Day 11 - Stanley - Little basin Creek / Red Fish lake

Little Basin Creek & Red Fish lake mountain bike trail rides (Stanley, Oregon)

We got up fairly early and decided to go and get breakfast in town, it was cold and there were quite a few clouds in the sky.

We walked over to the Village bakery and had a great breakfast I had french toast and Clare had the Oatmeal special. Stanley is a a very small town, with wide dirt roads as its streets.

We decided to go and do the Potato Mountain ride (Little Basin Creek), so headed back to the Motel and packed our gear in the SUV.

The clouds and low light made the mountain views look very spectacular.

The trail started out as double track before narrowing to singletrack, there was a pretty steep uphill section of trail which went on quite a way. The trail was much more fun than fisher creek, plenty of rocks roots and other challenges.

Once we reached the top of the climb the trail started to drop back down gradually through the trees, until it broke out into some wide open meadows.

The trail went back into the trees and followed the creek, with plenty of undulations in the trail, at one point a massive Elk crossed the trail a few point in front of me.

The trail got very narrow and close to the stream, the trail was a joy to ride. With plenty of small stream crossing , and three major river crossings.

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The trail was well constructed, with some armored rocky sections in boggy places , but was all ride able.

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Of the three major river crossing I only managed to get across one without coming off, I had very wet cold feet, Clare was more sensible and took her shoes and socks off on each crossing.

Eventually the singletrack came to an end and we headed back down a fire road the the SUV, I wondered as we rode back if there was any hidden singletrack we could have taken back.

The ride was only about 14 miles long, but had been a real adventure ride, much better than the Fisher Creek ride we had done the day before. Email me for garmin GDB file

As the Little Basin ride wasn't that long, I fancied doing another ride over at Red Fish lake as the guide books described it as being quite tough, Clare decided to go for a walk whilst I rode round the lake. Unfortunately I cant find my GPS recording for this route, so the trail map and profile have been made up (I wouldn't try following the route i've marked unless you want to get lost 8-) )

We parked 2 miles down the road from Red Fish Lodge, and I set off along the road towards the Sockeye Campground,and Clare drove off to the Red Fish Lodge where she started her walk from. Once I'd passed the campgrounds on got onto the trail i wasn't sure is i was on the right trail, as there were loads of trees down, and the climbing was pretty brutal. Eventually it leveled out as I headed south above the lake.

Eventually I got onto a trail which matched the route description I had , and caught the odd view of the Lake and the Sawtooths. The trail was nice and challenging with plenty of rocks and roots.

After about 7 miles I came to the edge of the wilderness and the point where the trail dropped down to the lake, here I met a couple of hikers, the only people I'd seen so far on the trail. They were impressed that I was mountain biking the trail , when they found it tough to hike.

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The trail headed down quite steeply with some nice switch backs - I enjoyed the descent a lot until I got a puncture - and started to imagine wild beasts were creeping up on me.

The southern end of the lake was very beautiful, and it really felt like I was riding in wilderness, the trail was quite tricky in places as well.

The trail was fairly level round the bottom of the lake, and then it started to climb back up via switch backs, the gradient was fairly easy to ride though. And there were some great views of the mountains when you stopped and looked back.

Once I had climbed to the stop the trail, it started to head down. The trail was very bumpy in places with a lot of baby heads - you wouldn't want to ride up this way.

As I dropped down the final descent I met Clare who had hiked up the same trail i'd just ridden down, we then finished up near the Redfish Lodge, where she had parked the SUV.

Like the guide book had said the ride had been pretty tough and Epic I think I rode around 15 miles in total - but they were hard miles, I was glad Clare hadn't done it as it would have taken us a long time to get round it together. It was one of the tougher rides i'd done on the holiday.

Clare took the following pictures on her walk she walked along the Fish Hook Creek Trail (6 miles), and along along some of the Redfish trail.

While walking along the trail Clare saw a bird of prey with a chipmunk in its Talons, 2 snakes, woodpeckers and a squirrel. At the end of her hike she stopped and had a cold lemonade sitting in the easy chairs overlooking the lake, before heading up the trail to look for me.

At the Lake we took photos of the views and then headed back to the Motel to get cleaned up before heading out for dinner.

We went to the Casino restaurant in Stanley.  and had some very good food – I had steak, and Clare had a prawn and oyster pasta. There were hardly any other customers in the restaurant.