Anacortes, WA to Havre, MT
What had I let myself in for? I wasn't sure how this had evolved except that it was something I think I'd always been interested in, riding my bicycle across the continent, and life circumstances being what they were never really expected I would do. It kind of crept up on me. I started riding for a couple of weeks at a time over the school summer vacation. Trips to Maine, Ontario, Quebec and then a trip from Duluth to Kingston, ON, traversing the length of the Great Lakes. It was after that last one, in the summer of 2014, that I started to think about connecting the dots stretching progressively off into the west, always riding back in an easterly direction.
Last year was the penultimate leg: Havre, MT to Duluth, MN. With that journey I could honestly say I'd ridden my bicycle on a series of unsupported tours all the way from Havre as far as New Carlisle, QC. What remained was the last 1000 miles from the west coast to Havre. All the previous trips have been very enjoyable. There are familiar threads running through them all but each one has been different enough from the others to keep my interest piqued and my expectations for new experiences high.
One of the unique aspects of this one was the notion that I could use it to advance a cause. The “cause” had suggested itself to me the previous year standing outside the TGU-Granville High School in Granville, ND. As a retired science teacher I was smitten by the thought that the students in that school could be just like the ones I'd taught for so many years. Perhaps there was a chance to find out. Perhaps I could connect students from all of the places I'd ridden with each other and provide them with a means to discuss topics of importance in science.
Long distance cycle touring is far enough out of the average person's conceptual framework that one is often asked if one is “riding for a cause,” when doing it. I always said I was doing it for its own sake, drawing puzzled looks sometimes. But it was a logical question to ask since many people have used the experience to leverage goodwill donations to charitable causes (as well as finance their own adventures on occasion.) I've generated enough interest in my rides to be asked to talk at my former school and share the experience. When I did so after the 2016 ride I mentioned my desire to develop some kind of social network for high school science students. A couple of the students in the audience told me they'd like to help with that and over the course of the school year they created a Facebook page dedicated to that purpose and I resolved to spread the word among the schools that I passed during my ride.
The plan had grown in my imagination to envision Skype conversations with the science classes that were following the journey. I produced a prospectus looking for financial aid from the local education support foundation to help me acquire the technology I needed to stay adequately connected. It seemed quite likely I could get the necessary help. In the meantime I sent out a slew of emails to science teachers along my route. Using a combination of Google map identified high schools along the path, and the webpages for each of those schools, I was able to send off an appeal to 35 science teachers at the end of the 2016-17 school year asking them to join the discussion.
As foreshadowing of the ultimate success of the idea, the appeal produced only one positive response. I rationalized it as the result of acting so late in the school year. Perhaps if I made the appeal in person at the beginning of the next year it would be different. The relative lack of interest did remove the need to acquire expensive technology. Instead, I bought 50 business cards and resolved to leave them with people along the route, hopefully putting them into the hands of the same teachers I'd tried to contact via email.
The logistics of reaching the starting point were complex. Essentially it boiled down to trading a longer time spent getting there for the chance to save some money. With unlimited funds many obstacles can be overcome. If money had been plentiful enough I would have booked a flight to the Seattle area and flown out with my bicycle in a hard case capable of protecting it from the abuses of airline baggage handlers whose exploits are well-known among the cycling crowd. I would then have shipped the case as far as Havre, MT where I would need it for the return flight. Rental cars might have served to solve some of the connection issues. The costs of this plan would have been exorbitant and really not an option for a retired science teacher who travels on a relatively tight budget.
The lower-cost alternative was a three day train ride to Seattle, plus shipping my travel clothes back to Havre via Amtrak package express, taking a connecting train to Mt. Vernon, WA, followed with a commuter bus ride the following morning to Anacortes. For the return trip I reserved a spot on the Sept. 19 eastbound train out of Havre that would get me back to Albany/ Rensselaer two days after that.
Anacortes was the starting point because it is at the extreme western end of Adventure Cycling Association's Northern Tier (N.T.) route. I had been unacquainted with the N.T. until the previous year's ride. I was searching for the starting point for the approximately 1000 miles I would need to ride to reach Duluth to make the penultimate leg of the cross-country ride. My first thought was Calgary, AC. The final leg could then have been Vancouver to Calgary. The route held much appeal. I would get to experience the Canadian Rockies which I have yet to see. Then the same logistical dilemmas starting asserting themselves. When I researched train routes, Havre became a good starting point since it was the required distance from Duluth. Someone mentioned that it was on the N.T. and with that, and a bit more research, I decided to take advantage of the A.C.A.'s legwork on as much of that route as I could follow, planning to split off in Walker, MN to reach Duluth, as opposed to the N.T.'s Twin Cities.
Even after a somewhat successful use of the N.T. maps on the 2016 ride, I wasn't sure I would stick with it for 2017, but the awareness raising plan seemed to encourage having a known itinerary and the N.T. certainly provided that. So, to keep to the theme, Anacortes was the starting point. For those who traverse the route from east to west the beginning is Bar Harbor, ME.
The start of the journey was much like the 2016 trip: a bus ride from Shelburne Falls to Albany and a trip over the river to the Amtrak station in Rensselaer. That time, Faye had driven me to the bus stop, my bike in a fabric case. After reaching Havre, that case was mailed to Continental Ski & Bike in Duluth, along with my traveling clothes, to await my arrival there and a bus trip to St. Paul and its Amtrak station. This year, with no end of the trip bus ride needed, I contacted the Peter Pan Bus company and asked permission to load my bike, unbagged, into the luggage compartment of the bus. A supervisor told me it probably wouldn't be a problem. So with that degree of assurance I loaded my bike as much as I could, and wearing my carry on bag on my back, rode the bike down to the bus stop this time. This would provide me with the satisfaction of having taken only self-powered or public transportation from my door all the way to the ferry dock in Anacortes. If my unbagged bike was denied a place in the cargo hold of the bus, the fallback plan was for Faye to drive me to the train station. We both mightily hoped that would not be necessary.
The bus arrived on time and I pleaded my case with the driver who seemed unswayed by my claim about a supervisor's endorsement of the plan. He begrudgingly obliged, muttering something about Greyhound drivers never allowing such things and how I should be grateful he wasn't one. There were only three other passengers on the bus and the baggage compartment he selected for my bicycle was completely empty. I could see why the supervisor couldn't envision a likely problem.
I took a seat in the front near the driver, whose name was Wayne. This gave me a chance to thank him and explain my reason for needing to keep the bike unboxed. It would save me the trouble of reassembling it from a packed state in order to ride over the river to the train station. Last year I took a cab, keeping the bike in its bag. Once at the train station I placed the bag into one of Amtrak's bike boxes for the trip to Havre. Upon arrival there I discovered that the chain ring had penetrated both the bag and the bottom of the box due to the bouncing it had undergone on the trip west. The station master in Havre told me that was the reason Amtrak wanted bicycles to travel with their wheels installed. I was going to avoid that problem this year by doing just that.
My conversation with the driver continued all the way to the bus station in Albany. He was a 2+ million mile driver. Twelve years with no accidents is credited to a driver as a million miles. The route went through a part of the state that he'd grown up in so he was comfortable taking an alternate route to the usual one over Petersburg Pass which we both agreed had a terrible road surface on the New York side of the state line.
We shook hands upon parting and I rode over the river to the station. My plan for lunch was a restaurant and bar called June's in the old fire station in front of the train station. Sadly it was closed and had the air of being so permanently. The hours were not posted on the door so I tried the phone number and received only a terse directive to “leave a message.” Instead, I ended up in the nearby Dunkin Donuts. It was the same place at which I'd spent some time the previous year.
As it turned out, my bike never needed to be broken down to go into a box. That was because Toby, the baggage handler, had insisted I would prefer the arrangement. He explained that the bike would be loaded, as is, into a rack in the baggage car. I would need to be the one to hand it up to the door in the car. He was willing to store the bike until the train departure, which was another six hours away. He didn't charge me anything for that and seemed to indicate the same arrangement would be available in Chicago, where I needed to change trains. As in loading I would need to be present on the siding outside the baggage car to take receipt of the bike when it was unloaded and then repeat the loading process when boarding the train to Seattle. My panniers, and all bike-specific gear, was crammed into a smallish hockey bag and checked through to Seattle.
Following the sojourn in D.D.'s I walked over the river to the berth of the U.S.S. Slater, a WWII era destroyer escort that had been created for convoy duty in the North Atlantic and, following the end of hostilities in Europe, been reassigned to duty in the Pacific. It was sold to the government of Greece in the early 50s and remained in service in the Greek navy until it was decommissioned after nearly 40 years there. WWII veterans, who made up the membership of the Destroyer Escort Association, saved it from demolition. It had been refurbished and fitted out with salvaged, period, equipment and now serves as an educational resource.
For a $9.00 admission fee I managed to get into the last tour of the day. It was led by Paul, a senior history major from SUNY Albany. I was the only one on the tour until 15 min. in when a largish, rather amusing 50-something woman with a southern accent joined us. The tour was a tactile sensory augmentation of the sights and sounds of a recent viewing of the movie Dunkirk. Below decks it was hard to block out the memory of the scene in which a torpedo ruptured the hull of a rescue ship as, until that moment, grateful soldiers ate jam and bread.
There was a contingent of active navy personnel aboard the Slater at that time taking part in some special function to commemorate the service of the ship. Part of the ship was closed off to keep their quarters private. The tour, and a movie describing the service of the D.E.s during the war, was well-worth the time and money.
The cashier who took the money noticed my Fort Belknap Reservation t-shirt, acquired during the previous year's trip, and said she was from Wolf Point, MT which was another town I'd ridden through. I told her that people kept telling me not to get benighted on the Fort Peck Reservation, of which Wolf Point is a part. She said that was probably good advice. Though most people on the reservation were good natured and friendly there were some with bad attitudes who were best avoided. She gave me contact information for her family in Wolf Point. Armed with the name of potential allies I would have been much less nervous during the previous year's ride and thanked her and told her so.
I walked back to the station and, when the time arrived, collected my bike from Toby and wheeled it to the baggage car where I was shown how it would be transported. It looked like a fairly safe arrangement. Aside from the inconvenience of having to take possession of the bike between trains, it seemed like a better option than the box.
I had no neighbor in my seat as far as Syracuse when the train became quite full and a retiree about half a dozen years older than me took the aisle seat next to mine at the window. My neighbor, whose name I have forgotten, had retired from work as an electrical engineer. He was trained in siting electrical substations and had run a consulting business for a number of years. He was traveling by train to Los Angeles and was then going to travel by car to a number of national parks in the company of a daughter and her family. It was his first long journey by train and traveling in coach was not comfortable enough for him. A sleeper is a more comfortable way to travel I would agree, but the price was out of my range and would have made a plane flight seem inexpensive. At one point, in the dark, the train idled on a siding for a couple of hours. It was later explained to us as an unscheduled stop that was required by the fact that passenger trains need to play second fiddle to freight trains since the rails are owned and maintained by the freight companies.
The train arrived in Chicago behind schedule, at almost exactly the same amount of time that we'd been sitting on that siding. The late arrival scuttled my plan to take a bus tour of the city. I was also miffed that it cost me another $10.00 to check my bike for the intervening time that remained for the connection. I wrote in my journal: “My sense is Toby in Albany's insistence on my undisputed greater pleasure with roll-on service had more to do with his level of satisfaction with the arrangement than mine. So far I think I've been overcharged by $10.00 compared with the price paid last year and now another $10.00 I would not have needed to spend if the bike had been handled as checked baggage.” I would have to admit the bike came out of the baggage car without any signs of abuse compared with the greater possibility of that being the case with a boxed bike. I watched the bikes in boxes being unloaded from the train while I was waiting for them to hand me down my bike. It didn't seem like they were taking the same care a bike's owner might have taken doing the same thing.
I was told to be ready to board the train in the first wave and when I went to collect my bike from package check I couldn't find the receipt (I later found it) and got exceedingly nervous as the attendant searched for the record of my debit card payment to verify my identity. I finally got the bike and hurried down to the waiting area. Dennis, another touring cyclist who was also using the roll-on service was there telling the person at the gate that they should wait for me. Boy was I ever glad for that and embarrassed. We rolled our bikes down to the baggage car and handed them up to the attendant. I helped Dennis carry his panniers back to the Seattle end of the train. The train was split in Spokane with half going to Seattle and half going to Portland. We had the pick of the seats in coach. Dennis left his stuff on his seat and went to the viewing area on the second level of the café car.
