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Bruce
& Betsy Blais |
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Mountain Biking - Special Trails - WALDO LAKE, OR In the Fall of 2012, Bruce was working in Oregon and rode a few trails out there. This is and account of the Waldo Lake trail ride. Waldo Lake is an IMBA EPIC trail east of Eugene and north of Crater Lake. The trail system at Waldo Lake circles the lake. This ride was on September 29, 2012. The length is 21 miles with 2,187' of climbing. He started riding the trail in a clockwise direction from the campground. The counter-clockwise direction is preferred in that going in that direction allows the technical sections to be ridden at the beginning of the ride. Below is a map showing the track, profile and statistics for the ride. Right-click on the image and use the "Save Target As " option to down-load a 1MB 11x17" PDF version of the map. You can also click on the image and zoom up to 200% for a detailed view in a separate window. Right click here to down load a high-resolution GPX file. The file may want to save as an XML file, and if so, change the extension to gpx before you save it. The file is a track created on the Delorme PN-60W GPS.
Below is the group from the Disciples Of Dirt (DOD) of Eugene, and the Salem Oregon Mountain Bike Association (SOMBA) in the parking lot at the Waldo Lake Campground at the beginning of the ride.
The trail circles the lake and can be ridden in either direction from the parking lot, clockwise or counter clockwise. The trail is normally ridden counter clockwise since this allows the riders to tackle the technical sections at the beginning of the ride. This day, the ride went clockwise. Below is a shot of the riders coming through a section of forest killed by a forest fire several years ago.
Below is another shot of the burned out wooded section near the lake. The photo also shows some of the large boulders in the trail.
For the most part, the trails are wide and smooth with occasional batches of boulders. Bruce was cruising along and mis-judged some rocks. He launched over the bars and "body slammed" the trail. In the process he lacerated his liver and fractured the right kidney. Amazingly, he didn't have a mark on him.
He rode on for about a mile, but then realized he was hurt. At that point, he turned back to campground to wait for the rest of the group to finish.
Below is another photo of the lake from the trail.
And below in yet another photo of the lake.
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Version 0.2, May 27, 2014 |
