Day 14, Eureka, MT to Whitefish, MT (and then to the Montana Bike Hostel): 63.4 miles, 3,411 ft. elevation gain, 11.5 mph average speed
Trip totals: 792.3 miles (60.9 daily average), 48,243 ft. elevation gain, 11.0 mph overall average speed

Map and stats here. 

The title of this post may be a bit misleading, since we’re only a couple of days away from taking “Going to the Sun road” over Logan Pass in Glacier National Park. But today, we raced the sun.

Yesterday, you’ll remember (or you just read), was terrible. And the fact that we were riding in 100+degree temperatures made it so much worse. Then, the other bike tourists at our warm showers place last night told us that it was going to be even hotter (!) in Whitefish, our destination for today.

We couldn’t fathom riding through that heat again, so we decided to get to Whitefish as early as possible. We woke up shortly after 5:00a, ate an AMAZING breakfast prepared by our Warmshowers host (you’re wonderful, Nikki!), and got on the road by 6:30a, an hour before our standard time.

And that was just the first half of our race strategy. The second was to cut down on our usually numerous breaks. We took a short break 5 miles in to stretch, a brief break shortly after that to take a picture, another break 30 miles in to grab second breakfast, and then we pretty much cruised the rest of the way. Although, part of the reason for the lack of breaks was the fact that we were riding on a major-ish highway with minimal shoulder.

The last four miles into Whitefish were on absolutely terrible road conditions. No shoulder, horrible pavement conditions, steep rolling hills, and tons of traffic hurtling around sharp corners. Miserable. But we hear those are the worst four miles on the entire Northern Tier route, so we’re grateful to have seen the worst!

We made it into Whitefish a little after noon, and made a quick trip to the post office to mail some more stuff home (a lot of it was our cold weather gear that we brought along for Glacier; remember that record heat wave we were talking about?), and then went searching for a place that had both WiFi and smoothies. We found a little café that had both, but the smoothies were much better than the WiFi. Then we headed to the bike shop to pick up some odds and ends. While there, we ran into Dan, Gina, and Clive and we all went out for lunch at an Italian eatery next door, where I gorged myself on a giant calzone. The best part about riding 60+ miles day after day is the  enormous amount of food we get to eat. No calorie restrictions on tour!

Afterwards, we went up to Lake Whitefish and took a quick dip to cool ourselves off (heat wave). Then we pedaled to our camping place for the night, The Montana Bike Hostel and Campground. This is a side business run by a couple of folks that live almost on the way (but not quite) between Whitefish and Columbia Falls (the next town over), but a couple miles down a gravel road. We chose to camp here because we’ve had great luck with cyclist-focused lodging so far, but this was a letdown. It is run as a business that seeks to take advantage of the cycling culture around Whitefish and Glacier National Park. It exists to make money. The other places we’ve been staying have been run more for the love of cycling and helping bike tourists along their journey, without really seeking to make a huge profit.

I guess we had no reason to expect that everyone is just going to be kind, but if we had to do it again, we’d stay at one of the other campgrounds closer to town and not come out of the way to pay the most we’ve had to pay for camping so far to pitch a tent in a guy’s yard and get lectured (citing half-truths and some outright lies) about how fair the price was and how untrustworthy and cheap cycle tourists can be.

There was also a little misunderstanding about the shower situation. When I talked to the owners on the phone, the man mentioned that there was an outdoor shower that we were free to use. When we showed up, the hosts were nowhere to be found (and didn’t answer our knocks on the door or rings of the doorbell), so we started to get set up. We pitched our tent and saw a small structure across from the bike bunk house (which we couldn’t afford) with the word “shower” across the top. “Oh,” we thought, “that’s the outdoor shower.” So we turned on the water and I jumped in the shower.

The hosts came out and started to talk to Dani as I was getting out of the shower. The first thing they told her was that we were not permitted to enter the bunkhouse (which had electricity, a cooktop, and a weak wifi signal), because those luxuries were only for people paying to stay there. Then, when we tried to pay the exorbitant camping fee, the host said, “And also $5 for the shower.”

What?!

First off, $5 for a cold shower is really steep. Secondly, he had told us that the outdoor shower was free. But, as was quickly explained to us, the shower I took was in a shack. So it wasn’t outdoors.  The “outdoor shower” he was referring to was hanging the hose from a tree in their yard and letting us stand under it.