I was prepared to share the neighboring seat with him but as it turned out there were never enough passengers to make that a necessity as far as East Glacier, where Dennis disembarked for a continental divide ride down to Aspen, CO. When he was awake, Dennis had spent 90% of the time in the viewing car. He was from Naperville, IL and worked part-time for Nokia in their IT department. He had some friends meeting him in Aspen and was permitting himself a relaxed schedule to make the trip. I, on the other hand, was going to have to stick to a strict one if I wanted to be in Havre in time to catch the return train.
When the westbound train reaches Havre there is enough time to get off and stretch one's legs, which I did, taking pictures of an old steam/diesel-converted locomotive they have on display. In Havre there is a ranger from the NPS who boards the train and begins an interpretive talk in the viewing area. Both Dennis and I were there for the talk which was interesting and the narrative for some of the sights would come back to mind as I returned riding east. The Lewis Overthrust Fault was one such sight. It's visible on an escarpment to the north as one approaches Marias Pass and the Continental Divide. There was also the story of the discovery of Marias Pass and a monument to the Lewis and Clark expedition that one passes on the way up toward the pass.
One ominous thing that was pointed out, and became too obvious to ignore, was the amount of smoke in the air. It was especially noticeable in Essex, where the Izaak Walton Inn is located. A group who was detraining in West Glacier had been informed that their planned hiking itinerary would need to be scrapped since the key area they wanted to visit was closed due to the wildfires that were burning in Glacier National Park. Before I'd left I heard about the loss of the Sperry Chalet to the Sprague Fire burning in the park and now, according to the same party, also responsible for closing the Going-to-the-Sun Road which had been on my itinerary.
The ranger's narrative ended as we left West Glacier because it had become too dark to continue. He promised another talk in the morning after breakfast. The train filled to capacity in Whitefish. It was the last day of the Labor Day weekend and vacationers and others were returning to the Seattle area. A young female Seattlean took the aisle seat next to me. She worked as a graphic artist and though not originally from Seattle had developed a great love for the city. Before we arrived I asked her for advice on what sights to see within walking distance of the train station. She said I should go look at the library, the architecture of which was pretty unique. The NPS ranger mentioned the Klondike Gold Rush National Historic Park which was also close to the station in Seattle. If I had the time I decided to visit that as well.
The train rolled into the Seattle station in the morning, more or less on schedule. I collected my bike and hockey bag and, finding a spot in the lobby that I hoped would be out of the main traffic flow, began assembling the bike for the road. This meant arranging the frame that supported my handlebar bag in such a way that it was also possible to attach the aerobars to the handlebar. I had switched my stem prior to the trip.
For years I had been touring with a Softride suspension stem. Last year I was quite surprised with the weight of the stem combined with the aerobars, etc. while moving the bike across the country. I've become more informed about the benefits of wider, supple side wall tires and, having tried such tires on my randonneuring bike, decided to buy a pair of 26” Compass McClure Pass tires for the touring bike. Running wider tires at lower pressures has traditionally been viewed as a speed killer, but field research using them has shown that in the trade off between smoothing out the ride, which wide, lower pressure tires do, and trying to prevent speed loss due to tire flex, which happens less with harder and narrower tires, energy savings from the smoother ride cancel out any benefit from reducing tire flex and wider, softer tires are actually as fast or faster than narrow, rigid tires. Even race bikes are now being built to accommodate wider tires than were thought necessary ten years ago.
At one point in the previous year's ride, on my usual Schwalbe Marathon Greenguard tires which are as wide as the McClure Pass's but with a much stiffer sidewall and built to take up to 100 psi pressures, as I was approaching Grand Forks, ND, the road I was riding on must have been macadam over concrete where cracks had developed at regular intervals over the old buried concrete seams dividing up the slabs. The effect it produced was a rhythmic bump-bump, bump-bump that slowly, like Chinese water torture, was starting to drive me crazy. I stopped and let some air out of the tires. Running them on much lower pressure did the trick. The noise and jolting went almost completely away and I ran the tires soft for the remainder of the trip. It was an epiphany of sorts.
I felt I could dispense with the suspension stem for this year's ride since the new tires would probably do as much, or more, to smooth out the ride and I would save some weight that way. In the final analysis the chromoly stem, that I used to replace the aluminum suspension stem, wasn't that much of a weight saver but using the rigid stem would at least allow me to see how much cushioning this type of tire was capable of. Just before my trip I loaned the bike to a friend to use for a gravel grinder type century ride and he liked the combination well enough. It seemed to hold up fine to all the abuse that course dished up.
Having to take the aerobars off the handlebar for the first time in about four years was a bit of a gamble. I knew one of the tensioning bolts, which was an Allen hex type, was wearing out and the Allen key would most likely strip the flats in the recessed hexagonal hole. I had to be prepared to replace it but it was a proprietary shape with a wider head than the generic kind of this style bolt. As expected, the head stripped out and I was forced to use a vice grip to free the bolt. I found a useable replacement bolt but tightening it down at home, to be sure I could do an adequate job again in the Seattle train station, resulted in me stripping the threads in the aluminum bar. I decided I could solve the problem by using a longer bolt, drilling the bolt hole all the way through the bar and nutting it on the opposite side.
In preparation for that I filed a flat on the upper surface of the bar to provide a seat for the nut and, in doing so opened the hole completely through the bar. Looking into the hole I realized the threads in the original bolt hole went only half way through it. Coincidentally I had a metric tap the right size and tapped out the hole completely. A longer bolt than the original was threaded into the newly cut threads and held very well. I was pretty confident, when I got to Seattle, that the bar would clamp onto the handlebar securely and it did.
One of the other things needing assembling in the station was my cyclometer. That usually mounts on a small extension clamped onto one of the the posts holding the pad for the right aerobar. I had carefully packed the wire with its sensor on one end and the cyclometer bracket on the other. What I hadn't remembered was the cyclometer itself. I was faced with a decision. I could do the trip without one or go searching in downtown Seattle, since I had a few hours before the arrival of the Amtrak Cascades which would take me to Mt. Vernon, WA.
I decided to do the latter and packed the parts for the missing cyclometer into the bag with my train clothes and other items to be sent ahead to Havre. When the bike was as assembled as was necessary at that point, I took the cycling clothes I expected to be wearing for the ride and put those in the hockey bag to be donned just before I mailed it to Havre. I left the bike, and the bag, with baggage check and went in search of the Seattle Library. When I found it I was able to register for the use of a computer and did a Google search for downtown bike shops. I called first one, which said they did not have any cyclometers, and then a second, which said they did. After a few more tasks on the computer I went in search of the shop, with a stop in the library gift shop where I bought a hat, for myself, and a t-shirt, for Faye. I would put those into the bag heading for Havre as well.
After getting a roast beef sandwich at Mel's Market, I found the shop down near the waterfront. They had a cyclometer that would fit the bill with only two unnecessary functions: calories burned and CO2 offset, both of which were just miles traveled times some factor. With simple multiplication I could have done that myself if I had wanted to know. The calories burned would only be a ballpark average at best since the cyclometer was not a power meter and couldn't determine the actual effort involved. A mile on a downslope burns much fewer calories than the same mile on a steady uphill grade but the cyclometer would have seen them as the same.
After leaving the shop I walked along the Puget Sound waterfront, then turned back toward the station, stopping in Pioneer Square to look at the sculptures, a group of which depicted fire fighters in full turnout gear and wearing self-contained breathing apparatus. Just up from the square was the Klondike Gold Rush National Park's Seattle Unit. It was located in a refurbished old building from Seattle's days as a jumping off point for the gold fields of the Klondike. It told the story of the gold rush through the biographies of different people and I found it an enjoyable way to spend about an hour's time learning some new things.
After a cup of coffee and piece of banana bread at Tully's, I returned to the station, changed into my cycling things and put everything that needed to be shipped ahead into the hockey bag. I received a shock when I went to send the bag on to Havre. I thought I'd calculated the price at something much lower than what I was being told it would cost by the package express cashier: $57.00. That was only part of the cost because it would incur a daily charge after the first 48 hours of waiting in the Havre station that would eventually get the total up to nearly $100. I would definitely have done things differently had I known how much it was going to be. It made me feel especially cheap after having contributed only $10 to the Continental Ski & Bike store party fund after they'd stored my stuff for nearly two weeks while I rode to Duluth to collect it at the end of the previous year's trip.
When the Cascades train came in I was instructed to wheel my bike to the baggage car and hand it up. I was getting to be an old hand at that. It was probably just as well that I'd done this on the outward legs as far as Seattle since this method was the only one that would have been accepted for this last segment of the westward trip. There was no baggage handling capacity at the Mt. Vernon station so a boxed bicycle would not have been allowed. It was for that reason that I'd checked “bicycle” when I booked the trip on-line and the roll-on option had been applied to the first two legs of the journey automatically as a result. I don't know if there was any way to have unchecked bicycle for those first two legs and still preserved it for the third. I might have been able to save a few bucks by using the checked bag option for those first two legs but once I'd paid for the roll-on service, receiving some kind of rebate by switching to checked baggage didn't seem like a possibility, at least according to Toby in Albany. At any rate, that is what I did and it didn't amount to too much extra aggravation but I was determined to use a box on the return trip from Havre.
The train had been late arriving at the station. This was due to some kind of law enforcement delay of the train according to the station buzz. Things did not improve after we left. Before arriving at the first stop a person standing in line to order something to eat from the cafe car fell down when the train lurched and injured him or herself. The potential injury appeared serious enough to prompt the train crew to radio for an ambulance to meet them at the Edmonds station. Needless to say this did not help the train make back any of the time lost prior to reaching Seattle. When I was let off in Mt. Vernon and handed my bicycle it was at a much later time than I had originally planned. That plan had been to camp for the night at the Riverbend RV park about two miles north of the station. It took me a little while to pack my bicycle and, since the station was closed for the night, an additional bit of searching for some discreet location to urinate. I finally set out with flashing white headlight and red taillight as well as a steady beam from a light on my helmet. When I reached Riverbend, the office was closed and had been for about ½ hr.
If I hadn't really wanted a shower I might have been tempted to just go in search of a hammock spot in the RV park and settled up in the morning but it had been three days on the train without any and I wanted one. The RV park's shower and bathroom had a combination lock. I suppose I might have tried knocking on some occupied RV's door and asked for the combination but that seemed to be hoping for a bit more good will than I expected I would find; so I fell back on plan B which was the Tulip Inn. The reviews on Google had been favorable and the price was among the lowest for the motels in Mt. Vernon.
I had already memorized the location of the Inn, just in case, and had seen it on the outward ride to the RV park. Another item of unfinished business was purchasing a mosquito headnet. I wasn't sure one was needed but I had been taking one on all of my rides following the first time that I'd wished I'd had it and found it useful enough at times to justify the extremely small price in weight and space. My previous one seemed to have gone missing and I couldn't find it when I went to pack it for the trip. I noticed on Google maps that there was a Walmart across the street from the RV park so, after exiting the park, I went there and, sure enough, found what I was looking for, and at the usual low, Chinese-sweatshop, Walmart price.
The Tulip Inn was just a short distance beyond the Walmart and I went in and inquired about vacancies, which the fellow at the desk said they had, and then asked about a bicyclist's discount which produced an incredulous look in reply. I generally ask for some kind of discount at motels during my bicycle rides. I'm not sure why. I feel more willing to ask when I'm traveling by bike, as opposed to traveling by car, when I rarely question the first price I'm offered. However I might explain it, it has become almost a compulsion to ask in the former case. This time I detected a degree of annoyance that I should have even raised the question. The price quoted did seem higher than what I had seen on-line. I didn't say that though. What I did say was that I was trying to ride a bicycle from Anacortes to Havre and I had to carefully watch my budget. I wasn't riding solely for the enjoyment of it, though that was certainly part of it, but was also riding to raise awareness of an appeal for a nationwide science dialogue among high school students. I shared the name of the Facebook group that had been created and offered him one of the cards.
