Going back to try and recreate a moment is a practice in futility. Looking back on my 2012 summer tour across the country always seems so special to me and ever since I’ve wanted to recreate that feeling. Over the last few summers though I’ve been caught up in other stuff, starting in 2014 with my Trans Am race across America, then going north to south racing the Tour Divide in 2015, a trip to France in 2016 and then taking a year off of going anywhere in 2017, I had never taken the time to go back and just do a simple bike tour. No mandatory miles, no riding myself beyond sleep, bring a tent, bring a stove, that sort of thing. With a family vacation planned in Seattle, a trip back down south from there sounded nice, to Portland or K-Falls and all the way back if time allowed.
Day 1: Everett, WA to Alice Creek Campground
Starting a bike tour for me almost always means leaving an urban area. That is the worst part. Leaving Everett were some narrow suburban roads with a lot of traffic, less than ideal, but I through a series of bike paths I eventually made my way into North Bend, WA, the beginning of the Iron Horse Trail, a 287 mile rail-trail that crosses Washington state from East to West. I wouldn’t be taking it that far, because at some point I’d have to work my way South. The thing with rail-trails is that they were built to accommodate trains, that means the grade never exceeds 3%, this sounds great doesn’t it? Well, having to go from about 400 ft about sea level at North Bend to 3,000 ft at Snoqualmie Pass never exceeding 3% meant a steady grind. Did I mention it was all gravel? Yeah, so I had that going for me. I’ve never been much a fan of rail-trails for the reason that they don’t tend to have massive views or interesting riding, but this one was a matter of convenience of connecting the city to the mountains. It was a long grinding day, that by sunset in Alice Creek CG I was thoroughly beat, no hard climbs, just a steady climb over 40 miles and I was ready for sleep.
Day 2: Alice Creek Campground to Middle of Nowhere
Day two started with one of the things I was most excited for; The Snoqualmie Tunnel. At over two mile, this 104 year old former rail tunnel is one of the longest non-motorized travel tunnels in the country. It was pretty nice to get out of the sun into the cool tunnel and see only a small opening of daylight at the end. Then once on the other side it was a short hop to the Summit Lodge at Snoqualmie Pass, a lot of things were closed being a Monday, but probably for the better as the little shack in the gas station had an enormous vegan tofu noodle bowl, paired with a craft brew at the brewery was a killer lunch. A pleasant surprise and exactly the kind of thing I was hoping for being on this kind of bike tour.
Heading out of town I followed the reservoir through the actual Iron Horse State Park, eventually turning off the bike path towards Stampede Pass. The road to Stampede Pass was freshly graded and the bottom was nice and shady. The first climb over 3% since the previous morning and the fresh grade made it a little tough going, trying to keep my rear tire from slipping out. Along the road, even this late in the year, when things tend to dry out, there were some colorful yellow and purple blooms of flowers. The pass was unmarked and again, for the first time in what felt forever I descended down toward the Green River valley.
At around 4PM I reached the base for what I imagined would be a tough climb, but my imagination was somewhat limited for what was to come. I contemplated setting up camp along this quaint river, where some locals have setup target practice and make shift firepits, but with another 3 hours til sunset I figured how hard could it be to make the summit, which according to my map was only 8 miles, which even in a walking pace seemed doable. If I only knew….
I started into the steep climb, comparing the elevation to distance I figured it couldn’t stay this way. I was able to ride for a bit, hop off and push, ride a bit hop off and push, then the trees disappeared and the road was left on an exposed ridge side, with the low sun beating down on my back, I stripped everything but my cycling shorts and pushed up the hillside. I was glad for the choice of trail runners and flat paddles. After an hour, I was still pushing, two hours, still pushing. I could see the faint outline of a bike tire and I was wondering, who in the hell rode this on somewhat skinny slicks? I sure as hell couldn’t ride it on my loaded touring bike. I just wanted to quit on the day, but being on an exposed ridge side there was nowhere to set up. So onward and quite literally upward. I finally hit a flatish turnout, I pulled over, tried setting up, but the rocky ground was too much, so I laid out, my stomach now a mess from pushing in the heat and sun. No choice but to keep on pushing. A little bit further and the road bent around the hillside and I was finally out of the sun, which was on it’s final arc anyway. The late sun setting a gorgeous purplish haze over the Cascades. A touch further and there was a pullout in the trees with soft soil and a place to call it a night. I had clocked 8 miles in 2.5 hours. Fucking ouch.
Day 3: Middle of Nowhere to Silver Springs CG
I tried to sleep in a little, to shake off the exhaustion of the day before. Good thing my profile for the morning was a big fat descent to highway 410 outside Mt. Rainier National Park. Over the last little bit of climb to an unnamed pass and I was bombing the loose gravel toward the pavement. One turn, and there it was, a huge view of White Boss, Mt. Rainier. That climb the day before made itself worth it for this expansive naked view of Mt. Rainier. I continued my descent, hit Greenwater River (not to be confused with Green River the day before) washed off the crust and dust of that long push the day before mounted up and had some fun curvy paved descending before hitting the town of Greenwater.