But, as Dani said, just because an outhouse has walls and a roof doesn’t mean it’s an indoor bathroom.

Anyways, this only seems like a bad experience because we’ve encountered so many selfless, generous people who have gone out of their way to be kind to us. This serves as a reminder to us to be grateful for every kindness and not take anything for granted.

Tomorrow’s another early day! We have to make it 36 miles to our campground in Glacier before 11:00a. They close parts of Going to the Sun road to cyclists from 11:00a-4:00p, so if we don’t make it in time we’ll have a long journey ahead of us on Monday!

Day 13, Libby, MT to Eureka, MT: 74.6 miles, 5,954 ft. elevation gain, 10.6 mph average speed
Trip totals: 728.9 miles (60.7 daily average), 44,832 ft. elevation gain, 11.0 mph overall average speed

Map and stats here.

Oh boy. Heat warnings all over Montana. You know what 100+ degrees feels like, right? Pretty terrible. Now add riding a bike with no shade at all for 6 hours. No shade, but with cliffs on one side of the path that absorbed the heat and baked us from the side. Let’s just say I was not the happiest camper at the end of the day. Some kids on ATVs were complaining about how hot it was on their ATVs. I wanted to ask them to trade vehicles or stop complaining so close to me.

We started out of Libby a bit earlier than usual (7:35a), and it was actually quite cool in the morning. We had a lovely ride on a country road with rolling hills for 15 miles. Ted said he wanted to capture some of the chilliness he was feeling and put it in his pocket for later. I couldn’t agree more. We decided to enjoy the cool, calm road while we had it.

We turned onto the main route to Eureka and started climbing toward Libby Dam. We ran into our trail friends, Gina and Dan, who were exiting the dam. I don’t think we mentioned them before. We met them at the Bicycle Barn after climbing Washington Pass. Gina and Dan are moving from Sacramento to Minneapolis and decided to ride the Northern Tier during their transition. Fun fact: Gina is from Apple Valley, MN, where I lived from 1996-99, and was a year behind me at Falcon Ridge Middle School! This is the second random person I’ve met from middle school later in life (Katie, our friend from Peace Corps, also grew up in Apple Valley and went to Falcon Ridge). Anyway, we ran into them at the entrance of Libby Dam and they warned us that the climb up from the dam was steep, so we stashed our bags behind a road barrier and rode down–free!–on unloaded bikes. What a feeling! After the steep descent, we saw seven bald eagles perched on the dam and two ospreys flying from tree to tree. Ted’s family would have been in heaven!

We climbed the steep mile-long hill back to the road, sat down to eat a snack, and up rolled another trail friend, Clive (the one who is carrying very little luggage on a road bike). Clive decided to slow his pace for the day and ride along with us. We stopped at the upper dam lookout about a mile further up the road (and sort of wished we hadn’t added a couple miles onto our ride to look at the dam from the lower perspective), then proceeded on our ride. The ride was extremely hilly and we actually exceeded our largest total elevation gain of the trip, but never exceeded 2900 feet of elevation. It was just up and down all day and so incredibly hot.

We rode along Lake Koocanusa for around 50 miles. The lake is 90 miles long, is beautiful, and was formed by Libby Dam. A professional cyclist later told us that professional cyclists ride along Lake Koocanusa early in the cycling season because it’s a banana belt and good for hill training. So add five to ten degrees onto the 100 degree high for the day and that’s what we were riding in. On hills that were good for training.

There’s very little real estate along the lake, so it was pristine and very few boats were out. Clive kept our breaks infrequent and short, so we made better time than usual. I tried to tone down my complaining since we had company, but it was hard to cut it out completely. Can we talk about saddle sores here? I won’t go into detail, but let’s just say I have them and they are painful.

Just when we thought we were in the day’s downhill/flat approach to Eureka, we climbed three unexpectedly steep hills around mile 72 and ended up at a gas station at the edge of town (which, in my opinion, came straight from heaven). Upon arrival, I haphazardly threw my bike against the wall, ran inside, and bought a liter of seltzer water and a liter of chocolate whole milk. I then went to the attached Subway to chug seltzer water while Ted moved my bike to a more reasonable position, and when he returned, we quickly downed both liters of liquid. Turns out when it’s 100 degrees outside and you have stainless steel water bottles, you will be drinking 100-degree water all day. Dreaming of seltzer is what got me through the day.

