Willapa River Trail

One of my goals for this summer was to ride the Willapa river trail, I had considered riding it at the end of July but did the John Wayne trail instead.   My job didn't end up working out so I am back to square one in my search, which sucks but does give me a flexible schedule.  I was driving to Portland anyway to visit my Mom so I decided to get in a quick ride on the way down.

I wasn't exactly sure where to access the trail and as it turned out I drove right over it as I was looking for an access point.  I have noticed on long trips that my mileage is noticeably affected when I have a bike rack on the trunk and especially if I have a bike hanging on it.

So for this trip I decided to transport the bike in the car, which required a bit of disassembly.  Putting a trunk bike rack on and off the car isn't quick, but neither is disassembly and reassembly of the bike, but I did get great mileage!

In order to get the bike to fit in the car I needed to remover the seat and seatpost and the non drive pedal.

And of course the wheels.

Once I had the bike back together it was time to hit the trail.  I had a bit of rain on the drive down but I lucked out on my ride and it was like I had stolen a bit of summer on October 1st.

The total trail is about 60 miles long but it's not entirely built up, however for today I was only going to ride about 45 minutes total out and back.  The trail is a mix of pavement and gravel but I had almost entirely pavement on my ride.

On my short and flat ride I passed over rivers on trestles.

by cut corn fields

and alfalfa fields

A swampy area - this is a low lying valley that gets a lot of rain.

And cows, a few smells brought back my days visiting my grandparents ranch when I was a kid.

In a few more weeks I expect all the trees along the trail will be giving a spectacular show of fall leaves.

In late September I failed to take advantage of riding on a few lovely days so I was grateful to get a second chance at riding in lovely weather.  October tends to be a transitional month in the PNW, you might get 2 weeks of Indian summer or it might start raining tomorrow and not stop for 6 months.

I have plenty of bike projects to work on and might need to thin the herd a bit to raise some cash, I just need to find the motivation.  Hope you all get a chance to ride before the rains come.