Where's Vickie 2010, Volume 4

Along Lake Koocanusa

Lots of these rock walls along Lake Koocanusa

Loading bikes for all of us bailing on the ride to Whitefish

The only moose I've seen so far...

Another excuse for margaritas!

I wish it was me in the picture, but it's Lynn. What a perfect biking picture!

Me with Lake Koocanusa

Kootenai Falls

Lake Koocanusa

Site of the great glacial ice dam... see below for more info

Christine, Vickie, Rebecca and Kit in Sand Point

I couldn't resist this perfect daisy lying on the pavement after rain in Whitefish

Day 10 - June 29th - Sand Point, Idaho
Rest Day!
77 and sunshine - perfect biking weather!

No biking today. Spent the day wandering around this pleasant little tourist town, and napping. I bought a new camera -- 12 mega pixels with a 5x zoom, for less than half the price of my defunct 6-year-old with 8 mp and 3x zoom. It doesn’t have a view finder, but the guy at the camera store says even Canon, the last hold out, doesn’t make view finder cameras any more, and the LCD screen seems reasonably visible even in bright sunlight.

At one store today, I asked the saleswoman if Lake Pend Oreille was a natural lake or dammed. She looked at me strangely and said “ you mean lake Pend-O-Relly?”. I’ve asked another couple of locals and they are unfamiliar with this pronunciation. As to whether it’s a natural lake or not…. Yes, it’s a natural, glacier-formed lake, but made somewhat larger by a damn downstream. This is the largest lake in the northwest, and at 1150 feet, #13 on the list of the world deepest.(holy cow, did you know that Lake Baikal is 5369 feet deep???)

A 98 mile day coming up tomorrow, so I’m off to bed.

Day 11 - June 30th - Libbey, MT
98 miles, 3160 feet cumulative elevation gain
80 and sunshine - perfect biking weather!

Another day where I was barely functional at the end, so I am writing this a day later. And since I am once again barely functional, not sure how descriptive I can be about yesterday.

We went through the Cabinet mountains today. Through, thank god, rather than over. Big, steep, tree-covered mountains all around, but after leaving Lake Pend Oreille, we followed along the beautiful Kootenai river valley all day. The Kootenai is a surprisingly big river.

Not far out of Libbey today we passed the site of the huge ice dam that blocked ancient Lake Missoula. This dam was over 200 stories tall and covered, the sign said, as far as the eye could see. Then occasionally, every few thousand years, it gave way, letting all that water pour out, which is what formed large parts of the landscape in eastern Washington. The area there is sometimes called the “channeled scablands” which makes it sound awful, but it’s really quite beautiful. See from the air, it looks like someone dumped a washtub of water into a Childs sandbox. It’s really quite remarkable, and so hard to even imagine such a cataclysm of water. For more on this quite fascinating story, see
www.glaciallakemissoula.org/story.html

I saw a bear! Just a little black bear, munching on something alongside the road.

Near the end of the day I stopped to see Kootenai falls, well worth a visit. Not a big falls, but a beautiful series of smaller ones, surrounded by rocky shores begging to be sat on in the sunshine. I wish I’d been able to spend a half day there.

Day 12 - July 1st - Eureka, MT
67 miles, 3400 ft cumulative elevation gain
70 and sunshine - perfect biking weather!

We started out in a 48 degree cloudy chill this morning, but by lunchtime were back in the sunshine. This was a very difficult day, perhaps more so than yesterday, through the Purcell mountains. Who knew there were so many mountains???? And now the Rockies are in sight.

Most of the day we were again along the Kootenai River and it’s dammed counterpart, Lake Koocanusa…. A tortured combination of Kootenai, Canada, and USA. Personally I wish they’d just called it Lake Kootenai.

This was some of the most fabulous scenery so far on the trip. We rode on high bluffs above the lake, with sheer rock walls to the right and lake to the left. Visited briefly with a bevy of rock climbers, some of whom were hanging from said walls.

I swear gravity works differently here. Yesterday, and especially today, I found myself having to granny down into my lowest gears on roads that looked flat, or even downhill. Yesterday at the end of the day even though we were riding UP the Kootenai river, we coasted DOWN hill. But the worst was just before getting into Eureka today: it looks like downhill; the town, I swear, is down in a pretty green valley. But you have to pump like hell to get to it.

