I had originally intended to get an early start, but of course, that didn't happen. The Adventure Cycling headquarters is in Missoula, and I had been meaning to visit before I left. Of course, as soon as I got there, so did another old guy, and soon we were chatting merrily away. As we talked, he mentioned that he'd had his bike weighed on a scale they had out back. I was curious how much my bike weighed, so I walked up to the front desk and asked. "Sure", the lady replied, "let me call Frank". She made a quick intercom call, and moments later a guy with a camera around his neck strolled out into the lobby. He said something about shooting some photos and handed me some sort of form. Apparently, they liked to snap some shots of people who came through, which occasionally showed up in their magazine or on the office wall. After they photos, which were taken on black & white film, I hoisted my bike onto the scale and watched in horror as the scale registered 92 pounds. No wonder climbing is so slow for me.
After spending all that time at the ACA office, I finally got away from Missoula at 12:30 or so. I had heard from a couple of people that there was a place called Losche Lodge that allowed cyclists to camp for free. It was only 60 miles distant, but a fair bit of that was climbing Lolo Pass. As I started out, clouds gathered, and snippets of rain blew over me. Because I was going so slowly, the cool the rain brought was welcome, and I didn't mind it at all. Finally I reached the top, at the border of Idaho and Montana. As soon as I crested the top, my 92 pounds of bicycle hurled me down the descent, and I zoomed past 30 miles an hour. My speedo stayed at the 30 mph marker for close to 4 miles, without me doing any pedaling. I got a sense of what riding a motorcycle would be like, as I leaned into the corners that snaked down the mountainside. From the top of the pass, I had 20 miles or so to go, but it felt like a lot less.
Sure enough, there was a little establishment out in the middle of the forest, complete with a sign informing travelers that the next stop for diesel was 90-something miles distant. I inquired at the lodge's general store, and minutes later was slinging my hammock under a small stand of massive pines. The rain died down, and there wasn't even a breath of wind in the forest. This was really the only time I got to stop in the forest, and I loved the feeling of being swallowed up into something so massive. Definitely better than the plains.
June 27
In the interest of catching up to where I am now, I'm going to truncate the day's narration a bit.
As I rode further and further west along whatever river it was that I was now following, the pines began to thin out, and the mountains on either side of me grew gradually smaller. This was disappointing, but still much better than no trees and flat ground.
I was going slightly downhill, and the trees were still thick enough to block much of what little wind there was, so I was cruising along at 15 or 16 miles an hour. I thought that this was a pretty good pace, but then I looked behind me and saw another cyclist a ways back. I kicked it up a bit, thinking, "there's no way he can be going that fast." But sure enough, the cyclist steadily gained on me. Whoever it was, he was going quite fast. Eventually, the inevitable happened, and I was passed, but not by a solo biker. The reason for the speed was that there was a group of 4 riders, drafting in a paceline. I let them pass, but my brain started working a few seconds later and I pushed ahead and asked if it would be alright for me to ride with them a bit.
So for the next 15 miles, I stayed in the group, and we averaged maybe 21 or so, occasionally hitting speeds as high as 25. We stopped in a small town that consisted of a gas station and motel, and I found out the they had taken the train out from Portland to Glacier national park and were In the process of riding back. They stopped a few miles later for the night, and I kept riding.
I ended up in the town of Kamiah for the night, which happened to have free camping at the city park. I struck up a conversation with some random dude, and he invited me back to his place to grab a shower and some water. I went to bed clean and refreshed.
June 28
A couple miles miles into the morning, I stopped at a historical site to read the signs, and another westbound rider showed up. He was an older guy, (he mentioned that he was 62) but that wasn't stopping him from riding 10,000 miles around America. Oh, and he was doing it in Keen sandals and flat pedals. He was headed to Lewiston as well, so we rode together for most of the day.
As soon as I got cell phone service, I texted Daniel and let him know where I was at. He had spent the last couple nights on a sail boat that was docked in a marina, a deal he had hooked up with couchsurfing. He have me some directions, and also said he had found a lady with a RV who was willing to let me sleep there. We hung out for the evening, ate some dinner, and the went back to our respective places to spend a very hot and uncomfortable night.
June 30
Both Danny and I had heard horror stories about the wind in the columbia river gorge, and Danny had already mapped out an alternate route that would take us north and on a bit more round about course from where we were to Portland. From Lewiston, we decided to ride to Pullman, where Danny had found some couchsurfers to host us.
The first part of our ride followed another river, and with a bit of tailwind and some drafting, we flew along at 20 mph. However, our progress was stopped when the road left the river and climbed 1600 feet. This wasn't really all that many vertical feet, but the climb was the steepest I'd experienced yet. I was in my lowest gear, and still had to tack from one side of the road to the other to make progress. Poor Danny, with his super high gearing, was forced to walk much of the time. To exacerbate the problem, the temperature was very hot, and there was almost no shade along the roadside. All told, it took us 2 hours to make the 6 mile climb. Once we reached the top, we still had to fight a headwind, but it wasn't nearly as bad as climbing.
Because we had gotten an early start, it was only 2:00 when we arrived in Pullman, and we hung out and chatted with the barista in a caffe for an hour or so. Later, we found a water spigot in a cemetery and washed up a bit before we met our couchsurfing hosts.
Courtney had to work to 7:00, but we dropped by the salon she worked at and she gave us the key to her apartment. We spent the rest of our afternoon lounging by the pool, and after cooking some dinner hit the bed.
July 1
Our next destination was the tri-cities: Kennewick, Pasco, and Richland. Our estimates put the distance between here and there at 120 miles or so, and we figured it would take us two days to make the ride.
In the morning, we wandered around a bit, making a scenic detour and having to backtrack 4 miles at one point. Eventually, we found the route we needed to be on, (like, the roads were actually paved) and trucked through the heat of the day. As it got on toward evening, we started thinking about where where we wanted to stop for the night, and decided we needed 3 things. Trees were needed to tie up our hammocks, I needed to have fresh water to drink, cook with, and wash my dishes, and we both badly wanted to stop on a river were we could cool off. The map showed a bike trail that followed the snake river, and a town called Hooper was near the beginning of the trail. We made for the town, but it turned out to be no more than a dot in the map. However, we were both worn out from the intense heat, and Danny getting a flat tire settled it. We were just going to have to find a place to camp. After scoping out the area and filling up our water at the house of a friendly old guy, we decided we would find access to the water first and then head back to some trees we had found. The river banks were, for the most part, a 20 foot drop straight into the water, and we slowly rode along for a could of miles. Eventually we found a place where we thought we could get down to the water. Seeing a large snake of unknown species sunning itself on the road put us on our guard, and we took the time to bushwhack a bit of a trail through the tall grass down the river. The water was a perfect temperature, and we hobbled our way over a rocky shallow stretch to where the water was deeper and slower.
After we were cleaned up & cooled down, we headed back to the place we had decided to camp, and I cooked some soup while Danny constructed a snarl of ropes, straps, and bungee cords between three trees to hold up our tarps and hammocks. The end result was quite comfortable, and really looked like it would keep out most of the rain if clouds happened to gather. By the time all our camp construction was done and dinner was eaten, it was dark out, and we fell asleep fairly exhausted
Here my new riding buddy, Danny.
The desert of Washington.
Wheat fields, wheat fields, and more wheat fields.
No comments:
Post a Comment