LOST LAKE 200K, ROUTE 3356

AUTHOR: Jay Nadeau, RUSA#10004, Approved 2024

START LOCATION: Gresham

START CHECK IN 5am, START 6am

DISTANCE: 201km

UNPAVED: APPROX 18km

ELEVATION: APPROX 3269m

Route leaves Gresham to pass through Pleasant Home, Marmot, controle in Brightwood, up and out Lolo pass on NF-18 to Lost Lake. If you're familiar with cycling in the area these are not uncommon cycling roads - a difficult and rewarding route. 

Lost Lake 200k pre-ride report! by Jay Nadeau
Everyone, sign up for this ride--it's the best. Very low traffic throughout, amazing scenery, good hills. It starts out with just a few miles of the Springwater from Gresham City Park, then quickly gets off and heads to Dodge Park and the usual Ten Eyck--Shipley--Marmot bypass of Route 26. Almost no traffic on any of these roads. Turning left onto Barlow Trail, there's a sign "Road Closed 1.5 miles ahead" that's been there for years, but they're actually repairing the spot now. You'll have to get off to walk around the bulldozers, but there shouldn't be active work on weekends. (Note to support/sag drivers--take the detour).

Lolo Pass has lots of running water off to the sides but the road was dry until the gravel section. The sign that says "Lolo Pass 5" is a terrible lie--it's about 7.5 miles to the top from the sign. The view of Mt Hood from the top showed just how covered with snow the mountain still is! There was one patch of snow that I had to walk just past the Lolo summit, on the part of the gravel that's uphill in the outbound direction. By next week it might be gone. Lolo Pass appeared to be open to traffic, as there were a couple of cars that went through and no gate.  Also saw quite a few road bike tracks in the gravel. Not many people heading to Lost Lake despite the surprisingly warm weather. Road dry. There were so few people that I was afraid the store would be closed, but it was open and pretty crowded. I stocked up well because despite having less climbing, the return trip is almost as hard as the outbound. You're usually battling a headwind in this direction (today was no exception) and the gravel section is now uphill. The gravel is pretty smooth and hard-packed at the moment, though there were a couple of sections with remains of downed trees--watch out for branches.

I thought about having a picnic at the top, but felt a few raindrops and decided to get off the mountain before any more blew in. Instead I stopped for a snack at Barlow Wayside Park, which would also make a good staffed control, especially in cooler weather when you don't want to linger up high. This provided the energy needed to tackle windy Marmot and that last pitch out of Dodge Park. Clouds were seriously blowing in to Portland as I headed west, so it was a good choice to do the ride Saturday instead of Sunday. In all, a great ride in nearly perfect weather, just over 10,000 feet of climbing.

(registration open until midnight, Wednesday, June 5th)