"We started in Lyle, WA at 10:45am (42-44 degrees), 8 riders (2 of them were on cross bikes with narrow tires, the rest used mt. bikes). We followed the Klickitat River trail all the way to Klickitat, along the way we flushed out two adult bald eagles, several blue herons, a pair of fighting Kestrels and numerous chickadees and ducks. A headless deer carcass was next to the trail near Pitt. Near Klickitat the temps raised to 52 degrees, the Chevron station was closed but we had our own food and water. Continued up hwy 142 to Horseshoe Bend Road, temps dropped in the Klickitat canyon shade but rose back up once we the the bridge at Horseshoe Bend and got out of the canyon shade. My mileage showed 16.5 miles at this point.

Four of us continued up Swale Canyon and the rest headed back to Lyle via hwy 142. It's to bad they turned back, because they missed the best part of the ride (and the worst). Swale Canyon was 11.9 miles of 3% incline, mostly gravel but a few sections had heaver gravel and one section had a creek washout that forced some of us to carry our bikes a few feet. The canyon was eerily quite after we left the last "homestead" trailer house. You can clearly see the rain shadow effect in Swale Canyon with Ponderosa Pine and a few fir trees on one side of the canyon, and sage bush on the other side. We liked the trestles that had dirt covering the rail road ties. Swale creek was dry, but a few sections had some standing water. Near the upper 2/3 we stopped and chatted with two families from Bend and HR, they were on bikes too with 4 kids (ages 6 to 11) on bikes. The two little ones were riding kiddies bikes, I'm sure they had to push them back up the canyon, especially in the heavy gravel sections near the top. Nearing the top the creek bed had allot more water and lots of cow droppings. We took Harms road to the Centerville Hwy, with a headwind the temps dropped to the low 40's (closer to 22-25 degs with the chill factor). I was expecting one or two hills before the big downhill into Lyle, boy were we surprised. We climbed another @ 600-700 feet before the road dropped into Lyle, it seem like after every little downhill we had another hill to climb, nice views into the canyon and of Mt Adams though.

We rolled into Lyle at 3:45. 44 total miles, 4:14 ride time, 10.3 mph ave and @ 2000 feet. One goathead flat, and two pinch flats on the narrow tires that the two cross bikes were using."

Joe Hamilton