This changed his mind and he became very supportive and offered a generous discount, around 30%, to the originally quoted price. I expressed my gratitude and he introduced himself as Chris and said his partner would “like” our group on Facebook to help us get some additional exposure. He asked me what time I would be starting in the morning and when I said “early” in order to catch the first commuter bus to Anacortes, he made a special effort to see that I could have something from the kitchen as I was likely to miss the continental breakfast. He gave me a couple of yogurts, a banana, and some small muffins in a zip-lock bag. I told him I was very willing to give the inn a good review on Trip Advisor and he said I was under no obligation to do so. I said I knew that but I was grateful for the help. I said I wouldn't mention anything about a price reduction.
There was no complaint about me keeping my bike in the room, another plus. The room was clean and the shower was much enjoyed. I ate all of the food he'd given me since I had not had any dinner and was planning on stopping at a diner for breakfast. It certainly filled me up and I had a good night's sleep.
I was able to live up to my prediction for an early departure and found the diner, Mr. T's, without difficulty. I ordered the ½ biscuits and gravy and couldn't finish it. I shudder to think what the full order looks like. I suppose serving large portions is what they are known for.
I didn't get to the train station before the first bus left but by some lucky coincidence my bike gained a companion on the rack on the front of the next bus. The owner of that bike, Sheldon, was from the Vancouver area but had property in both Mt. Vernon and Anacortes. He was on his way there. There was one transfer and I just followed his lead getting from the first bus to the next. He was very helpful with advice regarding route selection and just before getting off gave me three pickle and humus sandwiches, the ingredients inspired by a book he was reading about the history of immigration to New York city going all the way back to the Dutch. A mixture of curiosity and a desire to share in the immigrant experience inspired him to try a pickle sandwich himself. The humus, though, was his own addition to the recipe.
When we got to the ferry dock parking lot I asked the driver if I could have a moment to take a picture of my bike on the front rack of the bus. He said, “O.K., just don't take too long.” After that, and using the restroom in the ferry building, I was ready to go. I engaged in conversation with a young couple who were also traveling by bicycle. They were following a different A.C.A. route that crossed paths with the Northern Tier in Anacortes. Their route took them partly by ferry.
Aiming the bike east I started following the N.T. directions toward the center of town. I wanted to visit the high school before exiting Anacortes so when I spied an information center in the downtown area I stopped to get directions. The woman who answered my questions was very friendly and gave me wonderful directions. I was a bit nervous going in to the office of the school but no one seemed to mind a bicyclist walking in. I asked for the name of someone in the science department to whom I could address a note and attach the card for the F.B. group. The secretary suggested Mr. Garcia as the addressee. I wrote a short note explaining my mission and inviting him to check out the group and left it along with the business card for the secretary to give to him. Overall the experience was a positive one and so I was encouraged enough to repeat the procedure as I went from one town to the next visiting both Burlington-Edison H.S., leaving a note for Mr. Wallace, and Sedro-Wooley H.S. and a note for Mr. Vanloo.
A short distance beyond Sedro-Wooley H.S. I saw the community library, which was open, so I stopped to use the computer and upload some images of the three high schools that I'd just visited. I hoped that would encourage the various teachers to join, if they saw their own high schools featured on the page. After using the library I spent a short while eating one of the pickle and humus sandwiches from Sheldon. It was tasty but the pickle juice had made the bread pretty soggy and I didn't have the appetite for more than one, and didn't think the other two would keep well in my handlebar bag, so reluctantly I jettisoned them. I was grateful to Sheldon for his gift and felt a bit guilty not taking full advantage of it.
However there was an even greater gift Sheldon had bestowed upon me that I did take full advantage of. As the bus approached Anacortes, along the shore of Fidalgo Bay, he had pointed out a causeway that served as a bike path but in an oblique way said that he was wary of using it due to the flat tires it produced. When I asked how that was, he said the seagulls used the pavement of the causeway to shatter clams and it was littered with razor sharp pieces of shell. The Terry Thompson bike trail, which used the causeway, was part of my route so when I reached it I was extra cautious to avoid anything that looked like a puncture-causing piece. I could have used similar advice later on in the trip, but for that first day it was a nice warning and might well have spared me the delay caused if I'd been forced to repair a punctured tire.
I very much enjoyed the remainder of the day's ride going past farm fields, one in particular seemed to have Shetland sheep in it, which are somewhat rare, and what my wife and I have been raising for 24 years. The A.C.A. route paralleled WA highway 20, avoiding it whenever possible by following nearby secondary roads. One of these took me through a grove of western cedars, hemlocks and Douglas-fir trees. The cedars and hemlocks were similar to ones we have back home but on a much larger scale and the Douglas-fir trees were something new. I was very much taken by the majesty of the scene and said so to a woman who was walking along the side of the road.
At another place on the ride I spied a parallel gravel bike path referred to on the map as the Cascade Trail. I decided to follow it since it seemed I could return to the road I was on if it proved too rough. It provided a good test for my new tires and they were certainly able to smooth out most of the bumps I was encountering. I was moving nearly as fast on the path as I had been on the pavement which was a good indication of the value of the plan to travel with softer tires.
The bike path emerged onto a crossing of the paved road I was following and on the other side of the road, sitting on a rock that served as a blockade to vehicular traffic on the path, was another cyclotourist. Michael was from Germany and was riding an interesting aluminum frame Simplon bike with Schwalbe Big Apple tires. They made my tire diameters look elfin. He was riding the N.T. from east to west and had started in New York. He was the first of a number of riders I would meet who were following the route in the reverse direction from my own.
I told him he would enjoy following the bike path if he was so inclined. He shared some of the stories of dealing with the smoke and fires further east. He said he liked to sleep under the stars and was dismayed to be sweeping ash off his sleeping bag in the morning on occasion. He was planning on stopping for the night in Burlington and would reach Anacortes the following day. From there he planned to ride north to Vancouver and fly home.
My rough plan was to spend the night in Concrete and I reached it as the day was ending. I found a Red Apple supermarket to buy something for making supper and discovered that the Cascade Trail had a good trailside hammock spot more or less across the highway from the supermarket. It was just the kind of place I like. There was even a trailside bench on which to sit while I heated up my supper on the alcohol stove. The following morning it was a short distance to Perk's Expresso & Deli for breakfast. It was a made-to-order stealth camping arrangement.
Day two on the road would be more challenging. I would be encountering my first real climbing of the trip as I started the ascent of Rainy and Washington Passes. I didn't anticipate reaching the actual passes that day but instead planned on stopping for the night at a campground about 45 miles away according to the ACA map. The exact distance was likely to be different from that since the previous day's ride should have been around 52 miles and the cyclometer said I'd done nearly 70. I wasn't sure what the reason was for the discrepancy but I had done a bit of sidetracking going to the different high schools and searching for a place to spend the night in Concrete, etc. How that could have added up to nearly 18 miles or so wasn't clear, perhaps my odometer was overestimating the distance I was covering. I would need to see if it continued. Before leaving Concrete I visited their high school and left a note and card for science teacher, Sasha Buller.
Later in the morning, I stopped to take a picture of the Cascadian Farm home farm stand. The name was familiar as a brand of organic cereal available in our local supermarket. The farm stand was quite tiny and had an amusing roof line. I didn't go in but was sure the cereal wasn't stored and shipped from that little place. I also had a conversation with a guy from the Seattle area whom I met while stopped at one of the roadside rest areas. He was driving to a hunting camp he had in Republic. He had some stories to tell, one of which involved his dog getting mauled by a bear. He wondered if I carried bear spray, when I told him I was camping along the road in various places. He said it was valuable stuff to have on hand and he always traveled with some in the backcountry. He also was very much taken by the romance of my trip and kept saying I was going to have a great time. He did admit that the smoke in and around Republic was likely to be troublesome.
My first flat tire of the journey happened just before reaching Marblemount. I have had two week trips when I've had no flat tires and others when I had multiple ones. They aren't usually anything to get agitated about. The tire went flat very rapidly and I was not near any conveniently wide section of the shoulder but there was a spot visible just a short distance ahead. I walked the bike to that place and removed the tire. The flat was obviously caused by a large staple gun staple that had embedded itself in the rear tire. When I closely examined the puncture, it seemed that walking the bike that short way had been enough to cause the staple to repeatedly pierce the tube in so many places I didn't have a single patch large enough to cover them all. I replaced the tube, reducing me to only one spare and threw the punctured one away at a convenience store/gas station in Marblemount.
The road began a steady climb from there. There was one last place, before the campground, where the ACA map indicated I could procure food for supper and, since I would be climbing, the thought of the extra weight I would need to carry convinced me to delay getting anything until I got there. Before arriving in Newhalem, where I expected to find the store, I saw a sign for the North Cascades National Park visitor's center. It became a pleasant discovery even though the road to the center climbed 141 feet over a distance of 3/4 mi. from the highway.
I poked around in the center studying the 3D relief model of the area and looking at the geology and wildlife exhibits. I asked the rangers on duty what the smoke conditions were forecast to be as well as sharing my plan to spend that night at the Thunder Knob trailhead campground. I learned that the smoke was supposed to be clearing if the wind came from the predicted direction and the campground was officially closed for the season, as of two days before, but that I could stay at the Colonial Creek campground just across from it.
On my way out I stopped to take a picture of a burnt section of the forest. The visitor's center had been threatened with destruction when the Goodell wildfire raged through the area two years before. There were other places where one could see burnt forest but this was very close at hand and would make a better picture. As I rolled to a stop I was unable to unclip my right foot from the pedal in time and toppled over onto my right side. Fortunately there were no cars going by to witness my embarrassment. Later I would find that the shoe cleat on that side was not secure, so when I had gone to twist my heel outward the cleat just moved sideways on the sole of my shoe instead of popping loose from its retention system. I didn't address the problem until the following day, mid-ride.
The general store in Newhalem had a decent selection of things from which to choose and also an interesting way of selling wine. Along with bottles, etc. they had individual lidded and foil-sealed plastic Copa di Vino brand goblets of wine, at about 6 ounces per goblet. I usually like a beer at the end of a day of riding but a beer would not have been very cold by the time I reached my destination that day and I don't usually have wine since I'm not inclined to carry much extra weight but the alternative of drinking the whole bottle of wine in a single evening doesn't appeal to me. This seemed perfect so I bought a single one with dry white wine in it.
The road to the campground climbed pretty steeply, passing through a tunnel at one point. The tunnel was equipped with a button, similar to a pedestrian red-light crossing request, that turned on a set of flashing lights next to a sign declaring “bicyclists in tunnel.” It seemed like a wise thing to activate the flashing lights as well as turn on my flashing headlight and red-flashing rear taillight. The tunnel wasn't very long so I suspect if I was to find myself regularly transiting it I might end up dispensing with a step or two of the procedure. I encountered another tunnel on a downward stretch of the road. It was even shorter and had no warning lights to activate. The campground was at the bottom of a long downhill stretch of Rt. 20 where there was a bend at a bridge crossing the Thunder Arm of Diablo Lake, a reservoir created by the power-generating Diablo Dam.
I had intended to spend the night in the campground that surrounded the trailhead to Thunder Knob and hadn't really changed my mind despite the announcement of its closure. In fact it appealed to my stealth camping sense and I actually preferred the prospect of sleeping there*, if possible, as opposed to the still-open Colonial Creek campground across the highway. There were cars parked in the parking lot on the road side which apparently belonged to hikers using the trail. There was a vault toilet beside the parking lot which was open and useable. There were campsites below road level scattered through the wooded area between the parking lot and the shore of the lake. I wheeled my bike down into the area of campsites and located one that was as far away from the road as possible and near enough to the lake shore to be a bit breezy. It had a bear locker for storing food. It seemed like an ideal spot and had a pair of trees just the right distance apart from which to string my hammock.
The hikers returned to their cars in small groups and soon the parking lot was empty. The light faded and I cooked my supper at the picnic table at the campsite and put up my hammock for the night. The nearby water spigot had not yet been turned off so I was able to refill my water bottles and wash out my pot. The wine hit the spot. I smoked my pipe. I was very content.
