In the morning we woke up to the reality of another sky blanketed by the clouds. Sitting in Sharon’s beautiful house in Sandpoint, sipping on coffee and eating the fresh baked banana bread from the market the day before I kept thinking how badly I did not want to get on my bike and push the pedals. With only 8 more days to go I just wanted to drag it out as long as I could, or better yet settle in Sandpoint for a few years. The longer I sat at her table, the more I longed to stay, so I got up and spent another morning packing away gear into the two side bags that had become my home. With promises to stay in touch, Scotty, Toby and I said goodbye to Sharon and Lucy, her dog, and made one more stop for coffee at the Evan’s Brothers Coffee House.
The next morning we only made it 15 miles shy of our goal. Though the day was overcast, it waited until the very end to rain. Around lunch time we knew we were close to the Washington border, but we never got our “welcome to Washington” sign. At the Safeway we asked if anyone there knew about where the sign was. One of the employees pointed out the window to a traffic light and said, “That’s the border”…. So apparently we had made it to Washington State!
The day took us through the Kalispell Indian reservation. Warning: DOGS IN THIS PART OF THE US SEEM TO LOVE CHASING 27 YEAR OLD FEMALES!! I was chased in total by anywhere from 4-100 dogs (exaggeration). Little ones and big ones would dart off their property and with no awareness of the road they would chase after my heels barking up a storm. A few dropped off after not long, but a few also got pretty close. I pedaled aggressively and when I realized they weren’t going to stop running, I turned around wagged my finger and yelled “Git, git outta here” and sure enough they slowly faded behind me.
Finally, we found a closed campground site called the Panhandle Campground and realizing we would have about 15 more miles to go, with the rain just pelting down we decided to call it. In the wetness we made and ate spaghetti dinner, set up the tents, spent some time under the bathroom awning and called it a night.
Throughout the evening the rain had let up a little and I was up bright and early. Since the boys are usually faster than me anyway I took off a little early and headed off into the day knowing they would catch up eventually. Most of the day was spent following a river just north of the Kalispell Indian Reservation. You could feel the season changing all around. The trees, still wet from all the rain hung over me as I sped down the road. I passed a bunch of cyclists, one of which shouted out “Beautiful day isn’t it?”. At first I laughed to myself thinking of how it was still overcast and the air chilled… the chances of rain still looking high, but not many miles later I realized she was right… it was a perfect day! We pushed on with one good hill and eventually made it to Kettle Falls, WA where the town had a small park with free camping. We set up camp, excited for clear skies and a night to dry out all of our belongings.
To most people, other than the residents of Kettle Falls it seems like a quiet small town… but what they don’t tell you is this:
In the middle of the night at the Happy Del Park in Kettle Falls Washington (where they allow cyclists to camp for free) the sprinklers go off in the middle of the night, and they go off for hours! They also don’t tell you that the train that runs just behind the fence where your tents are set up… just behind the bushes so you can’t really see… comes through about every 45 minutes. And what they also forget to tell you in this small town with what appears to be little industry is a bustling lumber mill where the workers, saws, trucks and even the wood seem to work throughout the entire night to load the train that runs next to the park where the sprinklers go off… All. Night. Long.
After a long night, we all awoke a bit later than we had planned for a day of big climbing. Washington State is where not only most of our climbs, but the biggest climbs of our trip are. It was a much longer and harder day than anticipated. Sherman Pass was 25 miles of climbing with a gain of a couple thousand feet in elevation and took about 4 hours to climb. It was brutal! At one point I stopped to take a rest and when I realized my bike was just trying to roll down hill, I figured pushing it up for a while to rest instead of fighting its gravitational pull might make sense… It was the only time I walked my bike on the entire trip, okay I did it twice on that day. When Scotty and I reached the top, Toby lay napping at the summit sign… he had gotten there about 1 ½ hours before us… had time to recover and had had to eat dry pita pockets for lunch. I had a bit of an anger issue with Sherman Pass, I hated that pass…. And if I could translate the words in my journal to appropriately interpret my feelings, there is a good chance that this blog would be blocked!
Exhausted we pushed on for the downhill, excited for the chance to sit back and let the wheels roll… We headed on to Republic, WA where we had planned to stop. A few little uphill pushes later we stopped in to ask about the available camping and were told we had missed it and it was 3 miles back down hill. (only to get to ride 3 miles back up in the morning). We did find a nice bike trail though to take us back to the fairgrounds and as we rode it back towards our home for the night Toby’s tire suddenly began to violently hiss. Thinking it was a dropped beer he quickly stopped in fear and we realized he had blown a hole in is back tire. Scotty and I rolled on to set up for dinner and Toby pushed his bike on to the camp site.