This is a HARD trip. Strenuous. Tiring. Arduous. Demanding. Exhausting.. I think I’m still having a good time, but I’m too tired to know for sure…..

Day 13 - July 2nd - Whitefish, MT
0 miles, 0 ft cumulative elevation gain
45-70 rain, sun, rain, sun - perfect biking weather!

I rode in the van today, along with nearly half of the group. After riding more than 160 seriously hilly miles in two days, I had trouble getting to sleep last night due to aching thighs, aching feet, aching hands, aching shoulders. I would’ve been another 60 hilly miles today, and the rain this morning was the last straw.

It was SOOOOO nice not to have to rush around getting ready this morning. I got to have 2 leisurely cups of good (aka, NOT Farmer Brothers at the motel ) coffee.

We were in the Whitefish in time for lunch. Many of us bought “Going to the Sun” (which we will be riding up on July 5th ) jerseys at the local bike shop. There’s an art fair going on downtown, which I spent an hour or two at and bought a lovely fused glass plate (being shipped home). Whitefish has a very nice downtown with lots of interesting little tourist-trade places, art galleries, outdoor clothing stores, and the like. And many espresso places… in fact, there’s one in the parking lot of our motel! Good coffee again tomorrow morning!

Where's Vickie 2010, Volume 3

See the 3 wolves? At sherman pass

another hill, conquered

remnants of the White Mountain fire, 1988

I WISH!!!

Day 7 - June 26th - Colville, WA
56 miles, 4000 feet cumulative elevation gain
75 and sunshine - perfect biking weather!

We started out downhill in the 7am morning chill, but not to worry, within 3 miles we started up, up, up again, a good 15 mile climb to Sherman Pass. 4 hours up, and about 30 minutes to get down the other side. This is Washington’s highest pass that’s open year round.

Forests of lodge pole pine and larch, a good bit of which burnt in the big White Mountain fire of 1988; the burn area still has black sticks of the old pines towering over everything else, but a good growth of new ones coming. Lodgepoles are one of those pines which need fire to crack the seeds out of the cones.

Just after we started up the hill, we passed this incredible deep, steep, rocky gorge, with a stream rushing through it, the kind of thing that in a less lavishly appointed area would at least have it’s own state park attached. But here, they don’t even bother to name it.

The guy carrying the 80 pound load passed me again today.

The ride to the top wasn’t bad, and the ride down was magnificent. A sign at the top says “it’s all downhill from here”, and it is, all the way down to the Columbia, close to 20 miles of coasting as fast as any sane person would want to coast. (And maybe a bit faster).

Well, it’s not really the Columbia any more, but Lake Roosevelt instead. We crossed at the town of Kettle Falls; the falls itself was drowned when they filled the lake. This is a sad story. Here’s what Wikipedia says:

“Kettle Falls was flooded in 1940, when the Grand Coulee Dam impounded the Columbia River to create Lake Roosevelt. The waters behind the dam rose 380 feet, flooding more than 21,000 acres (85 km2) of prime bottomland along the river where native peoples lived, as well as the original town of Kettle Falls.[3][5] In June 1940, an estimated 8,000 to 10,000 people mourned the falls at a "Ceremony of Tears" organized by the Colvilles and attended by representatives of the Yakama, Spokane, Nez Perce, Flathead, Blackfeet, Coeur d'Alene, Tulalip, and Pend d'Oreille tribes.[1]
Native burial grounds on Indian Island were moved, and the town of Kettle Falls was relocated to the present site of Kettle Falls, Washington. In addition to submerging the falls, Grand Coulee permanently blocked anadromous fish from traveling upriver, ending salmon and steelhead migration in the upper Columbia River Basin.[6] As with the flooding of Priest Rapids, Celilo Falls, and Cascades Rapids downriver, the loss of Kettle Falls ended the traditional way of life for the native cultures that revolved around salmon fishing. Many native people moved out of the area, but others live today on the nearby Spokane and Colville Indian Reservations. The Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation filed a lawsuit against the United States government, which was settled in the 1990s for approximately $52 million.”

I had counted on stopping for lunch in Kettle Falls, but our route skirted the actual town, and I was too lazy to ask for directions. So I was running on empty by the time I got to Colville 10 miles later, and very, very glad to join several other bikers in a nice little sandwich and latte shop.