A common feature of my bicycle trips is daily finding a “slow food” place that serves breakfast. I've come to see its many benefits. First, it means a faster getaway from the campsite in the morning, which is an important feature of a good stealth-camping plan. Second, it eliminates the need to keep food stored overnight, removing the attraction for unwelcome night visitors. Third, it's a way to get cleaned up and also to sit at a table and write in my journal which is especially welcome during rainy or cold mornings. Fourth, and most importantly, it gives a window into the character of a town. Even if I don't get into a conversation with anyone I still enjoy watching and listening to the interactions between the various people around me.
Due to its importance to me, I make an effort to be within easy riding distance of a breakfast place most mornings on a ride, so days that don't provide that opportunity are rare. This morning of the third day of the ride was one of those rare ones. The closest place serving breakfast, that didn't involve retracing my route, was on the other side of the two passes that lay ahead. I didn't have much hope that I would be getting there anytime close to breakfast. The backup plan on days like that is a coffee bag or two and some packets of instant oatmeal that are carried just in case.
My first stop after leaving the campground was an overlook a few hundred feet higher than the lake. I was ready for an excuse to catch my breath and take pictures. Besides taking a few for myself, I took a picture for a group of Asian tourists who'd stopped to admire the view. The next stopping place was the parking area for a self-guided interpretive walk that shared facts about the natural history of the area. It was called the Happy Creek Nature Trail and for whatever reason, post-Labor Day traffic on the trail was limited to just me. I had never seen Douglas-fir trees before this trip and this was a good way to learn something about their ecology and see some fine examples. The short side trip on this ADA accessible trail was worth the time spent exploring.
When I stopped for lunch, which consisted of the remains of the snacks I'd been carrying on the train trip west, I also took the time to inspect the cleat on my right shoe. The Allen screws that held the cleat to the metal plate in the sole were so tightly rusted in place that I could not get them to move. Forcing them was only stripping the flats in the hexagonal holes. Unfortunately they needed to be tightened to prevent the cleat from moving from side to side. The plate they were anchored to was also able to move and so was causing the problem that had made it so hard to disengage my foot from the pedal. I tried solving that problem first. I found some dense but flexible wood of the right diameter by poking about in the soil for what I took to be cedar roots. I whittled a couple of pieces that fit into the grooves in the plastic of the sole that lay between the plate and cleat. With these pieces of cedar wedged in place the plate no longer seemed to move front to back. The pair of Allen screws that held the cleat went through a piece of metal that bore on the cleat within a slot that allowed for some side to side adjustment. When working as intended, if you found your foot was too far outward you could move the cleat toward the outside of the sole in an attempt to place it where your foot could be more centered over the pedal.
In the case of my worn out Allen screw attachment I also couldn't prevent the shoe from working itself from side to side. So I took an additional wedge of the same wood and forced it into the space between the inward edge of the cleat and the inside edge of the slot, which forced the cleat into the most outward position possible, to keep my foot secured in the opposite direction. I hoped that this would keep my foot from sliding to the outside as the ride continued. On the first trial of the new system I was very pleased. The ball of my foot was centered over the pedal and stayed that way while riding. It would take four days before I needed to replace that wedge. As for the two pieces of wood holding the plate in place, they lasted the entire trip and I never had any more problems disengaging from the pedal.
The day warmed up as I worked to gain elevation and before long I had gone through all of the water in my two water bottles. I was starting to crave water and so when I reached a stream crossing I decided to fill my bottles from the water in the stream. I carry a water purification droplet system and if I was more nervous about the location I probably would have taken the time to use it, but it takes about 20 min. to give it adequate time to work and I was not too concerned since the area seemed completely uninhabited and I was very thirsty. I just filled the bottles and drank. Later I discovered that the Pacific Crest trail crossed the road only a little further up and the trail itself ran along the ridge from which the stream descended. I realized that the area was a bit more inhabited than I had otherwise fooled myself into believing.
I didn't regret stopping for the water however because when I finally reached Washington, the second, and higher pass, with its observation area with rest rooms and water, according to the symbols printed on the National Park Service's Cycling on the North Cascades map, I found the water turned off and the rest rooms locked. Perhaps they did this once Labor Day had gone by, but it looked to me like a longer-term issue. I would have been seriously dismayed if I'd waited until that point to fill my bottles only to have found it was a false promise. After I arrived I had had something to eat and finished off the water. Ironically as I went to refill the bottles, before I discovered how unsuccessful that would be, a gentleman asked me how I was able to make such a long climb by bicycle since he would have suffered from cramping if he had attempted it himself. I said the secret was giving up a bit of speed to avoid grinding too much, choosing instead to spin lower gears at a higher cadence and keeping well-hydrated, clapping my empty bottles together for emphasis.
The observation area was well visited despite the lateness of the season and the time of day. There were some spectacular vistas down the valley to the east and across the head of the pass to the south with Liberty Bell Mt. and the Early Winters South Spire rising high above it. The haze from the smoke of forest fires diminished the view of the peaks but it was a fine view nonetheless and inspiring and seemed tempting as a climb to an erstwhile mountaineer such as myself. Highway 20 went from the pass along the base of the spire and made a big hairpin turn, then disappeared down the valley to the left of my vantage point at the overlook. It had the appearance of an exciting descent by bicycle and, as it turned out, it was.
If there had been much traffic it wouldn't have been anywhere near as much fun but since there were few cars I felt comfortable putting my hands on the aerobars instead of the handlebar handgrips where the brakes are within easier reach. With my hands outstretched in front of me I'm able to assume a more aerodynamic posture but steering and braking are compromised. Neither can happen very quickly in that position. Since my arms are supported by pads it's more restful than a tuck so I can maintain the position longer, which was necessary in this situation since the road descended steadily for many miles. My odometer bespoke a top speed of 48 mph attained at some point. It had been exhilarating.
As I descended into the valley the smell and density of the smoke increased. This was the first time on the trip that I could actually smell smoke. It was similar to the smell experienced while walking through a campground with many fires going at the individual campsites. Upon reaching Mazama, on the valley floor, my goal became finding a restaurant that served burgers and beer. Since I had missed a chance for one of my typical breakfasts I felt I could justify the cost of a supper on this end of the day. I rode down a long gravel driveway after reading a sign that had announced it as the way to find the Mazama Country Inn. I found the inn and then inquired of the couple at the desk if they allowed walk-in customers into their dining room. They said they usually did, but the dining room was totally booked that evening with people who had come for a vintage car rally in the area.
I thanked them all the same and asked if there was a place they could recommend. They were anxious to have me go back up the road to a similar place called the Freestone Inn. The woman at the desk even called them to see if they were serving dinner and had room. It was a short distance back but the key for me was that it was backtracking. I wanted to get more miles in and figured I'd find something as I got closer to the center of Winthrop further down the road. They did allow me to fill my water bottles with incredibly cold well water. I remarked on the thickness of the smoke in the air and they said they'd been dealing with that for too long. She said they'd been seventy days without rain.
It wasn't particularly late in the day but, with all of the smoke, it seemed much darker than the hour would indicate. I followed ACA directions that took me on a less-traveled route into Winthrop. Shortly after rejoining Rt. 20, before reaching the center of town, I saw the Methow Valley Ciderhouse. I hoped I could get a burger but when I asked about that they said “only on Wednesdays”, which seemed strange, but the special that night was a brat between two halves of a soft pretzel. They had a local dark microbrew on tap so I ordered the brat and went out onto the front porch with my beer. It was a good discovery and the prices were not going to break the bank. I spent a bit more time relaxing than I probably had reason to, so when I left it was a good deal darker and the smoke had less to do with that than before.
Just as I was crossing the bridge over the Methow River into the center of Winthrop I stopped to talk with a guy hitchhiking who was trying to get back up onto the Pacific Crest Trail. He wasn't having much luck getting a ride and expected he'd spend the night in town. I wished him well and continued on through the rest of Winthrop. The main street was interesting since they'd try to cultivate a Wild West kind of look. For that reason the center of town was chosen as the site for an annual vintage car rally that was happening that weekend. During the day I'd been passed along my route by streams of classic cars. The ACA route continued to go straight down along the left bank of the river even when Rt. 20 switched back to the other side after exiting the center of town.
According to my Washington state road map the Twisp-Winthrop Eastside Rd. went past the headquarters for the Northern Cascades Smokejumpers. I wanted to see their jump base as I rode by but it got too dark to really see anything. I turned on my lights and affixed my headlamp to my helmet. My hope was that a path down to the riverside would present itself and I could find a place to camp. There was only one place, where I found a pull-off near a stream crossing, but even in full daylight it wouldn't have been an easy route down to the river. The river remained well below the road level for the entire nine miles to Twisp. When I intersected Rt. 20 again I went left expecting to ride into the center of town but instead found myself getting further and further from anything that looked like a center. After about two miles I reached the point where Rt. 20 went up to the left and Rt. 153 continued down the valley. I turned around and started riding back finally reaching the center of Twisp after once again crossing the river not far beyond where I'd come in from Winthrop.
I found a gas station/convenience store and asked inside what kind of breakfast places could be found in town. I was told about two, but the one that stuck in my memory was the Cinnamon Twisp Bakery. I got some general directions on where to find it. If they'd asked me where I was planning on spending the night I might have broached the subject of where I should look for a discreet place to string up a hammock but since the response to that kind of question is so far out of most people's wheelhouse I don't often get useful answers, so am reluctant to bring it up. I still had hope I could find something near the river.
I examined a small park but rejected it as a good location since any “stealth” in using it was not possible and I would have been forced to use my hammock tarp as a tent and sleep on the ground. I rode toward the supposed location of the bakery and actually found it and a right turn at the corner beyond the bakery led me to a point where the road opened out into a field that sloped down toward the river. The moon was bright enough to see mule deer bounding through the brittle grass. There were mown paths to follow through the field and I chose one that brought me to the riverside. I was able to wheel my bike down a short sandy track to the boulder strewn bank of the river and discovered two small cottonwood trees the right distance apart for a hammock pitch. All in all it wasn't too bad and that was where I spent the night.
I like to get up pretty early in the morning if I'm not actually sure where I am. Setting up a hammock after dark can make it hard to see what the surrounding area is like. I knew where the road along the opposite side of the river was from the occasional headlight moving through the dark. What I didn't realize was how visible my hammock would be from that road once day broke. I'm sure it must have been seen by some of the early morning drivers. My tarp is black, which is good concealment when in the midst of a thick stand of trees in the dark, but it probably stood out visually along the riverbank in the morning light. I was nearly packed when a dog bounded up to say “hi.” His or her owner was walking along the river path and I surmised I'd just spent the night along the margins of the town dog-walking area. That would certainly explain the network of mown paths criss-crossing it.
Since I knew where the Cinnamon Twisp was located it didn't take long to get there. Only one table was occupied and only one person was in front of me ordering at the counter when I arrived. I ordered a breakfast burrito with a cup of coffee and between writing in my journal, using the bathroom, and watching the comings and goings of the good citizens of Twisp I was at my little table for quite a while. The place had gotten very busy by the time I packed up. The staff allowed me to fill my water bottles from their utility sink faucet and I set forth on a day that was to prove very eventful, mostly for the wrong reasons.
The road started climbing toward Loup Loup Pass immediately after turning left away from the river at the spot where I'd reversed direction the previous evening. The climbing was pretty continuous to the pass which had a familiar ring to its name since the company that sells the tires I was using also sells a tire called Loup Loup Pass. According to the sales write up on their website it received that name because it smooths out the irregularities in the rough pavement of the road over the pass. The tires I was using were named after McClure Pass. My tires (26 in.) are sold in a different diameter than the Loup Loup Pass (650b). Mine are slightly wider and listed as a good tire for the “mountain bike, expedition tourer, and tandems.” I guess I might call my set up an expedition tourer. My tours have taken me across a wide range of surfaces.
I don't recall the road surface on Rt. 20, where it traversed the pass, as being particularly rough but it could be because my own tires are built along similar lines and I was running them with lower pressure than is traditional for road riding. It had added up to a smooth ride on all of the road surfaces from Anacortes so far. One thing I had particularly noticed was the preponderance of chipseal, or oil and stone, that had been used to surface even the state highway. In the northeast, oil and stone is used to surface the less traveled town roads and is only one step above a good smooth dirt road in quality. The smoother asphalt pavement one finds on high speed roads is more expensive. I expect that having a lower road budget was the goal in the choice of surface for Rt. 20 and, for the citizens of Washington state, it must be a fair trade-off in their opinion.
