Deschutes County Roads locks the gate at Deschutes Bridge, eight miles south of Elk Lake. We phoned them Friday, Dec. 5, and they said we could park our car overnight, off the road, at the locked gate and ride our bikes into the cabin at Elk Lake. (There is a year-round lodge at Elk Lake, although for the past few weeks there haven't been many guests: the snow hasn't been deep enough for the snowmobilers.)

Farnsworth has been a little hesitant to go on strenuous long walks recently, so we knew we were going to have to give him a ride. We found a used child trailer on Craigslist, and picked it up Saturday morning on our way out of town. We drove with two bikes, two trailers, and two dogs to the locked gate at Deschutes Bridge, on South Century Drive. We arrived at 3pm Saturday, put the rigs together in the warm sunshine, and left a note on the dashboard, saying that we planned to return to the car Tuesday at the latest.

Everything went perfectly, according to plan. Farnsworth did require a ride most of the way in, and he sat patiently in the child trailer as Fiona ran zig-zag back and forth, making sure that everyone was OK. We rode eight miles, so Fiona probably ran 24 miles (what with all the zigging and the zagging.)

Sunday night it started to snow. In the morning, we were a bit surprised to see that about three inches had accumulated. We watched three lodge guests and one lodge vehicle drive out. In the afternoon, we walked up to the lodge, and the owner looked at the forecast and said that no more snow was expected, and that it would warm to 40 degrees on Tuesday afternoon. We had a window on Tuesday when conditions might be suitable for us to ride the bikes and trailers out.

We relaxed, and over the weekend had three wood-fire saunas and three canoe rides. Beautiful sunsets and sunrises. About 130 mergansers in a flock on the lake. Other than the mergansers and buffleheads, we had the whole lake to ourselves (the lodge owners didn't make any noise).

Tuesday at noon, we pushed the bikes and trailers up to the highway, and tried it out. As long as we stayed out of the tiretracks that the lodge cars had made on Monday, we were able to keep the bikes moving well in the snow. And Farnie insisted on trotting along almost the entire distance, only hopping into the trailer for one mile toward the end of the ride.

Scroll down for all the photos, please click on any photo to enlarge.