Tour de WA 2024
by Mike Thompson, 5/30/2024
Having done my first multi-day bicycle ride last fall, a three-day trip from North Bend to Yakima, I wanted to try something a little more ambitious. Over the winter I came up with a plan to pedal 500 miles over 10 days, starting and ending at our house in Edmonds. The route follows the Palouse to Cascades Trail from North Bend to Othello, then back roads and sections of XWA (Cross-Washington Mountain Bike Race) route looping up through Wenatchee and back to Cle Elum.
The guiding principles for route planning have been as follows.
- Interesting riding through pretty and varied country.
- Maximize off-asphalt miles on gravel trails and roads. Minimize miles spent sharing pavement with automobiles.
- Doable on a gravel bike (which is basically a road bike with wider tires). No gnarly, death-defying single track that requires knobby tires, shock absorbers, and a willingness to suffer a broken collarbone.
- Challenging but not misery-inducing. No days over 60 miles.
- Overnight stays at campgrounds, with Warm Showers hosts, and if necessary at a hotel or two.
Bikepacking is similar to backpacking, but you cover more miles each day and the scenery varies from remote spots to cities. You move through the countryside at a brisk but relaxed pace, intimately enough to hear its sounds and smell its fragrances.
I asked a couple family members/friends if they would like to join me. In the end it came down to myself and my former co-worker and friend Robbie Munger. Robbie bicycled across the US just after he graduated from high school. In recent years he's kayaked from Washington to Alaska and around Vancouver Island, and over the past two summers he's hiked 90% of the Appalachian Trail. While pedaling with Robbie I'm bound to learn some things about pulling off big trips.
Day #1 started at our house in Edmonds and ended in North Bend, just a smidge over 50 miles. We got away at 7:00 AM and made good time. The weather was cool with a mix of clouds and sun - just right for riding. So many flowers in bloom right now and all the plants and grasses looking lush.
Lots of up and down on the Tolt Pipeline Trail. Had to get off and push the bike up the three steepest hills. Bike plus food, water, clothes, tent, bike repair tools, and all the rest weighs in at 75 pounds. The Snoqualmie Valley Trail was pretty, quiet, and thankfully, flatter. Had lunch in Carnation. Stopped to look at Snoqualmie Falls.
Our "campsite" is Robbie's sister's back yard, right below Mt. Si. Tomorrow it will be up and over Snoqualmie Pass to Lake Easton State Park.
Day #2 was North Bend to Lake Easton State Park. Cool weather but no rain. Got a flat about half way between Rattlesnake Lake and the railroad tunnel at Snoqualmie Pass, and fixing it took the better part of an hour. One tiny strand of steel cable, 3/8 inches long and thinner than a needle, drove straight up through tire and tube.
The big railroad trestles are way, way up in the air - you look down at the tops of Douglas Fir trees that are well over a hundred feet tall. The railroad tunnel at the pass is long and chilly. Nice descent to Lake Easton, where I had a veggie burger and (not one but) two chocolate milk shakes for dinner.
On Day #3 we rode away from Lake Easton at 6:15 AM, trying to stay ahead of the rain that's coming in from the west. Had some very pretty riding along the Yakima River. Went through two more relatively-short railroad tunnels between Cle Elum and Thorpe. Over the course of the day we transitioned from west side forest (Douglas Fir, Western Red Cedar) to Ponderosa Pine forest to grasslands and farm country. Over the next three days the scenery will get drier still.
We stayed in Ellensburg with a Warm Showers host. Warm Showers is sort of an Underground Railroad for long-distance bicyclists. Members provide a free place for touring bicyclists to stay overnight, maybe in your tent in their backyard or in a spare bedroom. Our host has been taking in bicyclists for many years, and the walls of the room we slept in were covered with pictures of some of them. There are kind people out there being the change they want to see in the world, and it was a pleasure to meet one of those people.
On Day #4 we rode out of Ellensburg with a strong tailwind singing in the power line wires overhead, making good time. The spring colors are still vibrant here and the grasslands were beautifully green. After crossing over I-90 on the old railway trestle the trail's surface turned to soft sand the going got really slow - I had to push my bike for a couple miles. Well past noon, with another 20 miles to go and a cold wind blowing, we were starting to feel a bit gloomy.
Then the trail's surface firmed up, we realized it was all downhill to the Columbia River, and we entered an area of gorgeous, wide-open, undisturbed scenery. Here the P2C passes along the northeast corner of the Yakima Firing Center. I was not prepared to find this area so wild, silent, and beautiful. The state of Washington is filled with surprises!
We got to the Columbia River about 4:00 PM near Wanapum Dam. At the end we took a short cut off the P2C down a steep gully, found its bottom filled with tumbleweeds, and had to lift our bikes over a fence to get through. Then we rode a couple miles north on asphalt to Wanapum State Park, where we'll camp tonight. Tomorrow it's over the Beverly Bridge and east to Othello.
Day #5 we rode south from Wanapum State Park and across the Columbia River on the Beverly Bridge. Spent the rest of that day going east along Crab Creek toward Othello. Camping options in Othello were slim, so we stayed in a hotel.
Blue skies the morning of Day #6, and the ride through Seep Lakes was beautiful.
Continued north through farm country toward Moses Lake. On the way I passed a couple XWA riders that were heading south. Among them was Pete Dougherty, a bicyclist from Yakima, who was doing the XWA for the sixth time. Pete's very active in the PNW gravel bike world, and has given me some good advice on routes that I've wanted to explore.