Our hotel tonight, Benny’s Colville Inn, has lobby walls covered with taxidermied fish. Benny Buchanan, the grandfather of the current owner, caught them all. They are each labelled with date and place, and are from all over the world, every type of fish you can imagine and many I’d never heard of. It’s worth a stop here just to see that.

Linda, our wonderful chef, outdid herself tonight with a choice of chicken or tofu in peanut sauce, asian slaw, rice, and fresh fruit. We are well fed.

We were all pretty beat-up feeling at the end of today… possibly related to climbing 3 mountain passes in three days….? One would think that tomorrow would be a rest day, but no, we have another 80 hilly miles tomorrow. Hopefully I will feel better about this in the morning….

Day 8 - June 27th - Bear Paw Camp, middle-of-nowhere, WA
79 miles, 3244 feet cumulative elevation gain
80 and sunshine - perfect biking weather!

I am actually writing this a day later, as I was so tired as to be barely functional when I got I last night.

The first half of the day was a long climb up over the (I think) Selkirk range. No pass was identified as such, but it was definitely yet another mountain range, so make that FOUR days in a row of passes. We were warned by the guide that the start of the day would be “shockingly hilly”, and I’d have to agree that’s an apt description. But how beautiful! Lush, evergreen-covered hills; clear, quiet, golden-brown streams; piney air; the occasional incredibly fragrant field of alfalfa. Wildlife sightings included a baby and momma moose, and a black bear…unfortunately not by me, but I did see several deer. This is an area I would like to return to.

After another thrilling descent from the mountains, we were at the Pend Oreille river. Pronounced “ponderay”, and there’s actually a town near here that spells it tht way. Those silly French with all their extra decorative letters! So, I was thinking, if you were Canadian, you could say “The pronunciation of this place is really something to ponder, eh?”

The second half of the day was on a nice, relatively flat road following the east bank of the Pend Oreille. They’ve had a lot of rain here recently (so, so happy that’s in the past!!!!!!) and the river is very high. Intellectually I know this was a beautiful ride, but I was worn out and really should have sagged about the last 30.

Our last half mile was down a rough gravel road to Bear Paw Camp. Complete with bunkhouse cabins, make-your-own-bed, shared showers and toilets. I stumbled to the first little cabin I came to and collapsed for an hour before dinner, seriously considered just skipping dinner and sleeping till morning But did manage to stay awake long enough for a traditional camp dinner of hamburgers, hot dogs, beans, and mac and cheese.

Day 9 - June 28th - Sand Point, Idaho
46 miles, 1500 feet cumulative elevation gain
85 and sunshine - perfect biking weather!

SUCH a relief to ride “only” 46 miles today! And in only Whidbey-esque hills, no actual mountains. It really was a lovely ride, still right along the Pend Oreille. It’s a big river! Day-glo green floodplains, pretty marshes, rocky hills, and lots of vacation homes. We were in Sand Point by lunch time, and had our laundry done before dinner.

I’ve been looking for an excuse to buy a new camera and now I have it: I dropped my camera 2 days ago and it hasn’t spoken to me since. Will go shopping for a new one tomorrow, a REST DAY!!!!

Where's Vickie 2010, Volume 2

Wauconda Pass

Just another nice scene near wauconda pass

I tried so hard to get a picture that captured the beauty of the purple flowers in this golden field... I just stood there and soaked it in for about 10 minutes. The picture does not come near doing it justice.

This is a closeup of the purple flowers. What are they????

Big fields of this gold stuff...what is it?

Possibly a rattler? {dead}

Conquerer of Loup Loup Pass!

Just a lovely scene near Tonasket, WA

This guy is NOT going to have his mailbox smashed. Rebar, crowned with chainsaw

Day 4 - June 23rd - Winthrop, WA

Today was a much needed rest day, most of which I spent doing just that. Took a brief tour of this touristy little town and bought some better sunglasses at the bike shop. My friend Gay, who lives in nearby Mazama, took me to dinner at the Sun Mountain Lodge. I’ve known about this place for many years but never been there before. It’s about 10 miles straight up the mountainside from Winthrop, with a fabulous view. It’s open year round and I’d really like to stay there sometime in the winter.

The speed of the current in the Methow River here is unbelievable right now. A little scarey.

Tomorrow we go over Loup Loup pass. Its sure to be easy compared to yesterday!

Day 5 - June 24th - Omak, WA
48 miles, 3200 feet cumulative elevation gain
80 degrees and sunshine - perfect biking weater

And easy it was!