From a bicyclist's point of view it's more work riding on that kind of surface. For all of the reasons mentioned before, a rough surface causes energy-sapping vibrations transmitted from the bike to the rider. My suspension stem was never very good at canceling out the subtler kinds of vibrations. It was best at dealing with the drop off a curb or a hit from the occasional large piece of handlebar-jarring gravel. My new tires were giving better results negating the buzz from rough road surfaces. The chipseal, with them, felt like smooth asphalt does when using higher pressure narrower tires. The extra vibrations were effectively canceled out. I think the tires had proven themselves to be a worthwhile substitute for the suspension stem.
At the high point of the pass, I turned off of the highway in search of the Loup Loup Campground. It was time for some lunch and I was also anxious to refill my nearly empty water bottles. The campground turned out to be waterless but I did take a moment to sit at one of the picnic tables to munch on an energy bar and drink a bit of water. On the descent of the pass I met an ascending westbound cyclist who had started from Havre after breaking off from the ride he'd started with his daughter at the beginning of the summer. He felt he needed to finish the ride and so had resumed riding where he'd left off earlier. He was wearing a bandanna across his face. Though I would have found it unnecessary, I suspect he'd habituated himself to it after riding through worse conditions further east. I told him he was near the top and only had one more big climb ahead. We wished each other well and parted company.
The ecology of the area had changed quite a bit from the west side of the mountains. This area reminded me of the high desert conditions I'd seen in the San Juan mountains of Colorado two summers previously. There were fewer desert-like plants and more grassland, but the grass was very dry and trees were scarce. Oddly the area was a nexus for fruit orchards. I have since learned that was due to the availability of irrigation for the trees. In keeping with the theme I stopped at Smallwood Farms farmstand and restaurant. I ended up spending more than I would at most stops. One of the purchases was a pear smoothie, a special that day, which was delicious. I also left with a bag of fruit candies made like Aplets and Cotlets to supplement my gummy worm supply, which helps keep my energy level up. I knew I would feel more virtuous eating the real fruit candy and that made the extra expense tolerable. I added enough fresh fruit to the purchase to keep me supplied through the remainder of the day.
I went to Okanogan High School, and took a picture, but it wasn't a school day and so left a card with a cashier at a convenience store in town who said she'd pass it along to a high school science teacher she knew. I rolled through Omak but, because of confusion with the directions, never looked for the high school there and failed to leave a card with anyone. The N.T. route led me across the Okanogan River to a less-traveled road that followed the opposite side from U.S. Route 97 which had absorbed Rt. 20 for the next 20 miles to Tonasket.
It was while exiting this alternate route, and crossing over the river, that I had my most memorable experience of the entire ride. As stated earlier it was memorable, but not for the best reasons. I turned left off the road I was following, called the Omak Riverside Eastside Rd., which had been a very enjoyable and scenic alternative to the highway, to head into the town of Riverside. As I did so I heard a tick, tick, tick of what, at the time, I took to be the sound of gravel that had embedded itself in the tread of my tire. Just before crossing the bridge I stopped to sit, high upon the riverbank, and eat one of my pieces of fruit. As I started rolling my bike toward the bridge I noticed the front tire seemed soft and, staring at the tire, saw little white pieces of what looked like tiny popped corn sticking to the tire tread. I pulled on one of them and heard the hiss of escaping air. Held between my pinched finger and thumb I was staring at the very first goathead thorn in my experience.
A dozen years before my brother and I had taken a few day's ride up through the wine country of California and back down coastal Highway 1 to San Francisco, with a one day's side trip to Point Reyes penninsula. On our way to the P.R. youth hostel, where we planned to spend the night, while sitting on the shoulder of the road for a few minutes, my brother started exclaiming about the evil nature of some plant he'd just noticed. It didn't register with me then, but now when I think about it, he must have been talking about these things.
I think goats should protest the naming of them. Goats are nowhere as evil-looking as these items. I would change the name to demonhead or devilhead thorns. In fact, the things have a leering kind of look to them, like a laughing demon with a series of horns coming from his head. With a grave sense of apprehension, I wheeled my bike to a small grass park opposite the other end of the bridge. I removed my front tire and got out my patch kit. I pulled the inner tube from the tire and inflated it. My usual tactic for patching a puncture is to inflate the inner tube to a point where it becomes possible to hear air escaping from the hole needing patching. In this case it was very difficult to get the tube to hold air long enough to hear anything. There was more than one puncture. By valiant effort I managed to use my mini-pump vigorously enough to locate a hissing hole. I used the glue and a patch from my patch kit and sealed it. I repeated the process and found another hole needing a patch. I repeated the process another four times and it was obvious I had more yet to find. I looked at my remaining patches and realized I could very well go through all of them and still have my rear tire to attend to.
I decided to throw the front inner tube away. I had that one spare tube left. I replaced the front inner tube with the spare and turned my attention to the rear tire. I found two places needing patches and that seemed to be all. Where one of those holes was located I noticed, embedded in the inner tire wall, the point of a thorn. I tried prying it out with my finger tips but it didn't want to come, so I broke it off and hoped it wouldn't cause me any more trouble. By then my palm was bruised, my right index finger abraded, and my arms tired from working my little pump so much. I received permission to use the air pump at the variety store/gas station diagonally across the road from the park. That was very welcome. I asked the woman proprietress if she had spare inner tubes for sale. She said she did not. I said that she could probably make some money if she carried them being located along an internationally-known bike route where goathead thorns were littering the road.
It was getting late. I was very nervous. There was a sign displayed on the grass of my little park that stated that the sprinkler system was set to activate after a certain time. It was getting close to that time. A nearly ruined day could be more perfectly ruined if I had to finish all of the reassembling and repacking while being sprayed by water. Luckily I didn't get wet. It was past sunset for the last mile into Tonasket which I rode with my lights on, wearing my reflective vest. When I reached the center of town, and visited one of the convenience stores, I was able to engage a couple of the town's police officers in conversation and they told me where to find a good breakfast and also invited me to spend the night in the town park, adjacent to the visitor's center.
It seemed like a good plan which ended up being less ideal than I imagined it would. The visitor's center was being painted by a guy who preferred to work after dark, a process that involved a very bright light. It wasn't as if I was paying for the spot so I had no legitimate claim to any peace and quiet. I was going to pitch the hammock tarp off of the seatpost of my bicycle and figured I'd pitch it in a direction that blocked the light and hopefully most noise. Painting isn't particularly noisy but once the prep work was done he was going to use an airless sprayer which can make a racket. I told him I expected to be asleep by then and it was unlikely to be more than I could deal with.
The painting however was more activity than is usual in Tonasket after dark and so it attracted some spectators. Two guys, one just a bit younger than my age and another 20-something, had nothing better to do than hang out and watch the show. I discussed my encounter with the thorns. The older guy, who seemed to rely on a bicycle for his main means of transportation, shared his views on them, and recommended I add Slime to my inner tubes. They watched me cook my supper. The younger one was surprised I was eating ramen noodles. I told him they were Top Ramen brand because I settled for nothing but the best. I offered him some of the bounty from Smallwood Farms, a bag of rather tasty glazed mixed nuts. When I got out my pipe, for an after dinner smoke, he wondered if I had any weed. I told him I only had tobacco. It turned out the painter had some and was willing to share it. The older guy, who knew the younger one fairly well, tried to talk him out of it. Something about violating probation factored into the argument. And so on it went for a while.
Things finally tapered off and I crawled into my sleeping bag with the visor of my cycling cap pulled down over my eyes to shield them from the glare of the painting lights. True to my word, once I fell asleep, the painting did not keep me from staying in that state, though the ground was not perfectly level and felt hard through a foam pad that slowly leaked from a place that I had been unable to locate prior to my departure. I had found and patched a few pinhole leaks, that I suspect had something to do with one of our cats kneading it at some point. I just hadn't located them all I now discovered.
Speaking of leaks, my rear tire was flat when I woke up in the morning. The visitor's center had a bathroom sink that allowed me to use the water submersion method for finding the leak. It was fortunate that I had that as a means because the leak came from underneath one of the patches. The thorn holes came in pairs, in some cases, and, though I'd found and patched one of the holes, I'd missed seeing its nearby mate and the patch didn't quite cover that one. I tore it off and, with my one remaining double patch, covered both holes. I hoped that would finally take care of the problem. I was anxious to replace the two spare inner tubes I'd now been forced to use, but it was a Sunday and the hardware store in Tonasket wasn't scheduled to open until 11 a.m. That was a bit late for the start of a day that included one 4,300 foot pass followed by another 5,500 foot one. I hoped there'd be a place in Republic, between the two passes, that would be open when I arrived and would carry inner tubes of the right size.
In a replay from the previous day, I was nervous about taking too long to pack up and get started because the sprinkler system for the grass at the visitor's center was scheduled to start shortly. For a second time I was fortunate enough to be out of the way before getting soaked. I crossed the main street and went to Whistler's Restaurant for breakfast. The goathead thorn incident dominated my journaling that morning. I neglected to record some details I might otherwise had been successful in noting, such as the range of purchases I'd made at the fruit stand, and the names of my companions from the preceding evening. The older one actually came in to the restaurant, before I was finished, to meet with the pastor of one of the local churches. He'd invited me to join him but I was still trying to get on my way before too much of the day had passed.
The road to the pass began from the center of town, diagonally across from the restaurant. Distance to the pass was about 27 miles. The elevation to be gained was about 3000 feet. At a bit over 110 feet per mile the grade was not steep (2.5%), though it was not perfectly constant, at times seeming level and then steepening as one approached the pass. Whether it was tired legs or a growing anxiety about falling behind schedule, it took me much longer than I'd anticipated and when I descended into Republic the day felt mostly gone. I searched unsuccessfully for a bike shop or open hardware store in town. My search for spare inner tubes remained unfulfilled.
My plan was to spend the night at a campground just past the top of Sherman Pass. I needed to buy something to cook for supper before I left Republic. I found something at Anderson's Grocery that would fill me up but wouldn't weigh too much. I guzzled a large-sized lemonade from the fountain drink dispenser and bought a hot pocket from the heat table. Just before leaving town on the road to the pass I stopped at a convenience store and purchased a tire patch kit, though certainly not one that I would not have selected if I'd had a more bicycle-specific kit to choose instead. I also found a two-cup steri-pack of red wine and added that to the dinner cache in my pannier.
I was not optimistic I could reach the campground, 18 miles distant and 3000 feet higher, in the remaining daylight, so I determined to start looking for a place to stop before it got too dark. About eight miles short of the pass, I inspected a field at the intersection with O'Brien Creek Rd. since it had some aspen trees that looked like they could support a hammock. There was a house on the opposite side of the road and the grass in the field was thigh deep. It didn't excite me. I resigned myself to a continuing search on up the highway but then decided on the spur of the moment to explore the lower part of O'Brien Creek Road before leaving. Very soon a logging road diverged to the right. I followed it. After crossing a wooden bridge it climbed to a log landing area with an immobilized logging truck, kept there for the sake of its boom and grapple for loading logs, with the truck never apparently moving from the spot.
There was a plentiful number of pine trees on the slope above the landing and I picked two the right distance apart for my hammock. I cooked my supper as the day transitioned to evening and then used the boom operator's cab as an impromptu bear locker to store my food. I donned all of my warm clothes and climbed into my sleeping bag. It was a clear, moonlit night and I got quite cold. I was comfortable as long as I could stay on top of my foam pad. Without the insulation of the pad I quickly lost body heat where the sleeping bag compressed against the thin nylon of the hammock. It required some discipline to limit my motion throughout the night. I think the temperature might have dipped below 40 degrees.
The cold morning kept me in the bag until the sun got high enough to warm things a bit. I cooked oatmeal for breakfast, packed and started up the pass, getting there after some of the steepest climbing of the trip. The descent to a crossing of the Columbia River encouraged me, but I missed a turn in the ACA directions and lost a bit of time getting reoriented. The N.T. route, while scenic and avoiding the highway, was longer and involved steeper climbing than the highway.
