bags and down about a foot to get to a section of double-track grass and dirt, which was pleasant and easy to ride on my gravel-and-touring bike, but would have been tricky on my Cannondale Synapse. In fact the whole trail would have been hard work on a skinnier-tire bike. Along the way I met a group of older riders - about my age, actually, come to think of it - on fat-tire e-bikes who seemed to find the ride a little rougher than they expected. I guess they thought the electric assist would make things easy, but the heavy bikes must have been hard to manage getting through the sand on the narrow tracks. But we all need to get out there are challenge ourselves!

At a Y-fork in the trail I took the left branch, which looked like it had been recently mowed for the first time that summer and was covered with thick thatch and deep stubble. But it was only a short side-trip, ending at a small pond or puddle in a very fertile wet-land. The reeds and rushes here are impressive, almost two inches in diameter or width. This wet-land area is open for hunting in duck-season, and maybe wouldn't be the best place to ride when people are out with fire-arms.

The rough trail ended here and I turned back and followed the dirt road through the woods to the car-parking lot at Marine Drive, then turned back again toward home.

The bridge at Marine Drive

More Rambling

Now that I've given up my weekday commuting rides, I'm finding that longer rides of 30-35 miles tire me out so I can't do much afterwards. I'm feeling some pain and strain in my tendons and bursa, not muscles or joints. I'm not sure if I'm just out of shape, or if this is arthritis or what is vaguely described as "fibromyalgia." Anyway, it seems better to just take shorter one-to-two hour rides of 15-20 miles three or four times a week, instead of pushing to increase my distances. But it is nice to get going fast enough to get my heart rate up and huff-and-puff a bit. Feels good to get my lungs full of oxygen.

It rained a little on this Sunday ride, and I was forced to take about three detours from the route I meant to ride. First was for a bad car wreck at the railway crossing on Slater Road. No train was involved, but the road was blocked by aid cars and police directing traffic to turn off to LaBounty Drive, which has been blocked off for construction projects most of the summer. I hoped I could squeak through on a bicycle, but no luck, I had to ride across the Slater Road freeway overpass, the one with the dangerous roundabouts where I crashed and tore up my elbow a few summers back. Rather than ride through with vehicle traffic, I crossed the overpass on the wrong side of the road, facing on-coming cars. This turned out to be even more risky, because the white paint stripes marking the bike lane have worn off and cars were cutting very close to the edge of the road. Then out of nervousness I turned off too soon and ended up riding on the north-bound freeway entrance for a couple hundred feet, before realizing my mistake, pulling a U-turn across the lane and going on to the roundabout at the Pacific Hwy. crossing. The pavement here is still cracked, pot-holed and thick with gravel and debris but I made it through and got home safe and with no fresh scars.

So it was an invigorating little jaunt that got my heart beating fast. I am looking forward to riding more in the cooler September weather.