I have finally gone through all of my photos from this year's trip. I am still processing the whole trip, to say it was fantastic is an understatement. I'll try to contain my enthusiasm!
So this was a 2-week trip. Jason rode from Ohio to meet me in Montana. We rode the PNW for 2 weeks mostly camping along the way, but there were a couple of hotels too. We saw it all: plains, mountains, forests, high desert, temperate rain forest, coast, and redwoods. We rode in rain and sunshine, fog and mist; new this year was riding through smoke from forest fires and two active burn areas - Jason saw trees on fire in the North Cascades, and we changed our route through California to avoid road closures due to the fires. We were never in danger, but riding through that thick smoke with the sun struggling to eke some light through the haze was apocalyptic, otherworldly.
The trip started simply enough on the Friday of the Labor Day weekend. I got up early since I had two 400+ mile days to get to Montana. I rode through some light mist around Mt. Rainier on my way through Yakima. That cleared up once I hit the high desert as I continued on my way through the beautiful Palouse region of eastern Washington.
Right at the Idaho border (Lewiston, WA and Clarkston, ID from Lewis & Clark fame) there is a road that takes you up above the Snake River called the Old Spiral Highway; it did not disappoint!
I rode back down the highway (because why not?) and continued up the Clearwater River to my first hotel. Next day was the Lolo Pass. The sign says 99 miles of winding road, but that doesn't include the 35 miles of winding road from the hotel to the sign. Again, I got up early and basically had the road which paralleled the river to myself which was a complete joy.
I arrived to Ennis, MT and linked up with Jason. We rode (could have walked) into town to meet Willie at Willie's Distillery. Willie was my roommate from my Ranger Battalion days. We ended up at his place for dinner, it was quite fun to reminisce. We had an early night since Jason and I needed to be on the road in the morning - planning to ride through a corner of Yellowstone (we did, no photos since it was raining the whole time) and make it halfway to Glacier National Park.
We arrived at our campsite and got camp set up. It had rained a good bit of the day, but nothing for several hours before our arrival: we were dry. We decided to run into town for a late lunch/early dinner. We checked the skies but not the radar, while there were clouds, there was no hint of rain from horizon to horizon. No sooner did we sit down than a local say it was bound to rain in the next couple of minutes (this was just 5-10 minutes after leaving camp). We both thought he was crazy; turns out we were just stupid. Not only did it rain, but it RAINED. We hung out in a door way to avoid the wind and rain, since it didn't look too bad from the restaurant but was indeed, pretty bad. The storm finally blew over and we made our way back to the campsite. The photo, above, doesn't do the carnage justice. Both our hammock stands were blown over and the tarp I had set up for a "garage" for the bike was completely shredded from the wind. While this was primarily an RV camp, the other folks in tents all had their tents blow over and roll through the campground - the storm must have been intense!
We didn't want to sleep in the cold and wet. The campground host found us a hotel 45 minutes away which was dry, somewhat cheap, and basically clean. It did let us dry out our sleep systems, which was helpful.
Next day we rode to Glacier. It rained on and off for most of the day, more off than on, until we got to the east entrance of the park on Going to the Sun road. There the rain picked up again. We made our way to our campsite and managed to get things set up right before the heavy rains, but we ended up sitting under our tarps for 1-1.5 hours waiting things out. Meh - we were dry and slept well.
Since the park was still metering road usage, and I had misread the rules, we had to be west of the ranger check point before they were set up at 6 or 6:30 am. No problem. We got up early, packed up the bikes, and were through with no-one the wiser. We stopped at the Wild Goose Island (the little island, above) overlook. While we waited for the sun to come up, a fox snuck up on me. Jason noticed it and shined his flashlight on it - he was probably 15-20 feet away, which was pretty cool.
Once it was light enough to see and not be too worried about wildlife on the roads, we continued up and over the continental divide. The rain had stopped, but fog and mist still ruled the day. It was hard to concentrate on the road since the views were so spectacular; however, the penalty for a messed up corner was quite severe for a large portion of the trip. We used the turn-outs to maximum advantage!
About 10 miles from the west entrance, the road was completely torn up - gravel with massive potholes and puddles. Jason and I had a great time working our way through the mess. The bikes were filthy, but it was a ton of fun!
We stopped along the way to get a late breakfast/early lunch and then continued on our way to a campsite along a river in Idaho.
That'll do for today - more stories in the days ahead. Cheers,
Marc
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