Weekend before last, The Logging Road Cyclist went up and completed the ride up to Condenser Peak. Last Friday, on a spectacular warm Spring day, he went out to Five Rivers to do a loop-de-loop he had spied on the Siuslaw Forest map. TLRC intended to park on the Cape Perpetua road a mile or so west of Madera’s grave at the 58-37 junction, and then head down Cummins Ridge to Tenmile Cr, go back up Tenmile Cr. to the 58, head south and loop down the ridge north of Big Cr to Hwy 101, thence back up Big Cr to the 58 and back to the car. He only got the first loop done, and a bit of exploring.

The Cummins Ridge-Tenmile Cr. loop by itself is one of the best Coast Range rides, in TLRC’s humble opinion. Going down Cummins Ridge, one skirts the Cummins Cr. Wilderness. Between the trees, there are impressive views of untouched forest in the wilderness area. TLRC has no pictures to show, since none of the views would have made a good shot because of all the trees. Get the picture? Bad views=trees=no clear cuts. A good thing, right? Go see it yourself!

The ride up Tenmile is quite pretty with some bottom areas with huge old maples. Tenmile itself is a surprisingly large creek, and if TLRC was still in that phase of his life, he’d go back next winter and paddle it.

By the time he got up to the 58 at the top of the Tenmile Cr. road  (the 56), TLRC knew he was running short of time and wouldn’t be able to complete both loops. As a consolation, he rode down to the start of the Big Cr. ridge road (the 1055 on the Forest map), just to find it, and since he was a bit bewildered, he wandered around a bit on the north side of Saddle Mtn, just looking for something…

Back at the car, TLRC had gone about 35 miles and 5000 ft, not a trivial ride. No wonder he felt tired- he had pushed a lot of it in his middle ring, thinking there wasn’t much climbing going on!