Arriving in Kettle Falls I found a hardware store that sold the correct size inner tubes and bought three of them. I then visited Meyer's Falls Market & Cafe and got a soup and sandwich for lunch. My original plan for that day had been to reach Ione, another 50 miles further. It certainly did not seem obtainable so, during this stop, I called Faye and asked her to check with Amtrak to see what the penalty would be if I missed my train connection in Havre. I was reluctant to push harder in an attempt to get back on schedule having done so on past rides and paid a penalty in the form of a sore knee or some other infirmity. I told her I'd check back later.
That “later,” happened at Mr. Sub in Colville. I was quite discouraged at that point and told her I didn't see how I could finish on time. She told me it was possible to miss the train and not forfeit much of the money but that there were ways to get back on schedule too. We decided it would be best to stop for the night in Colville and she shared the names of some likely motels in town. While I was talking on the phone I was overheard by Basal Bode who told me, after I'd hung up, that he was originally from Bermuda and was friends with a couple who ran a bike hostel. It turned out that the hostel was mentioned in the ACA material and also that it was free of charge, though donations were accepted. There were two phone numbers to try and I left a message on the answering machine of the first but actually reached Shelly Bacon, one of the owners, at the second number. She said she was out of town but that the hostel was empty at the present time and I was welcome to stay the night. She expected her husband Barry would stop by at some point and introduce himself. A big plus was the fact that both a shower and washer/drier were available for my use.
I thanked Basal for his intervention, told Faye where I was going to spend the night and, since I would be responsible for my own supper and breakfast, went to the local Safeway and bought some things for that purpose. My rear tire appeared to be going flat. I spent 75 cents to use a gas station air pump and inflated the tire. If it held until reaching the hostel, I would fix it in the morning. It did.
The hostel became one of the high points of the trip. It provided a welcome respite from camping, a chance to shower and wash all of my clothes and the good will of the Bacons, who provided the free hospitality, was balm for my morale. The guest book had the names of Michael, who I'd met back in Hamilton on his penultimate day of the trip across the continent as well as Clif Read, a friend from my own area who had made a crossing of the country, earlier in the summer, raising funds for an epilepsy foundation in the name of his son who'd died from the disease. Maps on the walls had pins from the many places of origin of all of the cyclists who'd stopped there in its, over ten years of, existence.
In the morning, after cooking breakfast, I removed the rear tire from my bike and did a thorough check for any thorns still embedded in the tire. I found one and pried it out with the awl of my pocket knife. I put a new inner tube in the tire and discarded the old one. Once the wheel was back on the bike I spent some time tensioning the spokes and truing it. I was able to keep the back end up by using a bungy cord to hold the front end down with the bike suspended from the center on the Bacon's bike rack. I used my WD-40 and a rag from the Bacon's rag supply to clean my chain and rear cogs. I reoiled my chain. Finally I inserted a new wedge into the cleat on my shoe to keep my foot from working itself outward on the pedal. I may not have achieved the earliest start possible but I was showered, my clothes were all washed, and my bike was once again in good working order. I hoped I'd put the goathead incident behind me once and for all.
I left a $20 donation for the Bacon's “Africa Projects” and started on my way. It was a long stretch between towns. The ACA map showed a possible stop for food at what turned out to be the Beaver Lodge & Resort on Rt. 20 about 22 miles away. When I pulled up in front of the store/restaurant there were two touring bikes parked out front. One was attached to a trailer, the other had panniers front and rear. I bought a can of Coke and a Snickers bar. In the empty restaurant were two young women cyclists talking. I went in and introduced myself.
They were westbound on the N.T. and had only just met a few minutes before I arrived. Taylor, who was towing the trailer, complete with her dog Noddy? (wasn't sure exactly about the name), was from New York and had started from Bar Harbor. Kayla was from Jamaica Plain, Mass. and had started from there. They were planning on finishing the day together in Colville. I recommended Bacon's as a good place to stay but there was some hesitation agreeing since they wanted to reach the center of town in order to gain access for food purchases and that meant extra traveling to get there and back.
They both talked about the smoke and their own ways of dealing with it. Kayla had gone north on the N.T. route through Eureka and Rexford in Montana but said she was wearing a mask the entire time and couldn't see anything. Taylor had skipped that section and ridden to Libby via Rt. 2. She had also come over the Continental Divide via Marias Pass. Kayla had done the Going-to-the-Sun Road before it had been closed due to the fire. She took a selfie of the three of us. I wished them well and continued on my way but not before looking into the trailer to say “hi” to a very happy and well-rested Noddy lounging inside.
I reached the town of Tiger where I needed to make a decision. My original plan had been to spend the previous night in Ione, requiring a left turn here and then a crossing of the Pend Orielle River which I would have followed, on the opposite shore, to the Washington/Idaho border in Oldtown/Newport. A right hand turn would take me 50 miles to the same towns on a more direct route, with the additional option of a couple of possible food supply stops on the way. Faye's revised itinerary, to keep me on track to reach Havre within seven days, had me stopping in Newport for the night. I opted for the more direct route by staying with the highway.
I didn't reach Newport until after dark. I rode around a bit looking for a place to eat supper and a likely hammock spot. I found the first at Mi Pueblo Mexican restaurant and the latter in the picnic area of the Oldtown Rotary Club's Welcome Center. I was the last customer of the night at the restaurant and found a place for my hammock between two posts of the picnic pavilion. The welcome center's bathrooms were open all night, which encouraged overnight parking.
Danny, a homeless guy living out of a van, was staying the night in the parking lot. He introduced himself and his German shepherd, Rocco, and sat a while smoking, talking, and drinking beer as I set up my hammock. Rocco was so named because he was a fanatic rock chaser. As soon as he returned with a rock in his mouth he'd drop it at your feet and wait expectantly for you to toss it. He kept both of us constantly busy. Danny was living with a prosthetic leg from an accident riding the rails. He'd been a long distance bicyclist himself, crossing great swaths of the country while towing a trailer. That had been his lifestyle for a number of years. He seemed to miss it very much. He confessed to wanting to talk because falling asleep was difficult for him but I had to admit it wasn't as hard for me and the conversation eventually ended as it became more difficult for me to keep up my end of it.
Breakfast at Audrey's Restaurant was followed by a visit to Newport High School and a card left there for whom, in the secretary's estimation, would be the most receptive science teacher on the faculty. When I reached the bridge to Priest River I decided to cross over to buy something to eat, use the public library, if possible, and visit the high school there. I accomplished all three things, leaving a card with the front desk for Mr. Kren, the principal, and also giving a card to Evan, a student I introduced myself to out front. There had been a helicopter landing across the street and seemed to be getting used in the firefighting effort. I mentioned to Evan that the students at Mohawk were anxious to get a perspective on the impacts of forest fires on daily life for their peers out west and hoped he'd contribute some thoughts to the page.
I made a decision to stay on the north side of the river all the way into Sandpoint. It would give me a chance to see what the riding was like on Rt. 2 which I had now met up with for the first time on this trip. Early in the planning process I had been considering Rt. 2 as my primary route of travel since it connected Everett, north of Seattle with Havre. I had followed Rt. 2 from Havre to Duluth leaving the N.T. in Wolf Point, MT. Long stretches of it were excellent for bicycling and others not so. If I was going to make up some of the lost time I might need to use this highway. It would be good to see how it felt on this short stretch into Sandpoint.
This turned out to be a fine road. The shoulders were of sufficient width with no rumble strip and the traffic was not crazy. On the approach to Sandpoint I spotted a westbound cyclist on the opposite side of the road. I crossed the highway and spoke with her. She was riding a nice Rivendell Atlantis and had had some difficulty with road closures coming down from Canada toward Eureka. This was further confirmation of the information that Kayla had shared and made the plan to stay on Rt. 2 once I reached Libby seem more likely. I terrified her with my goathead story. She was not following the N.T. and so was unlikely to be crossing the bridge near Riverside, but said she'd heard they were present on the John Wayne Rail Trail, which she was considering following, and asked me to describe them to her. She was disturbed by my description of them as looking fairly innocuous until it was too late.
I had three objectives when I reached Sandpoint: leave a card at the high school, find an actual bicycle-specific tire patch kit, and visit a brew pub. Finding the high school was fairly simple, I asked a group of three middle-school aged boys where it was. It seemed that school was just letting out. After visiting the school's front office and leaving a card I went in search of one of the bicycle shops listed on the A.C.A. map. I asked a high school student, who was walking home, if he knew where the Greasy Fingers bike shop was located. His directions were a bit off but got me into the general vicinity and, after asking another person, I was able to find it.
The shop had the Rema patch kit I was familiar with and looking for. I also asked for advice on route selection out of Sandpoint. If I stayed on Rt. 2 I would be heading 35 miles due north, eventually turning east and entering Montana while heading southeast toward Troy. The N.T. had me traveling east out of Sandpoint and angling southeast along the shore of Lake Pend Orielle and the Clark Fork River turning due north over the mountains toward Troy. The mapped route was a bit longer than the highway. I wanted to know how the shoulder width and traffic volumes compared. The shoulders weren't great on either route but traffic was lighter on the mapped route. I would have to make a decision soon, which I hoped would be easier to arrive at while sipping a beer.
After leaving the bike shop I stopped to ask a trio of twenty-somethings if they knew of any brew pubs in town. They weren't locals though. The couple was from NYC and the single woman was from Cal. They were visiting a mutual friend. One of the women used her smartphone to give me directions to McDuff's pub which was just what I was looking for. I ordered a pint of Irish Red Head and took it out to the beer garden which had an empty table. There was no food being served but self-served complementary organic popcorn with melted butter and toppings like garlic salt and yeast extract made up for that. There was an ongoing retirement party for a local elementary school teacher and the celebrants had brought their own food for that.
I made my route selection primarily on the basis of wind direction, which seemed to be coming from the south. One of the party goers gave me directions to a bike path heading north. I followed it as far as it went. Interestingly I passed my young guide from earlier as he walked along the path. I slowed down enough to encourage him to ride a bike if he was going to travel so far to and from school. He said that plan was in the works. Once redeposited onto Rt. 2, but still in the strip mall section of town, I decided to get something to eat at the Burger King across the road. Listening to the news on the television on the wall made me realize it had been nearly two weeks since I'd been bombarded by any of the goings on in the world, outside of what affected me directly, such as the fires. I was silently grateful and happy it would continue that way for yet a little while.
I wasn't sure where I would spend the night, but Bonners Ferry seemed to offer the most in terms of food supply. Since I was now off route I didn't have the N.T. map symbols alerting me to the locations of convenience stores and camping spots. My Idaho road map was very limited on details like that though it did give me the distance I needed to travel: 35 miles. I arrived in Bonners Ferry well after dark. I stopped at a sporting goods store, now closed, because it seemed there might be a wooded area behind it that offered hammocking possibilities. That proved to be an empty promise. In such situations it's mentally easier just to keep riding. In this case the road became quite scary for bicycling after dark. It descended to a crossing of the Kootenay River on a high speed section of road with no breakdown lane for bicycles. I got off before going on to the bridge and took refuge in a gazebo on the river's edge.
I called Faye for some intel on possible stealth-camping spots: cemeteries, town parks, etc. She was unable to give me any enticing nearby leads and since it was so late I decided to stay right where I was. A bowl of ramen noodles later I was stretched out on the floor of the gazebo in my sleeping bag and bivy sack. The bivy sack proved very useful as it turned out. I was awakened after about an hour by a fine wet mist striking my face. I wasn't surprised that wind could blow rain in under the gazebo roof and decided I'd need to find a spot farther downwind. When I got up to move I realized it wasn't rain at all but plant misters watering the flowers in their hanging pots above my head. Out on the grass the sprinkers were going and that too was reaching my side of the gazebo. I found a dry spot under the table in the center of the floor and went back to sleep.
Surprisingly one of the more sustained climbs of the trip awaited me the next morning. Faye's Internet search had tipped me off to a breakfast place where Rt. 2 turned east toward Montana which was about three miles away. The first mile and a half were all climbing on a 6+ percent grade. In the Tour de France this would work out to a Category 3 climb. Fortunately the road had widened to include a breakdown lane but it was through austere surroundings that included a stinking deer carcass, long stretches of Jersey barrier, and trash scattered the length of the ride. “Adopt-a-Highway” doesn't seem to be in effect in that part of Idaho.
