Biking Across the U.S (hopefully)
Avery Park - Portland 99
Portland - Astoria 90 Biking down the gorge (the banks of the Columbia River) you have two options - highway 14 on the Washington side with more hills and a lower shoulder, or the shoulder of the freeway and some frontage roads on the Oregon side. I chose the Washington route since it seemed calmer, and wanted to continue avoiding the interstate. Even on the roughest hills I'd look over to the Oregon side, content with my choice as I saw a never ending parade of semis cruising down the interstate. After each hill I secretly prayed somehow Washington and Oregon would just flatten out to the ocean.... I mean, if you're following a river to its dump-off-point, shouldn't it all be a downhill grade? No dice. Crossing over onto the Oregon side via the Bridge of Gods was kind of cool - it's this old toll bridge right off the Pacific Crest Trail, so they allow pedestrian crossing on the roadway. So the little town of Cascade Locks is flooded with travelers. Made the final pull towards Portland along the Historic Columbia River highway, taking me past waterfalls and vistas of the Columbia River. Of course, right before the crest of a major hill I saw a rock... thought I avoided it... then felt a pop in my back tire. That sucker lasted the whole trip, so I couldn't be too upset at the half inch gash and proceeding tire change. Made it to Portland, staying with my cousin and his wife. Awesome company, a bed, and pizza... a good end to a rough day. In the morning I made the long trek towards Astoria along highway 30, this god awful trucking route with a handful of ridiculously tough climbs. I wasn't even mad when I got my third flat 10 miles out of town... without a spare tube and unable to find my patch kit. I know the older generation is well versed in this, but I didn't really know how to throw a thumb out. Do you do it right as the car is coming by? Just keep it high in the air? Target only trucks that can hold a bike? Thankfully the first pickup that passed pulled over and gave me a lift to the bike shop - an anticlimactic end for getting on towards the coast. In the morning I made the short 8 mile ride out to the 'official' Oregon coast, expecting a standing ovation and fan fare. Instead it's overcast, windy, and the beach is pretty barren. But I lugged my bike the half-mile down (aptly named) Sunset Beach and ceremoniously dipped the front wheel in the Pacific. It's over, all done, finito, shows over. My booty and legs are pretty ready for it. I'll spend the next day or so leisurely biking along the coast, calling it quits and taking a bus back to Portland whenever I darn well please. I'm going to sleep in, eat food other than ramen... and 'plan' my next trip. Most mornings, after the preoccupation of packing up and starting the day wore off, I'd have to get off my bike and get myself together a little. It's been a really hard trip without my mom, but I know she had my back on a lot of it, and would be pretty delighted by the adventure. Except for the stretches where I didn't wear my helmet.
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Lewis Clark Park - Plymouth WA 87
Plymouth - Avery Park 100 With all the smoke in the air, this area feels like a wasteland - some post apocalyptic scenery with sun scorched wheat fields. Since hitting the major trucking routes from Montana, I realized each region has its own goods/type of trucker going through, with evidence of it littered all over the road. In southeast Montana it was through truckers throwing out bottles of trucker lemonade. National forest and middle Montana had logger truckers, spilling wood shavings all over the road. Seely Lake leading to Glacier you found squished berries and fruit produce. And then since arriving in this part of Oregon/Washington it's tiny onion bulbs every couple of yards. I think I'd rather live where the berries are. Finally I found the Columbia River, deciding to cross over to the Washington side... following it towards Portland. Although still beautiful, this rice would be soooo much more breathtaking without the smoke, in some areas you can't see more than a mile and it feels like a constant overcast/haze. After camping in Plymouth I kicked it 50 miles to a tiny cafe which had $3.99 breakfast plates. After my second, the waitress said "you aren't the first biker to get two plates". Great minds think alike. I decided to be a little classy and got off my bike at a random art museum towards the end of the ride, going so far to change into my fancy old man button down shirt. The Maryhill Art Museum was started by this random millionaire who had a connection with Queen Marie of Romania, so has a bunch of Eastern European monarchy stuff in it, along with a random wing of Rodin pieces. To be even classier I went to a winery down the road, got a glass of wine, and realized how much cooler breweries are. But this area has a bajillion wineries, so I felt obligated to give it a shot. Camped at this random fishing park with some interesting characters, right next to a set of train tracks. Got a nice train horn wake up at 1am, 3am, and 5am. I guess my alarm wasn't needed. Mytrle - Lewis and Clark Park 85
