Recovered. Time to Ride!

Today I went on the official first ride on my new touring bike. Well technically not my FIRST ride as I rode a whopping four miles on the Burke-Gilman Trail in Seattle last weekend.  Today I rode 9.44 miles on a hilly route through farm lands outside of Newberg.  My new bike, the Surly Long Haul Trucker,  is very comfortable and easy to ride- if I had one word to sum up the bike it would be: Solid.  It is nowhere near as twitchy as my Road bike (Trek 2300)  which means that is also a tad bit less responsive.  The gear levers are on the ends of the handle bar drops which will take a little getting used to. The low gearing is pretty sweet for those steep hills.  I can’t wait to load her up and get her out on a tour!  But for now I will concentrate on getting my strength and endurance back so I can keep up with Jay!

And so it begins.....

Or should I say it has re-surfaced.  What am I talking about? Bike touring!  Yep, Jay and I are officially going bike touring.  And I for one am totally excited.  We both have done a bit of touring in the past. Most of my tours have been in Ireland, Britain and Europe and most of Jay’s have taken place in the Pacific North West.  One thing I have learned through Jay is that you don’t have to travel far to experience beautiful bike touring (Or any other touring for that matter).   The one bike tour we have completed together was in 2004 where we credit card toured through East Germany from North to South with a short stop in Berlin and then following the Salle River to the head waters.  That was fun.  So, eight years later we have decided to outfit ourselves and discover the world by bicycle. 

JP with her Surly

Most of my touring has been done on the infamous pink bike:  An old Specialized Hard Rock rigid frame mountain bike.  It worked – I never had any problems- it handled all the terrain I could throw at it and is still functioning today. However, it is no longer to be my touring bike as we have decided to update our equipment and gear for our future plans.  Our first purchase is our bikes.  We opted for Surly Long Hall Truckers.  Mine was delivered first, three days after having abdominal surgery… so it now sits in my living room – so I can stare at it longingly.  Soon enough I will be able to ride my Forrest Green two wheeled work horse – and who knows where it will take me.

We are in the process of planning out several 2-3 day local shake down tours to work out gear issues.  We will mostly be camping on our bike tours from here on out as credit card tours are very spendy! Although I am very familiar with backpacking and camping – I have little experience with camping while bike touring – so I have a lot to learn. 

Our first longer tour will be this summer- where we intend to tour around Wales.  We have about 800 miles of bicycling sketched out over a two and a half week period.  If all goes as planned, my cousin Alexa will be joining us for the last half of the tour.   For now I will settle with reading about Wales and staring at my bike.  I must heal and then work up to 60-80 miles per day on a loaded bicycle. I have my work cut out for me!

10th anniversary weekend

Map of the S.Ridgeline trail at the Spring St. Trailhead

What a lovely weekend that was.  All weekends should be that invigorating and relaxing all at the same time.  We loaded the mountain bikes on the car and headed south to the Eugene area after a nice leisurely morning at home on Saturday.  After making a wrong assumption that you can ride bikes on the entire Eugene South Ridgeline trail we finally started our first mountain bike ride of the weekend at the Spring street trail head.  The ride immediately went straight up a switch-backing single track to the top of the first summit.  Cool afternoon air combined with a lack of warm-up was the perfect combination for a little exercise induced asthma to take hold- but it was easily relived with a “hit” of the ’ole inhaler followed by a fun single track downhill.  The Ridgeline trail is mostly single track, very well maintained and coated with a fine gravel such that the only thing technical is the fact that you are climbing or descending on single track with a few switch backs thrown in to keep you on your toes. We rode the entire trail where mountain bikes were legal- 10 miles of fun, fast single track ride with lots of heart pumping climbing and fun descents. 

After our bike ride we picked up a picnic dinner for a night in at the bed and breakfast.  We headed out highway 126 along the McKenzie River trail to just east of Vida and the Eagle Rock B&B.  A beautiful, well maintained, well managed property right on the McKenzie River.  Upon arrival we were escorted to the sitting room and provided homemade cookies (delicious), port, wine, beer, coffee and tea.  We were then given a quick tour and provided the keys to our room.  The house sits back off the river and has a beautiful garden that leads up to the rocky shore upon which is a fire pit for guest to enjoy.  The B&B is definitely set up for weddings- and would be an absolutely beautiful spot.  We enjoyed our picnic and settled in for the night- we had the whole place to ourselves for the evening as all the other guests were at “the” game (UofO and Arizona- UofO won, of course).

Jay just after a good OTB crash

We slept in until 9am when breakfast was served- and what a treat that was:  a full three course breakfast starting with a fresh fruit panache with Greek yogurt and yummy berries, a orange-bun (like a cinnamon roll with fresh orange simple syrup) and a jalapeno chili cheddar egg baked goodness.  All with fresh Earl Grey tea and excellent company and a beautiful river view.  After breakfast we chilled for a short while and then headed out for our days activity.  This time we rode fantastic, fun and technical single track on the McKenzie River trail.  Technical without serious ups and downs- almost a complete reverse of the previous days ride.  We parked at Belknap hot springs and rode for an hour up the trail-  the ride up is challenging because not only are you negotiating very wet roots, rocks, puddles, tree stumps and bridges- you are also generally going up- so you really have to focus on keeping your forward momentum going.  The ride back was exhilarating with all the momentum you need to pop over wet rocks, hop roots and generally splash through puddles of goopy mud. We took a short snack break by rivers edge before finishing the last few miles of our fun descent.

