Day 8, Republic to the Bacon Bike Hostel: 60.6 miles, 4,873 ft. elevation gain, 10.3 mph average speed
Trip totals: 430.9 miles (53.9 daily average), 29,785 ft. elevation gain, 10.6 mph overall average speed

Map and stats here.

Whoever planned the Adventure Cycling Association’s Northern Tier route designed the first week or so of the trip as a test of merit. We have climbed five mountain passes in the last five days (with over 20,000 ft. of total elevation gain), and we are pooped. Our leg muscles are crying out for rest, and, more frighteningly, our knees are hinting that we might just be overusing them a bit.

Now we’ve passed the test. We’re finished with the large passes of the Northern Cascades, and we’re thrilled to move on to some flatter rides.

The day started when we woke up well later than we intended, only to find and amazing breakfast waiting for us: eggs, bacon, huckleberry coffee cake, and huckleberry smoothies. Again, we were floored by Patty and Rob’s generosity. I don’t know if life will ever bring us back to Republic, WA, but I certainly hope to see them again.

The ride out of Republic was downhill for the first half mile to a mile, which we resented a bit because we knew that every foot of elevation lost would only have to be gained again to get to the top of Sherman Pass. Nevertheless, we were happy to spend a mile or two on a lovely paved bike path paralleling the road before we started our climb in earnest.

The first couple of miles of Sherman Pass were the steepest, but the climb was unremitting for 14.5 miles. I think that the length of these passes was the most difficult adjustment, mental and physical, that we had to make. We climbed steeper hills and had higher total daily elevation gains on our tour through Southwest Colorado, but we have never tackled such a consistent incline over such a long distance. Climbing over the passes has been at least as mentally exhausting as it has been physically exhausting. We struggled to maintain morale after an hour of punishing effort during which we covered only a little over four miles. Our general response in these situations was to lay our bikes (and ourselves) down in one of the “Slow vehicle turnouts” on the side of the road until we managed to gather up the motivation to start again.

It took us four hours to get the top of Sherman Pass, and we were thrilled to have finished our last big pass in Washington. We sat at the top and had a snack lunch of potato chips, rye chips, apples, plums, peanut butter-filled pretzels, trail mix, cookies, and brownies (Patty, thank you so much). And then we started down.

The descent was even longer than the climb, and it passed through a lovely evergreen forest, tracing a creek down the mountain. It was a very enjoyable descent, but I’ve decided that even the thrill of zooming along at 35-40 mph for 20+ miles is not worth the misery of the over 20-mile climb on the other side. Give me rolling hills and flats, please.

Along the way, we stopped at a historic site commemorating the FDR’s Civilian Conservation Corps, which employed out of work young men during the height of the depression to build roads, trails, and dams, primarily in the national forests. They were provided with room, board, clothing, and a salary of $1 a day, but they had to agree to send $25 dollars a month back home to their families. The historic site was well designed and informative, AND it had a much needed toilet.

At the end of the descent we crossed the Columbia River. The views were stellar, but since we were on a bridge without even a hint of a shoulder, pictures were out of the question. We took back roads through Kettle Falls and pushed through to Colville, where we stopped at Safeway, which was by far the biggest grocery store we’ve seen so far.

There were a number of hills between the Columbia River and Colville. Some were larger than others, and some had accompanying descents. But we took offense at all of them. It didn’t seem fair that we had to climb still more hills after summiting five passes in five days.   But apparently the world doesn’t give a hoot about what we think is fair.

In any case, after stocking up at Safeway we headed out to our final destination: the Bacon Bike Hostel (more on that in the next post). It was only about six and a half miles out of town, but they were all uphill. We were 3 miles in when a car moving in the other direction screeched to a halt and the driver leaned out of the window to talk to us.

“Are you all going to the bike hostel?”

“Yes, we are.”

“How tired are you? Are you tired enough to want a ride?”

At this point, I’d like to tell you that we hesitated. That we thought our current exhaustion was less important than the goal of riding every single mile between Seattle and New York City. But the truth is that our answer was both affirmative and immediate.