Got an early start on what would be a hot day. The first 40ish miles weren't so bad, until I got to the top of some summit I don't remember the name of. It was only 2ish something thousand feet, but it felt pretty rough, and once I went over the top a rough headwind set in that stayed for the remainder of the ride. The brutality of the day made me realize how this ride depends on the four classical elements. Earth - for the hills and terrain. Fire - literal forest fires, and just being absurdly hot. Wind - because it sucks when it's in your face. Water - because I have to plan where the next fill up is/always want H20. The modern periodic table doesn't really impact me. Spent a whole hour eating a couple burgers, taqitos (still not sure what they are), and maple bars in a gas station while my phone and myself recharged. Also picked up a new pair of stylish $3 sunglasses.... mine are at the bottom of Lake McDonald in Glacier. While kayaking I leaned over and heard a plop, glasses falling from my head and plummeting into the 472 foot, freezing abyss of a glacial lake. Somehow made it up another climb, while meeting a couple (for once) cycling my way. I had high hopes of reaching Walla Walla, but I'll have to call it quits outside Dayton... which was fine because the couple I passed earlier caught back up, so I had some camping comparisons. Hopefully Oregon tomorrow? Missoula - Apgar campsite 117
Campsite - Mytrle 87 Fires in Billings, fires in Lincoln, fires outside of Missoula, and fires down Lolo summit. The whole state is on fire, and people just shrug and say 'that's Montana in the summer'. One fire is almost the size of the state of New York.... not Road Island or Delaware or something. Frickin New York. So it's hazed things up which is a bummer, since after Missoula I headed down Highway 12/Lolo Pass, spitting me into Idaho after the summit. The whole highway is a scenic byway, running along the Lochsa river with tall pine trees, green vegetation, and largely undeveloped forests. Best part though, after the summit it was either downhill or flat for the next 100 miles. Throughout the ride turn offs marked where Lewis and Clark did something. So they walked along the ridge in front of you, or wrote about a bend in a river, or decided to do this other thing. I'm not really sure... I really need to read a book on them now. By the time I reached the bottom the temperature was reaching 100, so the river was pretty clutch. Next day was a pretty rough stretch, ending 15 miles East of Lewiston, ID. At one point I had the option of taking a back road through the Nez Perc reservation, but some locals advised me against it because the roads are narrow and have lots of turn ons. Plus, if I followed Highway 12 it has a 'water grade', which I'd never heard of, meaning running along the river with limited climbs. Trade off was terrible traffic and limited shoulders. Kalispell - Missoula 80
It'svalways hard leaving a comfy bed and the safety of a home. But I got fed, coffeed up, and was back on the road towards Missoula - covering the same miles I'd already burned heading up to Glacier. The day was hot, but a pretty ride along Flathead Lake... except for the constant buzz of semi trucks. It wasn't an issue at all, but for once I was traveling south and a little east, and of course, for one day this whole trip the wind was blowing SE as well. So any other day it would've been a tailwind, but now was a headwind. The subtle cruelty of Mother Nature hasn't escaped me this trip. As I got into one of the small reservation towns I saw a bunch of people working on bikes under a bridge... a little weird. Turns out a bike coop from Missoula was doing a bike clinic in this town. I leant what limited bike knowledge I have to help a couple kids with their bikes and helped clean up, in exchange for a lift into Missoula in their converted bus clinic school bus. Fair trade (and I'd done the miles north, so didn't feel bad about it). Git put up by one of the bike shop volunteers, and ended up staying an extra day in town to bum around, and hit up the bakeries, bikes shops, and maybe a brewery. Halfway through the day I heard 'Alex!' and saw two dudes waving me over. Turns out it was two bike tourers I met way back in the Badlands. Missoula is the bike touring capital of America. Glacier - nowhere 0
Glacier - Kalispell 35 Ummm... so Glacier is absurdly beautiful. Everything looks like a postcard. I did it fully understand why everyone said "you have to go to Glacier", until I got here. The sweet thing about National Parks out here is they have reserved hiker/biker spots. So for $5 a day I threw up a tent in a shared site with other hiker or bikers, all crammed together just off the path to the restrooms. But whatever, who can argue with $5, especially since every campsite in the park is full. The first day Evan and I, a P.E teacher from Portland, went on a pretty massive 12ish mile hike called the Highline Loop from the park's main peak - Logan's Pass. The first 7 miles were pretty gorgeous, a steady walk along the rim overlooking different peaks, valleys, and wildflower areas. Super nice. The next mile was excruciating. It was supposedly a .6 hike up to