Looking at the upcoming forecast, I noticed a week of
rain and snow is predicted, so I thought I ought to take advantage of another
day of clear blue skies and sunshine. It
was warm enough I didn’t think crust skiing was an option, so I decided to get
out my bike. I detest biking on roads,
and the bike paths in Homer are only about 6 flat miles long, round-trip. I decided to drive up to the Wynn Nature
Center on Skyline Drive, park there and bike to the end of Ohlson Mountain Road—maybe
6 miles but hilly with no traffic and awesome views. I got a little wildlife viewing as part of
the package.
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| Wearing my new "tube" neckwarmer/hat for warmth biking. Kind of dorky looking but I stayed warm. |
I’m not a fan of cold-weather biking so really haven’t done
it before. It must have been warm out,
though, because my thin ski gloves over biking gloves kept my hands plenty
warm. I pulled out the “tube” I won at
the Sea to Ski—one of those funky tubes of cloth you can wear like 27 different
ways (neckwarmer, facewarmer, hat, hat and neck, hat and face, etc.) and pulled
it up over my head like a hat, and it also covered my neck and had enough play
that when my face got cold I could pull it up over my chin and cheeks. Perfect!
A thermal shirt with my Women’s Nordic jacket was plenty warm as well.
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| View of Kenai Mountain Range and Grewingk Glacier from Skyline Drive before turning onto Ohlson Mountain Road |
From Wynn it was a quick 15 minute ride to the turn onto
Ohlson Mountain Road. I didn’t realize
how fast riding on the pavement was until I got onto the gravel/dirt road, even
if it was dry and hard-packed. Shortly
after my turn, though, I came around a curve and saw a brown blob in the middle
of the road. Bear! Nope.
It was a porcupine. I took a
video to share with you; we’ll see if it loads up right. (It's a little bit slow-moving--I'm not a totally experienced video-taker!) I watched
porky waddle down the road towards me and up the snowbank, impressed at how
slow he was going. Do porcupines
hibernate? I haven’t the foggiest. He just seemed a bit groggy.
After the porcupine I went down a fun, fast hill, then up a
loooong hill, stopping to take pictures a couple times. Perfect excuse for a break! Then I went down a sweet, long downhill past
the Lookout Ski Trails, past the rope tow, past the Extreme Tubing hill that
has been closed for a couple years and into the grader zone where the road was
being worked on. So I didn’t get all the
way to the end of Ohlson Mountain Road or even up Ohlson Mountain, but it ended
up being an hour and ten minutes total for the ride, which was just about right
for my first time out this year.
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| View of the Alaska Range (that's either Mt. Redoubt or Mt. Illiamna) from Ohlson Mountain Road, with Lookout Ski Trails in foreground |
Biking I noticed things I don’t normally notice as much when
I’m driving: the hills, the contours of
the land, the mountains. From up there
the Alaska Range spreads out in a stately panorama on the way out, and the much
closer Kenai Range commands the view on the way back. I consider the area off Ohlson Mountain Road
to be the ultimate Homer playground: cross-country
ski, downhill ski/snowboard, sled, snowshoe, snowmachine, and in the summer add
in 4-wheeling and mountain biking down the Watermelon Trail. The bike ride left me with the glow of
sunshine, a good workout and amazing beauty.
I just love it up there!
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