Some prepared food, a beer, ice cream, coffee, and cell service got me back into the feeling of riding my bike. The pavement helped take off the pain of the day before now too. I puttered along the paved road, seeing all the mountain bikes on the back of cars and wondering if I made the right decision taking the Cross Check instead of a mountain bike, but then I had to remember what I was here for, sight seeing and enjoying the days, not pushing myself physically every day, which the mountain bike would be. Knowing this I skipped a long climb to a fire lookout, found camping along the turbulent Greenwater River and called it a night.
Day 4: Silver Spring CG to Alder Lake
Getting into the rhythm takes some time, by Day four things start to feel normalized a bit, I knew how to pack my bike, how to time coffee with breakfast, etc. So riding should feel a little normal right? Wrong. I knew I had a longerish day with a good deal of climbing to get to Longmire before camping out in the National Forest outside of the National Park proper, but it was mostly paved, nothing beyond my skill, but by 10 AM, after skipping the turnoff to go up the mountain, I was still moving slow. What was going on? Finally reaching a lookout over Mt. Rainier I could see what was going on. That smell of campfire that I had woken to was not just the general smell of a campfire, but was the forest fires East of where I was blowing over and causing my lungs to burn. As much as I wanted to push on, I knew that riding in this weather would be taking years of my life, so I made the decision to turn back around to Greenwater and make a new plan.
There wasn’t much of a plan other than, get low, get out of the smoke. The problem is the valley floor of Central Washington in August is not exactly a pleasant place to be. A long descent into Enumclaw brought the temps up twenty degrees and I needed air conditioning, ice cold Coke, and of course ice cold beer, and I found it, along with a giant plate of nachos, a strange craving I’d been having. Killing some time soaking in the wifi, I found a new plan to make it to the Colombia River Gorge along some lower National Forest roads, but unfortunately that involved riding highly trafficked county roads, my least favorite and part of the reason this tour was focused on unpaved gravel roads and not paved roads.
The flatish paved roads made easy work of the miles though and I put in 80 big miles to Alder Lake outside of Eatonville, WA. Arriving at Alder Lake I was nervous of finding a campspot, I rolled through the tent site and it was packed and full of loud children. Frustrated I had to figure out what to do, I didn’t quite feel like free camping, but some rolling around and I found a walk-in section of quiet private sites on the hillside, even in the middle of this big campground I could find some solace.
Day 5: Alder Lake CG to Eagle Cliffs CG
From Alder Lake I worked my way to the gas station town of Randle on US-12 (which maybe only second worst to county highways are US highways). From here I turned into the Gifford-Pinchot National Forest on the backside of Mt. St. Helens. Paved yes, but quiet. I spent most of the time riding in the middle of this isolated two lane highway covered by leafy deciduous trees. Finishing the day with a healthy climb that I made quick work of trying to out ride the bugs (the bugs brought me back to my post Trans Am tour near Lake Placid getting chased by black flies all day). The descent brought me to Eagle Cliffs CG. Upon arrival I asked the man working the counter about camping, they were full, but had a specific biker site, which was rad. I bought two large beers, ordered a pizza (that was surprisingly really good) and spent the night showered, enjoying pizza beer and some reading. Maybe it turned out this improvised road tour wasn’t so bad after all.
Day 6: Eagle Cliffs CG to Portland
The plan was to ride to Ainsworth State Park, camp at the hiker biker, ride into Portland the next day. Easy enough right? Well… I woke up head out get some good views of Mt. St. Helens with more quiet paved National Forest road climbing. Then descend down into Carson for lunch at a brewery. Then on to the Gorge. Hood River was filled with PCT hikers. I shared some stories and beers with them before trying to head along what I thought would be a nice bike ride along the gorge to Portland. Jokes on me. The Eagle Creek fire from the year before had still closed EVERYTHING along this corridor except for I-84. I was confused by the fact there was no fire, but everything was closed. I made it to Ainsworth to be turned around by the ranger telling me it was closed (and I am extremely pissed to say that the campground was open, thanks for telling me dude). So it was miles and miles and miles of I-84 into Portland.
Hindsight being 20/20, I should have taken the coast as I wanted, but I remember the coast from 2012, I remember the constant alertness of tourists driving RVs along narrow roads. Instead I opted for the quiet solace of National Forest roads and was turned away by smoke from more fires. To me it’s starting to feel like the West Coast season is getting shortened to late spring early summer and anything after June is a no-go because of fires and smoke, which is a shame, and sadly with our current state of affairs, it’s not as if any of this is going to change soon. I currently write this as smoke looms over Oakland from another wildfire; we haven’t seen rain in months and it’s starting to feel like another one of those dry winters into dry summers meaning next year won’t be much better. I guess I’ll spend time on the coast next summer.
Worn Treads 