a summit, overlooking one of the last remaining glaciers in Glacier Park (thanks a lot global warming), with an 1,000 foot elevation gain packed into less than a mile. I've biked up some steep grades at this point, but I definitely felt like throwing in the towel multiple times... especially since I had to do the whole thing in Tevas and socks. But a huge payout on the view. Fast forward to the next day, my legs were on fire and I didn't wake up until about 7:30 or 8. My body was pretty pissed. So instead of hiking, biking, or doing anything leg-powered, I rented a kayak and took off across Lake McDonald. Everyone at Glacier had bear spray, and a bunch of warning signs were posted throughout the park - something I wasn't super concerned about. Until I got to a remote spit off the lake, anchoring the kayak for a brief swim. I heard some rustling and crashing in the brush, so threw everything back on the boat and shoved off. The last day in Glacier was a pretty spectacular fail. Most people bike up and down Going-to-the-Sun road, the main drag through Glacier, but I've already done passes and and a few more ahead of me. So my idea was take a shuttle to the top of the pass, bike down one side, take a shuttle back up... and bike down the other side. Problematically, everyone and their mother is at Glacier right now, so when I went down one side I had to wait a million years for a shuttle and just ended up heading back to the campsite and getting out of town. Originally I was going to take a bus into Kalispell to cut out the part of Highway 2 I'd already done, which is utterly terrifying... but I'm an idiot and had the time waaaay wrong. But I made it to Kalispell alive, to start the long peddle back to towards Missoula. Lincoln - Lake Holland 78
Lake Holland - West Glacier 103 Escaped Helena Forest and made on towards Flathead National Forest, an incredibly beautiful area littered with lakes, forests, and fields. Before turning North I met an Irish cyclist who strongly recommended a free campsite tucked next to a lake off the main road. The ride was scenic, but nerve racking... another no-shouldered Montana road with huge logging trucks and a bajillion tourists. I almost got clipped by at least three ginormous RVs, who didn't seem to care about my curse words or certain extended finger. Logger trucks will at least give you a customary huge horn blare and 6ish inches. Traversed a complete torn apart, dusty, gravely road to Holland Lake... a lake fed by two waterfalls coming off the Flathead mountains. Hadn't had a shower since Billings, so a lake bath was pretty amazing. I met two guys riding down the continental divide trail and shared their company and picnic table. Funnily enough, I'd contacted one of the guys all the way back in Ohio to see if I could crash with him (and it didn't work out). The biking world is a small world. I tried to catch the sunrise above the lake in the AM, but with all the smoke it wasn't anything spectacular... or I slept in too late by accident. Holy cow it was cold too, I really should've packed better. 40 miles into the ride I met a jerky cyclist who had just come from Glacier. Explaining that's where I was heading (thinking he'd tell me what to do/see), he just said 'oh that's too far to get to today'. I don't really like people telling me what I can and can't do, so I continued along Montana's most terrifying highways for a bike, sight set on Glacier. Thankfully, that made me peddle super fast to get through the awfulness. Stopped at a bar for a burger the size of my face, then landed a hiker/biked campsite just inside Glacier. I was beat, but made it! Townsend - Lincoln 91
Woke up to do battle with the mosquitos again, flogging myself with a spare t-shirt trying to get them off as I packed up.... periodically belting out expletives like a crazy person. I fought some vicious headwinds all the way into Helena, burning time at a Walmart afterwards to recover. Kept peddling up to a local bike shop to air in my tires and water in my bottles. I feel pretty fortunate I stopped in, because talking with one of the mechanics he recommended going North toward Lincoln on a road I was worried about without a shoulder and some trucker traffic. But man, I'm so happy i took his advice because the ride was pretty AND devoid of wind. He said the area I'd been in for the past couple days was wind central because it all channeled off (insert mountain range here) and (insert a different one... I have no clue). Someone's looking out for me, because a truck coming towards me started fish tailing a bit, then right as I passed it, upended it's trailer into the other lane. A couple seconds earlier and my trip might've been cut short. The route up to Lincoln took me through Helena National Forest, a winding road leading to Rogers Pass, and descending into a valley of low creeks/rivers and hilly green forests of pine and spruce. A huge swath of it's currently on fire, right outside the town of Lincoln, so most of what I assume would be a spectacular view was clouded up. The town itself was crowded with wild land firefighters and ranger activity. The dude at the bike shop strongly recommended heading to Glacier saying "I don't want to tell you what to do... but don't let an opportunity like that pass you by". So I guess in the AM I'm headed to Glacier. Lavina - Martinsdale 75Martinsdale - N Townsend 74