Our rescuer, whose name was either “Stevens County Troy” or Max, depending on the day, was driving a modified two-door Honda Civic with the rear and top cut out and replaced by a roll cage. Troy is a self-proclaimed “collector of things” and the car was pretty stuffed, but he was determined to make it work. We placed both of the bikes vertically through the top hole in the roll cage and stuffed our bags wherever we could find space among the wide variety of things he was carrying (e.g., car parts, bear skin rugs, loaves of bread, bulk paper towel packs, freshly picked cherries). Then Dani sat in the front seat and I climbed in with the bikes and crouched down to rest my armpits on the roll cage bars.

And away we went, zooming up a few miles of hills in a fraction of the time it would have taken us to ride. We arrived safely at the bike hostel and Troy helped us unload our bikes and bags, and left us with a bag of freshly-picked Washington cherries. Thank you Troy, for providing another random act of kindness that made our day!

Cascades Mountain Pass Superlative Awards:

Rainy Pass: Most Interminable
Washington Pass: Most Gratifying View at the Top
Loup Loup Pass: Most Enjoyable
Wauconda Pass: Most Impolite Drivers
Sherman Pass: Most Demoralizing

Day 7, Tonasket to Republic: 40.5 miles, 4,363 ft. elevation gain, 9.6 mph average speed
Trip totals: 370.3 miles (52.9 daily average), 24,912 ft. elevation gain, 10.6 mph overall average speed

Map and stats here.

We woke up and packed up camp relatively quickly, eating a breakfast of mostly snack food in an effort to save time. We still got on the road at 7:48a (no matter how hard we try, we always leave in the 7:45a – 8a range) and immediately started a steep ascent out of town. We climbed through more dry, rolling pastureland. It was hot. Hot hot hot. We need to start leaving around 6a just to avoid the heat! The cars (mostly pickup trucks) on this two-lane highway were also giving us a narrow berth and there was very little shoulder, so we also need to leave early to avoid traffic. During one of our water breaks, three police cars, one ambulance, and two fire department vehicles (not fire trucks) sped up the road with their lights flashing, so we both had terrifying daymares of one of us getting hit by a truck.

There was virtually no shade on the road, and although the climb to Wauconda pass was much gentler and more rolling than previous climbs, we both hated it. We stopped in the “town” of Wauconda (quote marks because there is a population of zero and the town consists of only a post office, a single gas pump, and a recently closed store/café) about 2-3 miles before the top of the pass. We found a shady spot outside of the post office to sit and cook ramen for lunch. We took out our camp chairs and really made an event out of it. The post office serves folks living in the rural area we biked through, and people came by periodically to collect their mail and had lots of questions for us. Some folks said things like, “ah, taking a break before you get to the hill, I see.” To which we replied, “what do you mean ‘the hill?’ We’ve been climbing for hours!”

We sat there for over an hour before mustering up the energy (or guilt?) to climb the rest of the hill. As we were getting on our bikes, Clive, an Englishman who’s lived in Boston for a very long time, rolled up to Wauconda. Clive is a semi-retired physicist who is riding from Anacortes to Boston via a very similar route to ours. He’s carrying an absurdly small amount of luggage (a handlebar bag and a Carradice saddlebag) with full camping/cooking gear somehow clown-carred in his two small bags. As a result, he’s able to ride a Cervelo road bike and cruise. We sheepishly rolled away with our nearly 100-pound bikes knowing that he’d catch us on the pass, which he did. At the top of the pass we all decided to grab a beer and food after the 10-mile descent into town. We found an excellent brewery (Republic Brewing Co.) right next to an excellent BBQ shop (Freckles BBQ) and sat around for a couple hours chatting, eating (chili cheese fries, among other things!), and drinking.