The next morning realizing we had 4 fays, 300 miles and 4 mountain passes, I worried if we could push on and make it to the coast in time. As we started to climb Wacounda I couldn’t help but wonder how much I would be disappointed in myself if I had to just hitch-hike over the next big pass. Sherman Pass had left me frightened of what lay ahead! After just a little while, I turned a corner and sure enough there were the boys… we had reached the top of Wauconda in no time and it had been a breeze. The downhill felt like more work, with a strong headwind as we rolled on towards Omack, WA.
In Omak we found our staple store: Safeway (imagine the gas points we have been racking up!) Omak's camping was at the Stampede campgrounds, and with the exception of Scotty’s camping side there were no sprinklers to interrupt our sleep. There was however two tents with radios and TV’s inside, one of which played all night long, imagine the pop-music nightmares I had! We got an early start and headed on to conquer Loop Loop pass. Just the name of it sounded too cheery for me to believe it was indeed that “Loopy” of a pass and sure enough after riding by beautiful orchards on a slow incline, out peeked the first hill.
Scotty turned back to me saying, “ I just became psychic, I see myself walking up this one…” With 15-20 miles of climbing ahead I agreed that we had probably both developed the same gift, and I could see the same thing in my future. But sure enough we pushed up that hill. The sun was out in full force and the day was hot, but I stopped little and ate a lot while climbing. At one point we had some pretty good drop offs on the side of the road and it was while passing one of these, where there was no guard rail something on the front of my bike began to feel not quite right. I knew I shouldn’t stop there with cars coming up and no guard rail, so I kept going until there was a good place to stop. Sure enough somehow my front wheels quick release had become opened and loosened and my wheel was barely staying on. I quickly fixed it, thanking the Lord I hadn’t hit any major bumps or fallen off the side of the mountain and then pushed on.
The picture above is looking back over part of Washington Pass from the switchback.
We hooked up with a beautiful back road and enjoyed little traffic, the good weather and our first good look at the North Cascades Mountains. Just passed Mazama we reached Early Winters Campground. The campground was nice and ran close to a creek. The three of us walked back to the creek and then one by one took turns being "brave" and submerging ourselves in the ice-cold snow melt runoff water. Feeling invigorated and somewhat clean we headed back to camp to cook. Unfortunately some fool had decided to hastily pack the white gas in with the food and somehow it had leaked out during the day, smothering everything in the smelly fumes. (who brought me anyway?!)
We built up a camp fire and ate gas soaked ramen noodles. We had a few beers to cheers the passes we had climbed and I anxiously wondered about the last big pass the following day.
Washington Pass, immediately followed by a brief downhill up to another pass, Rainy Pass was going to begin immediately. We started climbing and I was startled around each turn by how amazing the mountains looked. The rain began soon after we had started in a slight drizzle, but it didn’t dampen my spirits. I continued riding knowing that the boys were pushing on ahead as well. While climbing at one point a truck coming from the other direction rounded the corner. An old man was leaned out of his window with his hand jutted out in front of him. At first I began to wave, thinking he was waving at us as most other passerby’s do, and then I realized he was flipping me the bird!! Knowing that I was not riding in his way, or doing anything wrong for that matter I just had to laugh at him and wonder out of all the other people we had seen this man seemed particularly irritated at three cyclists climbing giant mountain passes on the opposite side of the road as him.
The views surrounding us of the North Cascades were just awesome! Each day that we encounter a new mountain, or mountain range I am amazed at how different every mountain can be from the ones I have seen previously. Even through this relatively similar region of the US, every mountain and range seems to have its own character and even personality.
As I neared the top a number of cars were parked on the side taking pictures of the amazing views sprawled out in front and the ones behind. I slowed down and took a few shots myself and then started to pedal on. Another man leaned out of his VW bus, looked at me and chuckled and shaking his head said “You rock!” As I closed in on the last mile of Washington pass and looked behind me I thought to myself… he’s right, I do kind of rock right now! He didn’t know how much I had needed to hear just those words. Not a you can do it, or stay positive, just a few simple words. Chugging up the mountain suddenly I saw a switch back and a steep incline… and I punched on thinking the entire way up about how much I "rock". On the last leg I decided to name my bicycle, I had been searching for a name for him the entire trip… Sherman. (after Sherman Pass, the first and hardest pass I conquered and the one that really made me realize I could do anything!)
After reaching the summit it began to rain harder, we had 2 miles of downhill and 3 miles up to the last pass of our journey, Rainy Pass. On the way down the rain pelted us as we sped around 30 miles per hour. It was cold and painful and I longed to start climbing again just to heat my body back up. ( I never thought I would long to climb!) At the top we stopped for hot chocolate, realizing that we were going to make the coast on time no problem and slowing down to take it all in. We headed for New Halem to camp.
In Marblemount we found that most of that town was closed down as well, but did sit down for burgers as the workers at the joint closed down shop and celebrated somebody’s birthday around us. Night fell and we pushed back a mile for camping, set up in the dark and quickly went to bed.
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