Jim gave me a head start up the road on my way out of Billings. At first I was hesitant since getting a ride is 'cheating', but then as I saw the shoulder narrowing into nonexistence, with an immense climb... I was ok with it. Plus, he said once a year at least one motorcycle will fly off the rim and land in someone's yard a couple hundred feet below. Starting back on the road was a little tough. I'd taken a day off in an interesting town with cool people, so maybe it was just the hangover of being on my own again without company. But miles gotta get got. The scenery improved from days before, with fried yellow wheat fields giving way to more lush patches of tress along creek shores, and crops I assume more interesting than wheat. A little bummer is all the area fires haze up the views, so even though I was at the base of the "Crazy Mountains" for a lot of the ride, you could really only see the foreground range. The rest was covered in a blue/grey smog. Getting into Martinsdale I took a $5 tour of the Bair family estate museum. Apparently this guy made a fortune off wool and ranching back in the early 1900's and was highly connected. I didn't really pay attention in the tour so I'm not sure... for $5 I got all the free time AC and water I wanted, and got to see a ranch estate with some art. Down at the town's reservoir I'd just finished cooking (ramen noodles, so not really cooking), when Kevin showed up on his ATV and graciously invited me to crash at his family's place in town. So I peddled back up the gravel road, trying to keep up while his jack terrier Charlie whooped my butt. He's an awesome dude, so, great company and a bed when I needed it. Slept a little late, and started getting whacked by the wind the next day. First I fought to keep 12mph, then 11, then 10... then I gave up. I turned the speedometer out of sight and just grinned and spinned. Thankfully the first 30 miles was a pretty quite backroad, so no one saw me struggling. But then I turned on a trucking route that had exactly zero shoulder, and was so thankful I had my dumb little mirror so I could jump off whenever I saw some big truck barreling behind me. Then, to save me further, more construction... so I had to throw my bike in another pickup, and by the time we were through it a shoulder reappeared. Came into Townsend and hit up a diner where I met Felix, a francophone Canadian heading to Yellowstone. Then the library, cleaned my bike, grocery stored it, and found a place by the lake to sleep... with about a million mosquitos. I made the mistake of going outside the tent with my shirt off (thinking since it was dark they'd be gone), and got destroyed by a whole swarm. A dozen or so for in my tent, so I had to go on a killing spree before bed. Hardin - Billings 51
I had planned on just sleeping in the woods, but this stretch of Montana doesn't exactly have 'woods'. There was an old cemetery surrounded by trees... but that felt a little disrespectful, and truck was on the grounds. And then, with daylight running out, I got my first flat. Some idiot in town warned me about goat head thorns, these balled thistle spikes that penetrate tires and get into the rims. I call him an idiot because him talking about a flat clearly brought it on. And I forgot to 'ol knock on wood. So I hobbled back to a campsite in town, paid way too much for a single dude and a single tent, and stepped in two large puddles they had from leaving the sprinklers on all day. It was just one of those days where you're frustrated but have to keep on.... still a tent to set up and tire to change. The ride to Billings was almost entirely on old highway 87, fifty miles through a terrain similar to old west movies -brown/yellow landscape with a few scorched and scraggly trees, with some dried up creek beds for good measure. Smoke from active fires in the area, alongside wildfires in Yellowstone and Canada, created a blue haze that clouded up the view of big sky country. On the climb into Billings this fire helicopter kept crossing overhead, filling its bucket from somewhere to dump on a fire over the ridge. Billings is the biggest city in Montana, and coming into the city clearly has a vibrant industrial sector, and a terrifying highway to ride on. Once I got in the city it was a lot better. I hit up a local bike shop and officially became a dork (in case there was a doubt) and bought a bike mirror. The past couple days have been a little frightening with the wind and trucks, so it'll be good to know what I'm working with behind me. Stayed with Jim, an awesome laid-back guy who let me crash his cocktail hour with friends, and take a zero day today. We hit up the farmers market and did a little grocery shopping. I've slowed down a little, but I think my body was in a little energy deficit. Tomorrow I'll head north on the road to Missoula. And soon a big decision - Portland or Seattle area? sorry for the lack of pics, there wasn't a lot t going on during the ride. |
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