To fuel the climb most of us first stopped in Twisp,at the Cinnamon Twisp, for , you guessed it, a cinnamon twisp. And a latte.

Just past Twisp we began climbing up out of the Methow valley. The air is just perfumed here, with wild roses, fresh cut hay, and lots of unidentified wildflowers. An 11 mile fairy reasonable climb got us to Loup Loup pass, followed by an exhilarating long, fast, curvy downhill. That was so much fun I really wanted to get a lift back to the top and do it again!

Winding back roads through orchards brought us into Okanogan, for a lunch stop. Just a short, downhill ride from there to Omak, and happy hour on the lawn in the sunshine.

I am always amazed by the change in climate and vegetation once you’re east of the Cascades. We’re out of the rain now and into sage desert and big dry, treeless hills, anywhere that isn’t irrigated. And the rest of it, now that we’re in the Okanogan valley, is orchards.

The rubber band connecting me to home has broken.

Day 6 - June 25rh - Republic, WA
69 miles, 4200 feet cumulative elevation gain
75 and sunshine - perfect biking weather!

What a perfect day! We started with 30 miles through rolling hay fields and orchards, with big rocky, sparsely-treed hills all around. Then a stop in Tonasket, hoping for a latte but had to make do with one of those canned iced mocha things instead, enough fuel to get a good start up towards Wauconda pass. This was another day that I was very thankful for my low gears; we had about 20 miles or so of climbing, but none as steep as going up to Washington Pass a few days ago, and the scenery was so spectacular I hardly noticed the effort. Well, OK, I noticed it a little bit.

This is the 2nd pass in two days, and tomorrow we have a 3rd, Sherman Pass, which I've never even heard of before. After that I think we flatten out for awhile.

I know I am one of the slowest uphill riders on this trip; I accept that and really have no desire to go faster. Still, it was a bit depressing to have this guy on a fully loaded touring bike, carrying, he said, 80 pounds, pass me. He and a couple of friends are doing a loop from Vancouver through Sand Point, Idaho.

It’s fun to see so many fully-loaded touring cyclists on this route, which is Adventure Cycling’s Northern Tier. Yesterday I talked to a couple of young guys bound for Ohio.

I could try for more description of this beautiful area but I think the pictures will do it better.

There are a bunch of Harleys here in town and some of the guys are staying at our hotel. Tonight after dinner, as I was walking back to my room, I nodded at this guy, he asked how I was doing, I said fine, how are you. He said "My butt hurts. Will you rub it for me?" I said no. Do you suppose that line has worked for him in the past?

Wheres Vickie 2010, Volume 1

Washington Pass

Yours Truly at Diablo Lake

Spring in the Cascades

Misty morning in the cascade foothills

Dipping our tires in the Pacific

Wildflowers

Bigfoot crossing

This is what we did on Day 3

Volume 1

Day 1 - Sedro Wooley, WA
40 miles, 1000 feet cumulative elevation gain
Cool and cloudy - perfect biking weather!

We started the day by riding 5 miles WEST, to dip our tires in the ocean at Washington Park. Then backtracked through Anacortes and on through the Skagit Valley. This was a very easy, flat, short day.

Out of Anacortes we took a beautiful trail on a trestle across Fidalgo Bay. (I’m happy that they’ve re-opened this as an arsonist burnt part of it down last year.) Then headed north a bit, along Padillla Bay, before turning east again through Skagit Valley farmland.

Two of my biking buddies, Cheryl and Liz, came up last night to attend our send-off dinner. Cheryl spent the night and rode with us today all the way to Sedro Wooley, then turned around to ride back. She is training for the STP (Seattle to Portland ride) and wanted to do at least 70 miles today.

Day 2 - Marblemount, WA
52 miles, 1500 feet cumulative elevation gain
Cool and cloudy - perfect biking weather!

A pleasant day, mostly through green tunnel-like back roads along the Skagit river. Fern-covered rock walls, little waterfalls, the music of Swainson’s Thrush and the buzz of hummingbirds, wildflowers lining the road..

I biked for most of the day with three friends from the Underground Railroad tour, Rebecca, Christine, and Debbie. On this tour I also know Joanna, from the Southern Tier, and our guide Michelle from several previous tours. We only have a couple of WomanTours virgins on this trip. Youngest is 42, oldest is 70.

