Sunday, May 31, 2015

Climbing for Nepal

When I never did finish the blog entries for my trip to Newport. The last post was from going from Bend to Corvallis. When I got to Corvallis I found a KOA campground just outside of Corvallis. Actually as I was biking past I could smell hotdogs being cooked on campfires and looked around and found the KOA just a bit off the road.

The KOA camping was a lot like the camping at the state park along the Snake River in Idaho. It just isn't the kind of camping I am use to. But I decided to have some fun with it, so I bought some of their firewood, hot dogs, roasting stick and some ketchup and joined the ranks of KOA camping.

From start to finish I ended up doing a full range of accommodations. Camping in the middle of nowhere amongst the tumble weeds, one day I camped on the side of a nice road but set up my tent on a bed of goat head thorns, I stayed at the home of a total stranger, stayed at a relatives home, and even stayed in a couple of motel rooms along the way. It was different than what I was planning when I started out but I really like the way it turned out.

I really enjoyed the Oregon trail historic sights along the route and riding along the Snake River was great. Then the final two days biking through the Cascades and the Coastal mountains was the perfect treat to end a great ride.

Maybe it is because I was born there in Corvallis between the Cascade and Coastal mountains, but I think it is much more than that. I just love the green forests and western Oregon is just a beautiful green place. Utah has some of the best mountain biking in the world. People come from all over the world to go mountain biking in Moab, and while I do enjoy the desert mountain biking, my favorite is a nice single track through a dense forest. I love mountain biking in the mountains near my home more than in southern Utah. Western Oregon is like the local mountains, only a little lower in elevation and with a lot more green.

OK, that was long, but there is more...

On Strava they are doing a challenge to climb 29,028 feet in June. That is the height of Mt. Everest. The idea is to raise money to help the people of Nepal as they recover from the massive earthquakes. My heart has been aching for the people of Nepal ever since the quake. More than 8,000 people died and it left hundreds of thousands of people homeless. I really want to do something to help. So I created an account on More Than Sport and am going to try and raise $500 to http://www.morethansport.org/fundraiser/biking-for-nepal# help build shelter for the people of Nepal.   So I will blog as I work towards the 29,028 feet. I made a donation for the shelters and would ask that if you can you would also help these people that need a place to protect themselves from the monsoon rains.

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