Day 28 – Bicycle Touring Humboldt Redwoods (Burlington) to Arcata. North Redwoods SP, Rain and Wind

Like clockwork the rain started around midnight. The giant trees might’ve helped protect the tent a little but it also created huge rain drips that made a heavy plop on the roof of the tent.

At times the intensity of the rain increased. I got out my headlight and inspected the tent and to my surprise it was still fairly dry.

But by morning, it was coming down pretty heavily and it was starting to leak around some of the seams. But overall my stuff stayed pretty dry which I was pleased with. It was now light enough to get up but I checked the weather forecast and it looked like there would be a break in about an hour. So I consolidated the gear the best I could within the tent and waited for my window of opportunity. The tent was soaking and muddy but that’s the way it was going to be.

It’s interesting under the canopy of the redwoods trees. I noticed in the evening, it stayed like twilight for hours before actually getting dark. Similarly, in the morning, it seemed like sunrise for hours.

When the rain eased, I quickly loaded my bike and was ready to go. I rode over to the check-in station which had a covered area and read all the brochures. I checked the forecast again and now it says one hour and a half before it stops raining. So now I move over to the next-door visitors center which wasn’t open yet because it was still too early. I decided to check my wheel. It was a good thing I did because some of the spokes had loosened. I took this waiting opportunity to do some more adjusting of the tension. After completing this, I was too impatient to wait any longer. So rain and all, I headed out.

The Avenue of the Giants Road and the tall redwoods are just amazing when it’s raining. I took a couple of pictures with my camera but it really was just too wet. So for the most part during the rain, I gave up on taking pictures and just focused on using my GoPro to capture videos.

While riding through one of the last sections of the Redwood State park, I noticed a dog is standing in the middle of the road coming up ahead. This should be interesting, I thought to myself. So I hit the GoPro button to get it started. It didn’t start. Oh well, the dog is just walking off the road anyway. Sure enough he was just luring me in. My first dog chase of the tour was on. It wasn’t really much of a chase as I wasn’t going very fast. The dog running up alongside my leg and even growling. I yelled, “No” and “go home” and other such things to no affect. So I decided to stop and sure enough he was only interested in the chase and not actually the catching. Then suddenly a car passes going the other way and the dog was off after the car. Now is my chance to get away, so I took off again. But the car was too fast so he gave up quickly and came full speed back at me. So I hit the GoPro button a couple more times but it still didn’t record. The same thing happened, I stopped and he stopped and then another car came by the other way and he took off after the car. This time I created enough space he wasn’t going to catch me and he gave up. I was hoping to get a video or a picture from the video but you’ll just have to take this accounting of what happened.

After an hour or so it did stop raining and it was actually nice riding. But after about 45 minutes the rain came back with even more intensity and now I was out of the redwoods, out in the open getting soaking wet.

Upon reaching the city of Rio Dell, I decided I better get lunch because the two pop tarts and two berry turnover pastries I ate in the tent were only going to last me so long. As I was eating inside a nice Mexican cafe, the rain continued to fall. That’s when I made the decision to go ahead and book a motel. This was a good decision, because I was not going to make the 80 miles to the next campground. But it also turned out to be not the greatest idea because I still booked it so I had to go about 64 miles total to get to the motel.

In total the motel in the city of Arcata was 65 miles from the start. For the most part the rain let up about an hour after lunch. But unfortunately getting closer to the ocean, the headwinds picked up. Due to the winds and the fact that there were a couple of very steep climbs, it was pretty difficult. I didn’t reach the motel until about 6 PM. I think this is the latest I’ve arrived at a stop. Then the mad scramble; get dinner, charge electronics, dry stuff, eat, shower, laundry and complete the blog.

I’ll probably do a medium effort tomorrow to get me closer to the border of California and Oregon. This will give me a chance on the day after to make it clear into Oregon and the next state park camping location.

Ride summary: 7/10 difficulty (due to rain, wind and steep hills), 65 miles with 2530 feet of climbing. Was raining or threat of rain all ride. Headwinds in second half of ride raised the difficulty by at least one. Today’s ride detailed GPS. Tour totals: 1340 miles (48 / day). 77,245 climbing feet.