Eastern Oregon Bikepacking: Day 6 – A Trip to Terminal Gravity Brewery
Our 6th morning found both Trish and I feeling pretty refreshed considering we’d just climbed almost a vertical mile and a half the previous day. We got up and called the hotel at Wallowa Lake to see if we could get an early check-in. They said that would be fine, so we left Indian Lodge around 9:30am and made the 6-mile jaunt to Wallowa Lake. Once settled in our new hotel, the Eagle Cap Chalet, we talked about our game plan. Trish’s saddle sores from the previous day were feeling a lot better, but she didn’t want to push her luck with a long ride, so she opted to hang around Wallowa Lake while I went on a solo ride. I decided to go the minimalist route with my bike setup and headed back for Joseph.
The views of the lake and surrounding mountains were beautiful in the morning.
My plan was to find a cool mountain bike trail to ride, but after stopping at the forest service station in Joseph, I was apologetically informed that there were no mountain bike trails within a 10-mile radius of Joseph. However, an older gentleman loitering in the forest station informed me that there was a lightly used forest road next to a big white building labeled Hidden Creek Grange if I went down one of the main roads in Joseph a few miles. He said it was on the way to Enterprise, and since I was eventually headed there anyway, I decided to keep my eye out for it.
I should have never doubted the loitering forest service man’s reliability. Sure enough, a sign next to a white building pointed up a graveled forest road that looked like a decent alternative to trails. It was a beautiful ride up to a nice creek and campground. I was glad I made the side trip. Unfortunately, my only fall of the trip occurred on my descent down, where I hit an unseen mammoth pothole lurking in the shadow of a tree. The fall wasn’t that bad, and after looking around to make sure nobody saw my embarrassing slip, I quickly pushed my pedals towards Enterprise.
White building and sign. The older gentleman at the forest station knew what he was talking about.
Careful. Dangerous, bike-devouring potholes lurk in the shadows of the trees; be constantly vigilant!
The forest road I bike on snaked its way up towards that mountain.
Enterprise isn’t what you’d call a bustling metropolis. However, after visiting this sleepy little town, I now know from experience that there is one reason to set your GPS and cruise control and make the 5-hour trip: Terminal Gravity Brewery, whose tagline paradoxically states that it is the ‘Middle of Nowhere Center of the Universe.’ This little Brewery is just outside of the main strip in Enterprise (I use ‘main strip’ for want of a better word for a road with a gas station and some shops on it). Once there, the massive brewing facility and quirky yellow taphouse will put your mind at peace and remind you that spending five hours of your life wasted in a car really isn’t that bad in the grand scheme of life.
The ambiance of the facilities is very nice, and the beers are above average, in my modest opinion. As a modest IPA connoisseur, I’d say that their flagship beer, the Terminal Gravity IPA, is a bit on the thicker, malty side for me, but has the refreshingly citrus aftertaste you expect in an IPA; definitely worth a visit. I actually like their interruption IPA more. It was lighter, hoppy without being overwhelmingly bitter, and had a nice malt finish.
Since I’m on an IPA kick right now, I feel that they are the only beers I can actually give a somewhat accurate description of. The others were nice to sip while I anticipated these final two anchor beers, and then scrupulously took notes on them.
Having toured the facilities and paid the check, all that was left was a leisurely, slightly fuzzy, 13-mile bike ride back to Wallowa Lake where I tried to emphasize to my wife that Enterprise was a sleepy town in middle of nowhere, repressing the knowledge of a hoppy wonderland that is the center of the universe.
Categories: Pedals and Packs, Pubs and Pinots
yayayayayayayaya. I am gonna try to do this route! Looks bilbo radskins, Benjaminjamin
Did you per chance put these routes into strava or google maps? Completely related to my interest in plagiarizing them….
Awesome work and write up!
I should have then saved somewhere Jules. I’ll search around a bit for them and get back to you.
Awesome! So I got the maps for the main tour from Trish (on Cycle Oregon’s webpage).
But I would def like to check out this gravel ride you did to Enterprise if you got the route. Super Excited! Thanks dood!
Alright Jules, this is the Strava segment of the gravel ride I did: Joseph Gravel Ride Out and Back. As you can see, it was basically an out and back, with some ugly riding lines because I didn’t have it mapped out and had to ask some locals about which gravel road they thought I should check out.
However, I remember it being a lot of fun, and at the end I tooled around in a nearby creek-bed because I thought I was cool and could handle technical riding on my touring bike, which resulted in my only fall of the trip: a big rock, an unintentional stop, and a failure to unclip were all involved if I remember correctly. Anyway, check it out if you end up doing this ride. It was a lot of fun.
Alright Jules, here are the routes via Strava:
Day 1: https://www.strava.com/activities/157824169
Day 2: https://www.strava.com/activities/157824150
Day 3: https://www.strava.com/activities/157824123
Day 4: https://www.strava.com/activities/157824089
Day 5: https://www.strava.com/activities/157824073
Day 6: https://www.strava.com/activities/157823951
Day 7: https://www.strava.com/activities/157823958
Mind you, these are the actual ride activities, so they may include some minor wrong turns before we corrected ourselves, but otherwise they are pretty accurate. If you end up doing this ride, you better snap crap-tons of photos and then powerpoint present it to Trish and me on our back patio at the end of the summer. we’ll provide the brewskies.
Awesome! Thanks so much for all these routes. I am scrambling to prep for this trip and this is super helpful. I am stoked for this trip! And I am going to try for a clipless failure related crash in your honor. Mine always tend to be at busy city intersections….