A Gorge, friends, bikes and beers....part 1

This past Memorial Day weekend I just had to get out of the routine that comes from living in a city. 5 days of work followed by one of recovery and then hopefully some bike riding. We planned to meet up with Carey and Myles, who recently left Seattle for Portland, and Brett, one of my favorite riding partners here in the Northwest and check out Hood River, OR. Usually we head to Bend, OR, but the logistics just didn't work out this year, plus with gas at $4.05 a gallon less distance is more for sure.

Hood River did not disappoint. In a nut shell we had a blast. We left Seattle as early as I could, arriving home when the clock says 3:34 doesn't lead to jumping out of bed the next morning. Lets just say we were off like a herd of turtles around 10. The sun was shining, we had heard that it was supposed to rain in Hood River, so we joked about calling everyone and saying we were staying home. We got somewhat worried as we drove down and the sun was swallowed up by grey skies a few mile north of Portland. We were not disappointed though as it came back as we drove up the River Gorge on 84.

The plan was to check out Post Canyon, everyone had told me it was mostly a freeride area, but the guy at the bike shop said there was plenty of xc stuff up there to. I purchased a map and we were off. I felt a bit like the informal leader, on the trail I kept checking the map and getting us lost, just like any good leader does I didn't let it slow me down and many times proclaimed with as much force as I could my refusal to be wrong. We got trail advice from helpful souls along the way, rode some super fun technical stunts and had an all around great time. After the ride it was straight to the Brewery, Double Mountain, and then off to the campsite. Where the real adventure began. It was off the beaten path, we were close to being out of gas, and when we arrived the "camp master" Steve was fairly intoxicated and comical. Looked as though he had been hanging out in his truck drinking with his old lady, how romantic. We paid the one time fee of 20 dollars and went to set up our tents. We arrived to a light show, and that was shortly followed by a dog fight, not our thankfully, a crying baby and a kiwi birthday party all rolled in to one.
near the camp masters house?
great navigation on my part
there's that map again.
getting my freeride on, I am soooo good can't you tell.

Myles applies the "if you ain't crashing, you ain't trying hard enough philosophy. Guess we know where he stands.

I took most if not all of these photos from Carey's blog, she has so many more, you should check em out.