Windy Ridge

Behind Mt St Helens is Windy Ridge and there are a ton of great roads back there, so Paul and I met in Randle for lunch and rode them roads.

Unfortunately the roads have deteriorated. There are sunken grades all over the place, including the corners, which made sport riding dangerous so we took it easy. I even had to dial back compression damping to deal with it.
The weather, however, was spectacular. The morning started overcast, then as I rounded Mt. Rainier it cleared up to reveal the giant in all it's glory.

As we headed up forest road 90 a black sportbike flew past us in a corner. we continued to the Spirit lake lookout.
Half an hour later we retraced FR90 to FR25 and saw someone telling us to slow down. Then we noticed a black motorcycle in several parts, and people helping a body on the ground. There was a guy in an orange vest with a walkie talkie ...
In a way I felt guilty just riding by, but since I lacked any EMT knowledge, and they had the communinations facilities, there wasn't much I could do, so I got out of the way.
After a short ride we arrived at Ape Cave, which is a lava tunnel. However, once we descended we discovered our headlamps were crappy and we were unable see our toes much less the cave around us.
Once back in Portland we showered up and headed over to India House for dinner. As usual their tandoori halibut was excellent!
Back in February Rob and I managed to hit four brewpubs in one day. Then Chuck and I did five. Paul and I decided to raise the bar, but by midnight we were only at five. Most interesting was Tugboat and the sour brown they served. Not sure I liked it... It tasted like an uncarbonated Moose Drool with a lot of grapefruit zest added.