JP on a snack break

We ended our day with a soak at the Belknap hot springs which sits right on the McKenzie River. For $7 you can soak in their main pool which is maintained at around 100^oF- perfect for a post ride recovery. The hot springs are a little touristy for my liking but still a beautiful stop and relaxing end to a ride.  We soaked for about an hour- showered and headed into Eugene for a yummy waffle for dinner and fresh tea at “Off the Waffle”on Willamette and 25^th St. in Southe Eugene followed by an uneventful drive home.   A fantastic 10 year anniversary!

Oh yeah-  Happy Birthday to my Brother, Paul! 

Trip to Haiti Postponed

We hope that everyone is having a wonderful holiday season. We have decided to postpone our trip to Haiti due to family health issues. We appreciate all the support we have recieved for our trip. Donations will go to support the International Medical Assistant Team members who are still scheduled to provide medical aid during this time. We are working to find another time to assist with the medical releif effort in Haiti and will keep you informed.

Helping in Haiti 2010

Jay and I are joining with International Medical Assistance Team (IMAT) to provide medical support with the ongoing cholera outbreak in Haiti. We will be in Haiti for the week between Christmas and New Year. Nearly a year after the devastating earthquake humanitarian aid and medical relief is still a high priority. The recent cholera outbreak has significantly affected the people of Haiti. Medical teams are needed to provide supplies and support to reduce the numbers affected or dying from cholera. http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/content/outbreak-notice/haiti-cholera.aspx

The decision to go to Haiti has not been an easy one but it feels right. We have the skills and training necessary to provide aid and there is a need. I am sure this will be a life changing experience for us and we hope to help as many people as we can in our short time in country. Jay and I are contributing our costs out of pocket. If you would like to help us help others, you can donate to IMAT and indicate that your contribution is in support of Janet Peterson and Jason Swenberger for travel to Haiti, December 26th. The easiest way to donate is to use your credit card through the IMAT web site: http://www.imateam.org click on “donate” in the lower right hand corner. If you prefer, you can send a check made out to IMAT indicating our names in the note. All donations are tax deductable. IMAT also accepts donations of medical supplies.

For more information on cholera http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/yellowbook/2010/chapter-5/cholera.aspx

We hope you all have a wonderful holiday season.

Janet and Jay

Headache?

Hello again- back in Namche.

We had a marvelous trek to Thame (12, 200ft) and Arya (14,054 ft) along the valley of the Duhda Kosi river all on an incredible high alpine plateau. I arrived at 14, 000 complete with a headache. We were due to stay two nights in Arya before heading over the Renjo La pass which takes you above 17,000ft. We decided to alter our plans when my headache got worse instead of better in 24 hours. We decended back to Namche in one day ( 17 K with 3000 ft of decent). We are back in Namche resting, doing laundry and visiting with "family". Tomorrow we will head out to Tengboche and try a slower acclimitization process. We are still planning on doing the high passes- just in a anti-clockwise direction.

Today is our first day of sun. I am so excited to actually see the great mountains surrounding the Khumbu Valley. We are heading up to Khunde where I might get my first view of Everest.

The Road to Namche

Lindsay and I have been traveling for 10 days now. It is hard to believe we are a third the way through our trip. We decided not to fly to Lukla- most people begin their trek with a flight to Lukla which can precipitate problems with altitude- we chose to trek from Jiri via the old mountaineers route- the route used before the Lukla airport was installed. It was cool to walk in the steps of Sir Edmund Hillary! This route required eight days of trekking with one "rest" day thrown in at Junbesi. For our rest day we hiked up to the Thupten Choling Monestary- the largest with 400 Ani (nuns) and 100 monks. Our visit to the monestary was incredibly moving. Very, very calming and peaceful.

The trek followed a mostly easterly path which means traveling over a series of valleys with rivers that run North to South. This means that each day took us up over a pass and down into a valley to cross a river on a suspension bridge. Sometimes there were two passes and two valleys in one day! The trek below Lukla was very peaceful with few tourists. The villages were very small and quiet. Once we hit the Lukla area we were joined by 100's of other trekkers- a bit of a reverse culture shock!

So far we have climbed a total of 22,912 feet (6974m) and descended a total of 17,832 feet (5429m). Our high point was the Lamjura Pass at 11,594 feet (3530m) and our low point was 4926 feet (1500m). We have averaged 6.5 hours walking each day - our longest day was 8.5 hours! From here on out the trekking times are generally shorter as we have to move up slowly to avoid altitude illness. A big advantage of our chosen trek from Jiri is that we began the aclimitization process early on- Lindsay and I "ran" up the Namche Hill passing many of the poor soles who had just arrived from the Lukla airport.

Lindsay and I are both doing well. We both experience a bought of the khumbu tummy - we recovered quickly. Nepal is a very beautiful and spiritual place. I am a peace here.