Category: Road Bike

Ess-two-four-Oh. Sub 24 hour Overnighter. This guy Grant Petersen, https://www.adventurecycling.org/blog/s24os/, made it sound like a reasonable approach to spending nights outside though his capacity for WIND & RAIN is much deeper than mine but I digress. Basically it’s the idea that a short adventure is worth the effort but doesn’t require a lot of it and if you forget something or take too much, oh well. So I took some inspiration, true to form packed too much, and pedaled to our nearby state park for a sleepover.

Got all hepped up for this last summer and it fizzled. Not sure why, how. Maybe from prior camping trauma. This time it worked out. No reservations. Semi sort-of spontaneous. Told myself even though the bike was packed I could still bail out and slug my way through the weekend if necessary.
Sunday mid morning after a couple cups of coffee I thought What The Hell and hit the road encouraging myself I would have the run of the place being Sunday and not a holiday weekend. And the weather was in a goldilocks pattern so why not.

Left the house at the crack of 11.
Out Grant Street, Garibaldi, Padgett Road, beyond city limits across the McKay Creek dip and up onto the mostly level plains of the Tualatin Valley. Settled into the rest of the 15 mile meander amidst the U-Picks, commercial nurseries and grass ranches to Roy and then Banks where I picked up the Banks-Vernonia Rail Trail for the final 10 miles up to the park.

Stub Stewart is the newest gem in the Oregon State Park system. Lots of camping, hike & horse trails, mountain bike trails, disc golf. Surrounded by private property in rural Oregon so there is the occasional gunshot, chainsaw, blood curdling scream, but never incessantly annoying. This place and the mountain bike trails specifically have come in real handy these last few years.

Settled into #10 at the Brooke Creek hiker/biker campground. Half mile from the main visitor center, down then up a gravel two track. No vehicles allowed.
Figured out the tent, read a book, fiddled with the device, gathered thoughts, went for a walk, cooked food, made tea, communed with nature, made fire, etc etc. Packed a disc but the climb to the golf course did not appeal so it stayed in the bag.

They got these real nice gravel pads to park yer tent. Gravel’s thin but noticeable, might want to double up the sleep mat and definitely put a tarp down first. Tent stakes pierced the thin gravel top layer easy and sank into the terra firma and did not feel like they would let go easy if that unanticipated tornado passed by. Which reminds me, natural hammers are hard to come by here and I was lucky to find a loose piece of fire ring.

Two other camps occupied when I arrived and someone else showed up after me which made for a lightly populated neighborhood. Everyone kept to themselves and were very well behaved. No barking, crying, shouting, undue exuberance or other forms of nuisance. Think I heard a breakfast pot gonk in the morning. Other than that not a peep except from the army of robins and that owl hooting deep in the night who never got an answer.

Had a nice night of semi-sleep. I have never slept well on an air mattress, outside, in a tent, on the ground. Up and at ’em well past dawn for a leisurely morning and finally got the melange shuffled together and going around ten. Took a trail out the back of the campground to meet up with the paved rail trail and coasted on down to the trailhead in Banks.

Couple guys wearing safety vests carrying long handle pruners walking the trail near the trailhead clipping back berry vines asked if I was on a cross country ride which made me think I could probably could have done this with fewer panniers. But I like having capacity and not trying to cram stuff away. Might change my mind about this method but for now, it stands. Next trip, when the stars align, I might try no bags and use the trailer. Then I can bring the kitchen sink.