I woke up early as usual to a cool bite in the air. The sun starting to break over the trees as the fog floats over the meadow. The birds are chirping and hummingbirds buzzing around. Overnight, the elk moved into the camping area to bed down.
I packed up and got going because I knew a long hard day was ahead of me. As I left, the elk were up and grazing. I must have looked different to them on my bicycle. Three elk near me, stopped and stared me down. It was as if they were saying, you don’t plan to come this way do you?
I decided, yes I better go a different way. Going the other way around the loop, I only had to pass by two of them. This includes the big bull elk from the other day. They also took notice. But they were 7 feet off the road, not at the edge of the road like the others. So, I rode by without issue.
After leaving the campground, the ride to the north passes through more dense redwoods. It’s impressive similar to the one I passed through the other day.
It’s so quite under these trees (when cars aren’t going by). I imagine hiking away from the roads on one of the many trail and into the wilderness section would be a great experience.
I arrived at Harris beach state park after 6pm. I believe this is the nicest so far that I’ve been to. There is green grass to pitch your tent, many picnic tables, dedicated bike lock posts, USB power outlet lockers, bike repair and tool stand and water faucet. There are no dedicated restrooms, but there is one nearby which includes no cost warm showers. Eight dollars is the standard hike bike site fee in Oregon.
Ride summary: 7/10 difficulty (harder due to wind), 58 miles with 3580 feet of climbing. Sunny all day, but cooler in morning to warm in afternoon. Calm first 35 miles and then medium headwinds the rest of the ride. Today’s ride detailed GPS. Tour totals: 1441 miles (48 / day). 83,426 climbing feet.
4 responses to “Day 30 – Bicycle Touring Elk Prairie to Harris beach SP. More Elk and Redwoods, Crescent city, Oregon”
It is nice to see that they kept up the paint job on Paul and Babe – they look good.
The rock hill in the “deer” siting picture caught my eye. It kind of looked like a sleeping lion to me.
Yes, the trees of mystery was one attraction that was really well maintained (at least from what I could tell from the outside). The rock formation also caught my eye. I took a picture of just that as well.
Boy, those cows don’t look too healthy. All the elk and deer you are seeing look very healthy though. Glad there was no rain for you!
That is what I thought about the cows. I’m no cow expert though. Maybe they are dairy cows?