The restaurant was part gas station and so had a truck stop ambiance. The early morning traffic on a week day consisted of the area labor force, dressed in their cowboy hats and boots, stopping in for something to eat before continuing on to the daily grind. I followed my usual breakfast routine and spent some time writing in my journal and contemplating route possibilities.
Even if I eliminated the leg north toward Eureka, I wasn't going to get back on schedule by the end of the day. The next place where the N.T. and Rt. 2 would coincide would be just west of West Glacier. That was 175 miles away. If I'd been able to stay on schedule I would have spent the following night there. I wasn't going to make up that amount of ground in the next two days. With the Going-to-the-Sun Road remaining closed I would be taking the Marias Pass Alternate route. Hopefully that would give me the boost I needed to get to Havre on time.
The day was overcast and still plagued by a smoky haze. When I reached the Montana state line a road house provided a place to stop and drink a coke and eat a candy bar. The changeable letter sign on the roadside said: “We have everything except fresh air.” The mileage sign beyond it said I was 14 miles from Troy, 32 miles from Libby, and 121 miles from Kalispell. According to my original itinerary I should have spent the previous night in Troy.
When I reached Troy I stopped to leave a card in the high school there, replenished my gummy worm supply, had a tall fountain drink and then continued on. When I reached Libby, which would be my last opportunity to buy food for supper, I visited a convenience store as well as a liquor store where I bought a pint of blackberry brandy as a moral booster. Before leaving town I stopped at Seven Seeds, the local expresso bar, and got one of my first lattés. I'm not inclined to drink special coffee concoctions, preferring my coffee black and unsugared but I was looking for warmth, some carbohydrates, as well as caffeine, so asked the barista to give me suggestions. What we ended up with certainly fulfilled the requirement for something sweet.
Faye had recommended a place on the map called Happy's Inn as the one spot with food in a desolate stretch of 70 miles with no services. That was midway through this stretch but it was around 5 p.m. when I left Libby and I wasn't convinced I was going to get that far before it would be too late to want to continue. Besides, there wasn't any real assurance that the establishment, Happy's Roadhouse Inn, was anything more than a bar. The state of Montana ran a campground, Logan State Park, five miles past Happy's Inn. If I had the energy I would try to get that far. I had stopped where a dirt road entered on my side of the highway while I fished out some arm warmers and geared up for night riding. While there, a sheriff's cruiser pulled up and the window on my side went down. The officer asked me my plan and I asked him how far to the state campground. He said I still had 10 miles to go but that a real nice, free, federal campground was just up the road, almost within sight of where I was standing.
That sounded like the best news I'd had all day and I thanked him profusely. I started doubting his directions when I'd gone far enough to lose sight of the spot of our conversation without any sign of the road to the campground. I probably ended up going about twice the imagined distance before the road to U.S.F.S. Pleasant Valley Campground appeared. It was dark enough by then that, as I rode around looking for an empty site, which were abundant, the occupant of the only already-claimed site was just a shadowy silhouette who mumbled a greeting as I rode by.
As the inveterate lover of solitude that I am, I chose a site on the opposite side of the circle from the already occupied one. I reasoned that perhaps that person was looking for solitude as well and who was I to horn in on it? There was a vault toilet in the center of all the sites. There was no running water but my water bottles were both still nearly full. I supposed, if needed, I could find the river which, I reasoned, could not have been too far away since there were a couple of corrals included among the sites and I assumed the horses that were kept in them would have needed water to be close by.
Supper, blackberry brandy and a puff or two on my pipe put me in a relaxed mood. Free legit camping is also a comfort. There were no bear lockers so I suspended my meager food supply from the branch of a not too distant tree. A determined bear would not have been hindered by the system for too long but at least it would have been more interested in the food than in me and if necessary I could retreat to the toilet building. Nothing visited during the night. I had my sparse breakfast of a cup of coffee and two Nature Valley granola bars and drank most of my remaining water before setting off.
I reached Logan State Park and was directed by the volunteer caretaker to one of the water spigots in the campground refilling my bottles and drinking deeply. After another 12 miles I stopped at McGregor Lake Resort Lodge which had a variety store and restaurant. I ordered a bowl of clam chowder and a fish sandwich, the special. Coffee and cookies served as dessert. I had a long conversation with Darv(in) Hillson who was from Havre and who had a camp in the area. His daughter was our waitress. He said he was willing to take a card and give it to one of the science faculty at the high school. His wife was a retired teacher from the school. He was an oil company employee.
I hadn't checked in with Faye since I'd left Libby. The cell reception on this stretch was nil. I asked them when the next cell connection could be obtained and was encouraged to learn that it started to be sporadically available in the next 3-4 miles and more consistently by the time I got closer to Marion, about 10-15 miles along. I found a spot from which to a call home and when I reached Marion I stopped at a raw honey emporium for some honey “stix,” and a chance to study the map. I received some route advice regarding the existence of a bike path that would take me into Kalispell.
It was largely all downhill from there to the bike path which was not located on the typical old rail bed and did some unusual things, among which was to deliver me to the northern side of town, dead ending in the midst of the strip mall there. I was sorry to have missed the center of town, which I knew from hearsay to be funky and the likely home to another brew pub. It was getting late so the discovery of the latter type of establishment would not have served me well in terms of the more pressing matters at hand such as finding a place to spend the night. My N.T. map was useful again and showed a “Montana Bike Hostel” between Kalispell and Whitefish/Columbia Falls. They weren't answering the phone so I supposed I was out of luck but I determined to ride there anyway and see what I could find.
A male customer at the Town Pump Food Store, where I'd stopped for something to eat, who ended up buying the popcorn, mostly due to my example, told me how to find my way to Whitefish Stage Rd. and the landmarks to look for to know when to turn onto Hodgson Rd. that would take me to an intersection with Trumble Creek Rd. which is where the hostel was located. When I found the hostel it didn't look open but I knocked on the front door of the house and a woman, who I came to learn was named Beverly Lucke, answered it. She said they'd turned the water off for the season so they had no sauna or toilet facilities but I was welcome to camp there.
I professed to being anxious to sleep warmer than I had the previous night and so preferred not to camp. She seemed to take pity on me. If I was willing to use my sleeping bag I could use the cabin, which had heat. The cabin was very cozy and, after letting me into its single room, she rummaged through her own larder and brought some shredded cheese, tortillas, baby spinach and hot sauce which she opined I could use to make quesadillas using the frying pan and hotplate in the cabin. I just had to be careful I didn't have too many appliances plugged in at once or the circuit breaker would trip. She gave me a gallon jug of tap water. If I needed anything she told me to text her telephone number. There was a television but its sole use was as a DVD screen. She showed me the selection of DVDs, particularly mentioning the two RAAM tapes they had, Race Across America and Bicycle Dreams both made by Steve Auerbach.
With the erzatz fireplace gas heater going the cabin got very comfortable and I started to feel like Sam McGee inside the boiler of the Alice May on Lake LaBarge. It made me realize how cold I'd gotten over the past two days. I'd been wearing all of my base layers for sleeping and had been using my arm warmers, leg warmers, knee warmers, vest and jacket while riding. The quesadillas proved to be very good, though I favored the second one with salt and pepper over the first one that I'd made that featured the spinach and hot sauce. A coffee bag and some blackberry brandy topped it off. I ended up watching both of the RAAM tapes since it told the story of the race very well and made me wonder if it was still being run since I have heard so little about it in recent years. A check later on Google showed me that it was. I might want to pay closer attention to next year's race.
I was up before dawn and thanked Beverly who gave me directions to the Nite Owl Restaurant in Columbia Falls as a good place for breakfast. I wanted to get to East Glacier for the night and had 63 miles to go as well as the Continental Divide to cross before getting there. I felt it was reasonable to expect to be over the pass with enough remaining daylight to descend the other side safely. I wrote in my journal: “Hopefully the real slogging is only the last third. Ergo, 2.5 hrs. of slow, 2.5 hrs of slower, and 2.5 hr. of even slower still. That would get me to the pass around 4 p.m., which would be perfect.”
Reaching West Glacier was my first goal. That was 17 miles and a few hundred feet higher. I stopped at a store there and got a hot chocolate. They sold bear spray on swiveling display. I'd never seen anything so serious, such that in Massachusetts one probably needs an F.I.D. permit to carry, sold so casually. It did reinforce something I was told on the ride between Coram and West Glacier. I stopped to ask a work crew some questions about their horizontal boring rig which they were just setting up. I'd said I'd never seen so many of those things as I had on this ride. I was told that there was a lot of them being used right now to lay fiber optic cable. Then the individual I was talking to asked me if I was going to take my bike off road in the area. I said I didn't have any plans to do so. He said it was probably just as well because the previous summer someone (an off-duty USFS law officer in fact) had been killed by a bear while mountain biking on a trail above the KOA campground just a short way up the road from where we were. I allowed as how I was somewhat familiar with that story.
As I had been approaching West Glacier a car stopped and the driver asked me politely if he could ask me a question. He wondered how, after the local taxpayers had been forced to spend a good deal of money to build a brand new bike trail, I found it inconvenient to use it. I asked him where it was and he pointed to the opposite side of the road. I said I'd been following it until the center of Coram but it appeared to end there. He said it crossed the road, but admitted more signs might be needed. I crossed over and followed it but it ended only a quarter mile further ahead.
Beyond West Glacier the road wound along, following the course of the Middle Fork of the Flathead River through a narrow valley. Initially the perspective was deceiving. I thought I was descending but the bike felt sluggish. It was a “magnetic hill” in reverse. Instead of coasting up a hill I felt like I was having to work to pedal down one. I even stopped to see if my brakes were rubbing against the rim of one or both wheels. When I found they weren't I put it down to an optical illusion. Perhaps I was feeling the energy from the “Montana Vortex,” a tourist attraction a few miles back in Columbia Falls that capitalizes on such illusions to make money off of tourists.
When the valley widened out the road seemed less steep and the smoke haze had cleared enough that the surrounding mountains were easy to see. I was grateful that I was at last getting a chance to enjoy the view before exiting the high country. At one place where the highway crossed the railroad tracks I stopped, and was able to get a picture of a line of tanker cars as they went by. These were the same tracks I'd been on during the trip out to Seattle. When I reached the turn off for the center of Essex I followed it to get a closer look at the Izaak Walton Inn, which I'd seen and heard described by the ranger as the train slowly passed through there nearly two weeks before.
The Tudor-revival style inn is picturesque and very historic, dating from the early days of the Great Northern Railroad when crews for the pusher trains and those with avalanche clearing duties had to be housed there. There is a retired G.N.R. locomotive boasting such features as “400-year-old reclaimed oak floor, wall accents of birch, cedar and cottonwood, leather comfort sleeper sofa, native Montana Argillite stone fireplace, [and] rubbed oil bronze fixtures,” in addition to similarly-appointed caboose cars positioned about the area, augmenting the rooms in the inn as overnight accommodations.
I knew Faye would be interested to get an update on my progress but there are no cell connections to be had between West and East Glacier. I hoped the inn might have a public phone. The answer was “no,” when I asked at the desk, but the young woman who answered the question was happy to let me use the phone at the desk. I made the call as short as possible and let Faye know I was making adequate time. My next thought ran to getting something to eat but the dining room was a bit fancy for someone with my attire and I wasn't looking for anything too substantial and no choice on the menu fit that description in either price or substance. I bought a Clif bar instead.
We discussed the skiing in the area though she confessed to being a non-skier, and somewhat apprehensive about staying the winter for the first time. She did say that it was a popular destination for cross-country skiers with a network of groomed trails radiating out from the inn. I said I was more interested in getting up high and doing some backcountry routes for which, it turned out, the inn coordinated with a local guide service. I briefly indulged in imagining a fantasy return trip by train to take advantage of such a possibility. Perhaps in another lifetime I might get the chance to try something like that.
As I left Essex I was on the lookout for mountain goats. Both Darv Hillson, at the McGregor Lake Resort Lodge, and the crew chief on the horizontal boring rig had told me to look for them after passing through Essex where the road crossed the river. I passed a turn off for the Goat Lick Overlook which Darv had described as a rock outcrop which contained enough salts and minerals to attract the goats. I looked at the side road to the overlook and it involved a pretty steep downgrade which translated to a steep upgrade in reverse. I wasn't sure what the rest of the ride had in store for my legs and decided to save them for the unknown.
