Crater Lake to Stanley: Let’s go!

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I deliberately chose a route that went through some of the most remote geography that I could find, up to the limits of my gear and carrying capacity. I wanted to get out into the middle of nowhere, and encounter as few people as possible on the way.

I tried to make a route like that through California, but all the sparsely populated parts of California are sparse for good reasons. They are all either too steep, too dangerous, or unpaved. One of the reasons I settled on Oregon – the eastern portions especially – was because it appeared to be the flattest and also some of the most remote territory I could find without having to deal with transporting a recumbent bike on the train system.

It is possible to transport a recumbent bike by train, and start a trip that way, if you’re willing to assemble the bike right there on the platform, then fold up the box and haul it to a post office. However, I got lucky on my trip: My father agreed to meet me at the train station with his truck, into which I’d packed the recumbent a few months earlier.