North of Moses Lake I passed through some very pretty range land on the way to Ephrata.
The weather forecast for Day #7 was for strong winds from the west by midday, so we opted for a paved rather than a gravel route. We rode out of Ephrata at 5:30 AM, intending to cover as many miles as possible early. As the sun rose we past orchards and vineyards on Martin Road on the way to Quincy, where the headwind kicked in. The rest of the ride to Wenatchee was a slow grind on the shoulder of Highway 28, but we got there.
Day #8 was the wild card day, as we couldn't determine for certain whether the snow had melted back far enough for the high route between Wenatchee and Cle Elum via Forest Service Road 9712 to be open. We knew that the day would start with a 4,500 foot climb to the top of the east/west ridge near the Mission Ridge ski area, followed by a 14-mile section above 5,400 feet, followed by a long descent to the southwest. The day turned out to be an interesting one indeed!
We pedaled up from Wenatchee to the 5,500 foot level, where we started encountering sections where the gravel road was completely covered by snow on north-facing slopes. After pushing/carrying our bikes through snow for some time, Robbie decided that retreating to Wenatchee and pedaling over Blewett Pass was the wiser course. Equipped with enough warm, dry clothes and food to spend a night or two in the high country if necessary, I chose to push on.
I did finally manage to punch through the snow to the Cle Elum side mid-afternoon. While I made my way along the ridge and started the long, muddy descent, Robbie flew down Mission Ridge Road to Wenatchee, rode west to the bottom of Highway 97 near Peshastin, and then pedaled all the way over Blewett Pass! He arrived in Cle Elum around 10:00 PM, while I arrived there about an hour later with my brakes nearly gone from descending with my bike coated in sandy mud. A warm shower and soft bed at the Quality Inn in Cle Elum felt heavenly!
The morning of Day #9 Robbie headed west on the P2C with the goal of reaching my house in a single, 100-mile-plus day. He made it just after dark, picked up his car, and drove to his place in Bellingham, arriving around midnight. Meanwhile, I washed the mud off my bike with a garden hose and rode it to the bike shop in Roslyn in time to be at the door when they opened at 10:00 AM. They installed new brake pads and fixed my front derailleur cage, which had been knocked out of alignment the day before by a snowbank or tree. Then I rode the P2C west as far as North Bend, where I spent the night in my sleeping bag on Jane's cousin's living room floor.
On Day #10 I rode from North Bend back home to complete the final leg of what I'm going to call the "Tour de WA". It was the first rainy day of the trip, and a quiet, introspective one. As I rode alone the sights, sounds, and feelings of the past nine days slowly began to take the form of words. Over the course of the trip we passed through enough beautiful country that can't be seen by car, and solved enough route finding problems, that I think it's fair to call this ride an adventure.
And during the spring, summer, and fall of 2024 there was a lot more bicycling for us than just the Tour de WA. In April we bought a new e-bike for Jane, which turned out to open up more bicycling opportunities for her that we could have possibly imagined!
Jane used to ride her bike from her parents' house to the University of Washington and back when she was in college, so bicycling isn't new to her. But in recent years, arthritis and other infirmities have made it hard for her to cover many miles on a regular bike. The little extra push that she gets from this e-bike turned that picture upside-down. We quickly found ourselves taking rides together that we would never have believed possible.
After several trips around the block to get used to the controls and figure out how to handle hills, the first goal was to do the ride from our house to Edmonds and back. It's 16 miles round-trip, with about 800 feet of elevation gain along the way. Pretty quickly Jane was able go to the whole distance, often including a stop at beach next to the Edmonds ferry dock and a stop at the Walnut Street Cafe for a cup of coffee.
With the Edmonds ride under her belt, the next step was to ride a section of the Palouse to Cascades Trail out of Rattlesnake Lake, near North Bend. This was Jane's first experience with gravel riding. Her e-bike, with its 2-inch-wide tires, proved to be well suited. Then I saw that a group of bicyclists from Yakima, led by Pete Dougherty, was going to ride the P2C from Cle Elum to Snoqualmie Pass, a distance of thirty miles. I asked Jane if she wanted to join in, and after a bit of thought she decided to go for it. It turned out to be a wonderful, eye-opening ride over a section of the route that I had followed in May on the Tour de WA.
We met Wayne Hinkley at Hyak one morning and pedaled together through the Snoqualmie Pass Railroad Tunnel, finishing with a little out-and-back along the east side of Lake Keechelus on the P2C. A short while later, while spending a couple days in Yakima, Jane and I drove to to Thorpe, hopped on our bikes, and pedaled west on the P2C toward Cle Elum along a quiet and beautiful strech of the Yakima River.
With Jane now feeling confident about covering long distances on her e-bike, we decided to attempt a sixty mile ride. We started the ride at the north end of the Centennial Trail at the Nakashima Barn. From there we pedaled the length of the trail south to the city of Snohomish, where Jane recharged her e-bike battery while we ate lunch and dessert at the Snohomish Pie Company. Then we pedaled back to the north end of the trail, loaded up the bikes, and drove home.
As summer came to a close we found a new and enjoyable local ride, from our house to the Mukilteo ferry terminal and back. At 18 miles round-trip with 1,300 feet of elevation gain, it's a bit more challenging than the ride to Edmonds, and it offers more riding right along the water. As of the end of October, Jane has put just over 900 miles on her new e-bike since we bought it in April. Along the way we've had a ton of fun together in the outdoors. The summer of 2024 has turned out to be a lot about bicycling for us.