Not too much further up the road I stopped at the Snowslip Inn to get a grilled cheese sandwich and a cup of coffee for a late lunch. This was a much less formal setting than the Izaak Walton and more my speed. The choice was inspired by a similar order I'd placed at a little roadside cafe, the front of a residence really, along the side of Quebec 389, as I was nearing the end of that adventure. I hadn't had the needed space to carry a surplus of food through hundreds of miles of uninhabited wilderness so I was pretty hungry when I reached that food stop. It's a food combination that has been evocative ever since.
About an hour later I found myself cresting the pass and stopped to take some pictures and read what the signs had to say at the base of a stone obelisk that marked the pass and commemorated the achievement of pioneering the route of the railroad through the pass, accomplished by John F. Stevens in 1889. A statue of the railroad construction engineer stands next to the obelisk. The remains of a recent snowfall were still clinging to the sides of the road. As I was reading the sign board describing the geologic features of the Lewis Overthrust, visible to the north, a gentleman started commenting on the significance of Stevens' achievement and against what odds he'd had to struggle to accomplish it.
The gentleman and his wife had taken the Empire Builder through the pass heading west and were now driving home in a rented car. He seemed to be well-versed in the history of the railroad which was probably an important ingredient in the couple's decision to take a train journey. I told them a bit of my story and, after layering up for the descent, started on my way down the Atlantic side of the pass. I noticed, as I was leaving, that the Continental Divide hiking trail crossed the highway at that spot.
The descent was sporty but nothing like the one down from Washington Pass. The Cascades had the Rockies beaten for steepness, though I did not have Logan Pass, on the Going-to-the Sun Road, for comparison. The fact that Marias Pass had been chosen for the railroad was indicative of its relative mildness. Regardless, the grades I've climbed on tours in the East are steeper still. A road, like the one that climbs Smuggler's Notch in Vermont, makes an 1,800 foot climb in 8 miles with half of that elevation gain coming in the last three miles. The G.t.t.S. Rd., from the Apgar Visitor's Center in Glacier N.P. to Logan Pass, is 35 miles while gaining 3,500 feet of elevation. Higher heights are reached, but over longer distances, so the steepness is less out west if using those two for comparison's sake.
Rt. 2 took me to the center of East Glacier, also a stop on the Amtrak Empire Builder, and the location where Dennis had left the train to start his ride to Aspen two weeks before. A sign down one of the side streets for the “Backpackers Inn,” caught my attention, especially the advertised price of $18/night. I rode down to where the sign was located. A wooden gate behind a parked car appeared to lead into an enclosed backyard behind a Mexican restaurant. It wasn't clear where the “office” of the inn was located. A couple of bearded guys came out through the gate. I asked them if this was the inn and where to go to register for the night. They said “yes,” and to go into the restaurant. I went in through the gate and leaned my bike against a tree.
The same two guys were out on the porch of the restaurant themselves, waiting to book a table for supper. Since they were looking for a table for five I asked if there would be room for a sixth person and was invited to join them. I checked with the hostess inside and asked about a room. She only had one bunk bed left. She said it would cost $20 with the tax. I said I'd take it. When she learned I was coming back for supper she said I could pay for it when I paid for my meal. We discussed what to do about the bicycle. She said there was no secure lock up for it but I was welcome to park it on the back porch of the restaurant after they closed for the night. The sprinklers were turned off for the season so I was free to leave it in the backyard if I wanted. I decided it was safe right were it was.
I found the room with the putative unoccupied bed but it wasn't clear which one it was. There were two bunk beds in the room and every bed appeared to have someone's things on it. I put some of my things on the one that seemed the least occupied and headed over to the porch of the restaurant to wait for the table to open up.
My tablemates were still on the porch but it wasn't long before they told us our table was ready. The group was made up of Continental Divide Trail thru-hikers. The most talkative introduced himself using his trail name of Lumber. He was a veteran of both the Appalachian Trail and the Pacific Crest Trail. He had a brewery job in central N.Y. state when he wasn't on one trail or another. The others in the group consisted of a couple whose names I've forgotten but traveled with a dog named Moose, Chris, and a guy from Westminster, MA. It was fun to listen to their conversation with it's thru-hiker jargon of neros and zeros and which focused mainly on the subject of food (which they were packing away prodigious amounts of at that moment, as well as a pitcher of margaritas) and the whereabouts of other thru-hikers which they were keeping track of through a Facebook page called CDT17.
Back in the bunkroom I had a chance to meet another member of the pack, Melissa, who asked if we could allow her to share our males-only space for the night. There wasn't room left in the women-only bunkroom and the cabins were all full to overflowing. Melissa worked for a wilderness program in Utah that served at-risk youth, a type of job I, myself, had done in younger days. The actual mechanics of our individual athletic pursuits were less of the focus of our conversation than the overall spirit of them. My trip across the country was much like the journey of a thru-hiker on one of the long-distance trails. In the case of the CDT, the members of this group had traveled from the southern border of the country and were less than five days from reaching the northern one. I was only a couple days away from completing my section ride across the continent from west to east. It was easy for us to relate to one another.
I was up early the next morning and one of the first customers of the Two Medicine Grill where I had their deluxe bagel breakfast sandwich. Some of last night's dinner companions also came in for breakfast. I may have been eating breakfast before them but they were quicker to get packed and on their way. I was still stuffing the last few items in my panniers as Lumber, Chris and the others were setting off. Melissa was the last and I asked her to stop and pose for a picture in the doorway of our bunkroom. I wished her well and watched her heading off to catch up to the others wearing her trail runners and leaving me wondering how they would cope with the new snowfall on the heights.
My goal that day was Chester, MT which was 114 miles from E. Glacier. I wasn't sure how it would go but if the wind cooperated I was optimistic I could cover the distance. The early going was steadily downhill on not steep but certainly respectable grades. I stopped in Browning at the Town Pump to get something to eat and drink. I had wanted to visit the Museum of the Plains Indian but it was a Sunday and they appeared closed. Browning is the tribal seat of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation. The majority of the customers and staff at the Town Pump were native people. It had been steadily downhill from E. Glacier to Browning and the road trended northeast but afterward the road bent south for a while and the grade went to a kind of rolling one, sometimes up and sometimes down. The wind had been at my back until then.
The road shoulder was decently wide to, and through, Browning. There was a significant amount of broken glass on the road shoulders though. I didn't inspect the pieces but I was inclined to view them as remnants of booze and beer bottles. As I passed through the various towns on the route I would stop at convenience stores or a MacDonald's (Cutbank). The first 80 miles seemed to go by fairly easily but after Shelby the road seemed to climb gradually for long stretches and the tail wind started to die off with the setting sun. I did finally get to Chester after sunset but the last 20 miles seemed to have taken forever. I could see the lights of the town for miles as I approached but, until the very end, I couldn't will them to look any closer no matter how hard I tried.
I rode the length of Rt. 2 through town, and then back, looking for a restaurant. Nothing seemed open. The Liberty Quick Stop ended up being my only option. Carrying the food I purchased there, I headed over to the Lion's Park roadside rest area. My A.C.A. map said camping was allowed in the town park. Studying the map more closely in the morning revealed the location of the park to be elsewhere in town but no one ever came by to tell me to leave, the bathroom was left open all night, and I slept underneath my tarp which I had set up against the back wall of the picnic pavilion I had used for supper.
The cashier at the convenience store the previous evening had told me where to find an open breakfast place and I found Spud's Cafe easily. The talk among the customers at Spuds was interesting and I couldn't help listening in as I did my journaling. I wrote that it was about “farming and the weather, the price of wheat, keeping chickens happy, fishing, children's educational progress, and an individual's daughter ruining the tires on her car.”
The last day on the bike was a modest one. It was 60 miles, more or less, between Chester and Havre. I was a day ahead of the train so I could spend a restful night in Havre and then go to the station, and box my bicycle and check my bag in leisure. The bike ride was largely uneventful with the exception of sections of the highway that had narrow paved shoulders scribed down the middle with a two foot wide rumble strip. Admittedly it wasn't a milled type of strip but one that had been created by some kind of embossing process while the pavement was still hot. It didn't have the same bone-jarring quality as one of the milled type strips but it was still punishing, especially on an upgrade.
I remember Darv Hillson saying he felt sorry for the bicyclists he passed on those particular stretches. The choice was always whether to stay in the travel lane and hope the cars would give one the adequate clearance, or retreat to the shoulder and bounce along until a car went by. I opted for the former option when being overtaken by a car on a straight and level stretch of road when there were no cars approaching from the opposite direction. If there was a car coming toward us or when there was a rise obscuring the line of sight for approaching cars I yielded the road to the overtaking car.
Another interesting item from the road that day was a conversation I had in the only store in Rudyard which was about a third of the way to Havre. There wasn't much else to the town. I was discovering that many of these little Montana farming towns were shrinking in population and services. Schools were being consolidated and equipment dealers were closing. Rudyard has a sign on the highway that says: “596 nice people and one old sore head.” The guys at the Conoco explained the “sore head” connection because they were the collection point for the sore head contest which was ending that day.
It seems there were a half dozen candidates in the running for the dubious title and vote-getting involved making donations to the Rudyard Commercial Club who was putting it toward upkeep at the Senior Center. The person with the most “votes,” i.e. cash donated in his name, would become the official town sore head. The guys at the Conoco laughed and said it was probably the only election in which the candidates vigorously campaigned for their opponents. In fact the biggest donations so far were made by candidates themselves in the name of one or another of their opponents. The local CBS affiliate had picked up on the story and a piece of it went national. They were quite proud of that fact. I was pleased to hear that some good news had aired on national TV for a change.
Faye had scoped out the possible places to stay in Havre and reported the least expensive one with the better reviews was the Super 8 motel. The one drawback to it was its distance from the railroad station. I had some idea that boxing the bike the night before would be the least stressful way to proceed but if I relinquished the bike I would have to walk or call a cab to get from the station to the hotel and back. I went to the station first, judging the difficulty of traveling back and forth since I passed the motel on my way toward the town center. There was a long hill to descend, and reascend. It was also a busy stretch of road without much in the way of a shoulder.
The station master in town told me what my other options consisted of. She did not recommend the one hotel within easy walking distance of the station. Board of Health violations seemed to be part of the reason for the reluctance to recommend it. I decided to keep the bike, though I did claim my bag from their package express storage area. With the bag bungie-corded on top of the rear rack the bike was particularly wobbly. All the same I was able to return to the hotel and was happy to learn they had guest laundry services. My train clothes were in need of washing before the return ride and I could get all of my cycling clothes clean at the same time and save Faye the trouble of washing them when I got home.
They told me of a restaurant within easy cycling distance and so, before dark, I rode over to Murphy's Pub and had a steak and potatoes dinner washed down with a draft beer. Washing clothes and watching the second episode of Ken Burn's Vietnam were the two big postprandial activities. I got to sleep early enough to get going with plenty of time to have the complimentary breakfast, get my train clothes on and coast down a back road to the center of town, avoiding all the traffic.
At the station I got the bike into its box without much trouble and got all of the cycling specific stuff into the hockey bag to be checked through to Albany/Rensselaer. The station master gave me directions to find the library. I went there and posted some last pictures to Facebook. I walked back to the station, stopping at Wolfer's Diner for a coffee and a muffin and a chance to write in my journal. I recorded that the trip is “officially completed, at least the cycling part. I am grateful I'm not pedaling my brains out to beat the train to the station. A largely successful adventure with good memories and nice people encountered along the way.”
The main area of disappointment centered on the Facebook page we called the C2C Environmental Network. Not one of the schools I'd stopped and left a business card with had joined the discussion. Something was learned about how not to drum up interest in long distance interclassroom communication. I'm still at a loss how that might be accomplished but at least I now know one way not to. I have my theories on the reason for the failure but they remain untested. One test might be to write to the teachers I'd contacted and ask them for feedback on why they balked at the invitation. Chances are very good I'd not hear from any of them. I think I've probably beaten my head against this wall long enough now, to want to let it go. My hat is off to the person who gets it to work. I think something like that is needed in this country, but alas it's a difficult goal to achieve. I was grateful for the opportunity to have tried, and the brief visit to the main desks in a string of high schools across the western end of the Northern Tier was not an unwelcome experience.