As we were planning our trip, we heard about a website called warmshowers.org that allows people to sign up to host cyclists at their homes, either in a tent or in their homes. Ideally, the sleeping privileges also come with warm showers, but it’s mostly about having a free place to stay. We hosted someone in our tiny apartment in NYC and were excited to stay in our first warmshowers home in Republic. We stayed with the most wonderful people, Patty and Rob, pharmacists who run the local drugstore. They have three college-aged boys who were not home at the time, so we were able to sleep in one of their beds! We showered and Patty had prepared some lovely bruchetta as an appetizer for the most incredible meal we’ve had yet (and there’s been good competition): grilled salmon (caught by Rob), baked asparagus, oven-roasted potatoes, and a delicious fruit salad with local cherries that happen to be in season right now. This was followed by brownies a la mode. They hit both of our favorite foods (salmon for Dani, brownies and vanilla ice cream for Ted) and we could not have been more pleased. We sat and chatted with them on their porch overlooking the mountains for hours before heading to sleep in a comfy bed. It was the perfect end to a tough day.

We’re so grateful to have stayed with Patty and Rob and encourage any cyclists coming through to stay with them via warm showers!

Day 6, Loup Loup Pass to Tonasket: 52.1 miles, 1,656 ft. elevation gain, 13.9mph average speed.
Trip Totals: 329.8 miles (54.9 daily average), 20,549 ft. elevation gain, 10.81 mph overall average.

Map and stats here.

I never did get comfortable with our sleeping arrangement last night, so I woke up this morning at 5:00a wanting to get on the road as soon as possible. Dani patiently explained to me that she didn’t think 5:00a was a reasonable start time, so I let her go back to sleep as I took down the bear bag and packed everything I could without taking down the tent with Dani still in it.

By this time it was 5:40a, which seemed reasonable enough for me to gently prod Dani awake yet again and express my desire to get on the road. She, as tolerant as ever, allowed me to hassle her out of the tent and onto her bike.

So we were on the road by 6:10 and we started the day by sailing down Loup Loup pass toward Okanogan. What a way to start the day. Aside from one short (and unfortunately steep) uphill, we covered the 18 miles to Okanogan with barely any effort. (Check out the elevation map in the above link. That’s a fun way to begin a ride!)

Ever since coming down from Washington Pass, the landscape has changed dramatically. We passed through the dense, lush forests of the west side of the mountains, and we are now moving into the high desert climate of Central and Eastern Washington. We’ve been riding through ranchland and farmland, where bright green patches of irragated fields jump out from the surrounding brown terrain. We also passed by thousands of acres of apple orchards, sometimes with hundreds of acres entirely covered in mesh netting to keep the birds away. And it has become exceptionally hot. The temperature over the last couple of days has been over 90 degrees. I really enjoyed riding through old-growth forests, but seeing the variety the country has to offer is one of the perks of this trip.

One thing that I don’t miss about Western Washington is the mosquitoes. I was expecting there to be mosquitoes on this trip, but maybe not until we were passing through Minnesota in mid-July. They have been vicious. This morning, Dani had 11 separate bites in a handspan area on her leg. I’m hoping they become less prevalent as we move into a drier clime.

At Okanogan, we stopped to grab a cup of coffee to reinvigorate ourselves and use the coffee house’s wifi to plan our next couple of days. Our ride continued through the towns of Omak and Riverside, before ending in Tonasket. Since we got started so early, we arrived at Tonasket before 2:00p. We’re climbing a couple more passes over the next two days, so we’re happy to have a little shorter, more relaxing day today. Also, Tonasket offers free camping for cyclists behind their visitor center, which is about as far from last night’s camping experience as one can get, and that’s ok with me!

Before settling down for the evening in our private backyard, we tooled around town for a bit, picking up some groceries and grabbing dinner at the delicious local pizza joint, where I proved once and for all how hard-headed I am by standing up and shattering the low hanging light fixture with my head, much to the delight of all of the other patrons. The story has a tragic ending though. There were still three pieces of pizza left, and we had to throw them away because we didn’t want to accidentally eat shattered light fixture for dinner.

We climb our penultimate pass in the Cascades tomorrow.  We’re both ready for some flatter rides!