After I regained a bit of composure (emphasis on a bit), we pedaled the remaining 1.7 miles into town and arrived at our warm showers host’s house, where we found Lou, the guy on the recumbent bike, and met Steph and Tom, a retired couple from the bay area riding from Oregon to Maine on a recumbent bike. They retired in their 50s and are living it up! I’ve got to start maxing out my 401k!

Our host, Nikki, was fabulous and incredibly generous. We’re having the best luck with warm showers so far and are so grateful to all of the kind souls who are so hospitable to total strangers. It really helps restore my faith in humanity. Nikki has two dogs, one of which has a happier and more proportional version of Ellie’s face, so Ted and I gushed over him all night and morning and got very homesick for Ellie.

Getting up early tomorrow to beat the heat (learned our lesson today!).

Day 10, Bacon Bike Hostel to Newport, WA: 86.9 miles, 4,035 ft. elevation gain,12.1 mph average speed

Trip totals: 517.8 miles (57.3 mile daily average), 33,820 ft. elevation gain, 10.8 mph overall average speed

Map and stats here.

What a gorgeous day to be on a bike tour.

We were anxious to be back on the road, yet reluctant to leave the homelike comfort of the bike hostel, so we compromised by leaving at 7:35a, exactly the same time we’ve been leaving every day.

We had a long day ahead of us, but we felt rejuvenated by the day off, and started the day bright and chipper. Not even the 1,000+ ft. evelation gain coming out of the hostel could get us down.

We spent the first half of our day riding through the highlands above Ione, WA. I think it was the most perfect morning of the trip so far (and I’m fairly certain I’m not just saying that because we weren’t climbing a pass). The skies were blue, the sun was shining—but not too hot—and we weren’t climbing a pass (okay, so maybe that did play a small role in it). About 12 miles into the day, we saw a sign for Crystal Falls, and pulled over to see a beautiful set of waterfalls right off the road!

Shortly after we stopped for snacks and the restroom at a lakeside resort (about 25 miles in), we descended to the Pend Orielle (pronounced Pond O’Ray) river valley. This was the best descent of the trip. We followed a steeply descending road with several switchbacks reminiscent of Cadillac commercials, with lush evergreen forests on either side and a valley surrounded by green mountains opening up before us.

After we got to the bottom we crossed the river and turned south. The next 45 miles traced the Pend Oreille River, providing several stunning views and inciting much desire to take a break from riding and leap into the water. We had the road almost entirely to ourselves, and the only downside was the persistent headwind that we fought throughout the afternoon.

A quick aside: Something that we’ve wanted to mention for a couple of days, but keep forgetting is the uncanny frequency with which we’re passed simultaneously by cars going in opposite directions. We’ll ride for miles without seeing a car, but then we’ll see two, traveling in opposite directions, passing each other precisely where we’re riding. I know it probably seems like I’m exaggerating, but I promise that I’m not.

In any case, we passed a couple of Canadians who attempted to ride the Adventure Cycling Association Continental Divide trail, but were derailed (HA!) by a serious rear derailleur malfunction and were biking back home to Whistler. One of them was significantly more cheerful than the other; I think he was the one whose bike didn’t break. Shortly after passing these folks we stopped at the Manresa Grotto (Tagline: A beautiful grotto exists) to rest in the shade and refill our water bottles. We are always very grateful to the various organizations (USFS, DNR, NPS, state parks, etc.) who put little bits of shade on the sides of very hot roads.

After that it was twenty more miles into Newport. We were struggling by the end, and were ever so grateful to roll into town and immediately see a Safeway, where we stocked up on things such as cookies, pineapple, lemonade, chocolate milk, and salami. So, you know, the basics.

Danielle was willing to ride on to find a campground, but I was beat, so I convinced her that we would be doing enough free camping in the coming weeks to justify staying in a motel. We ended up at the Newport Antler Motel (complete with taxidermy in the office), where we watched TV, drank a half gallon of chocolate milk, ate salami sandwiches, and fell asleep by 9:00p. It was our fourth consecutive day sleeping in a bed; we’re getting spoiled.

We’re camping tomorrow though!

****

Postscript:  I just wanted to mention that I am the subject of the overwhelming majority of our pictures only because Dani carries (and controls) the camera. But I’ll try to wrest it off of her so anyone who’s following along has the opportunity to see both halves of our dynamic duo!

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!