I feel like I still have a rubber band connecting me to home. Hopefully it will break once we’re over the mountains.

Day 3 - Winthrop, WA
90 miles, 6630 feet cumulative elevation gain
Sunny and warm - perfect biking weather!

Oh. My. God.

Today was HARD. Definitely the hardest ride I’ve ever done. Yes, well over a MILE of elevation gain. Miles and miles of 6 - 9% grade. I am SOOO glad I had mountain bike gearing put on my bike before this tour!

Still, I pedaled every mile!

We started the day in clouds again, but by lunchtime we had sunshine and clear blue sky. I was worried about cold and sleet at the top of the pass, which has been common in recent weeks, but this was shorts and short-sleeve weather the whole way.

Our chef and nutritionist advised us to stop every hour for a snack, which really helped. Towards the top (Washington Pass, 5500 ft) I was stopping every 200-300 feet of elevation gain. The only thing that really got sore was my feet, which I was sorely tempted to plunge into one of the remaining snow banks.

The mountains are, of course, so beautiful as to be nearly indescribable, especially this time of year. Many, many roaring creeks of snow run-off. Wildflowers everywhere. Blue-green lakes surrounded by tall evergreens. Thrushes singing: Swainson’s, Veery, Hermit, Wood, Varied.

Then the long, thrilling coast down from the top… 20 miles at 20-30 mph, Yee-Hah! And at the bottom, what do I find but a latte place in Mazama! Just fuel enough for the last 15 flat miles through a lovely valley into Winthrop

Did not get in until just after 7pm -- 12 hours on the road. As I rode past one of the restaurants in town I heard “yay Vickie, way to go!”. Tour group #1 ( we are #2, traveling one day behind them, and we overlap on rest days) was there eating dinner. Then on to our hotel for a cold beer and spaghetti dinner. I think we were all in bed by 8::30.

Almost ready....

I've shipped my camping gear off towards Fargo, signed out at work for the summer, returned my library books, cleaned out my refrigerator.... just a bit of packing left and I'll be all set!

My overall schedule for the summer will be:
June 20th - July 23rd: Ride with a group of 20-30 other women, in luxury provided by WomanTours, from Anacortes WA to Fargo ND. We stay in nice hotels, bags (and bikes and persons, when needed) carried for us and meals provided. To get an idea of our route, see Northern Tier Bicycle Route - Adventure Cycling Association

July 24th-30th: Rest and explore the Fargo area.

July 31st - August 7th : A large group tour around North Dakota, called CANDISC. See CANDISC-Cycling Around North Dakota in Sakakawea Country for more info.

August 8th - 12th: Reunion with the group that I rode cross-country with in 2005. This year we are meeting at the headwaters of the Mississippi.

August 13th - 26th: Ride, self-supported, to Minneapolis, take plane back to Seattle. My friend Kathy will most likely be joining me for this last leg of the ride .

OK, I'm off to finish packing....

Pre-trip musings

I awoke at 3 this morning to the sounds of coyotes yipping, or humans partying, I'm not certain which. Anyway, I couldn't get back to sleep, and then at 3:45 the violet-green swallows started their morning hunting rounds, chattering to each other all the while. Soon followed by the rest of the dawn chorus, at which point I decided to get up and sit in the midst of it, and watch the sun come up.


One week from today I will be on my bike, heading east from Anacortes, with Minneapolis as my ultimate goal. I'm alternately excited and sad about leaving here. Its hard to leave at this time of year! My previous two long bike tours have left in March --which was ideal, and I was back home by May -- and in May, which was harder but still before the Swainsons Thrushes are singing. Now, the Swainsons' are in nearly full throat, I'm harvesting fresh greens daily, my deck railing is full of blooming flowers. And we've just had two precious, glorious, clear-blue-sky, sit-on-the-deck days. I find myselft trying to soak up every detail of this place. I keep reminding myself that I'll be back, I'll be back. But still, leaving is hard.


How I love this place!


I finally got around to looking at some of the pictures I've taken this spring. Without a lot of explanation to go with them, here are some of the best:

Lupine near Plain, WA

Along the I-90 bike trail

Switchbacks on I-90 bike trail

Ebey's Prairie

Ebey's Bluff

Rainbow Riders at Longhorn Cafe

Skagit Valley Tulips

Skagit Valley Tulips

$1000 worth of sand dollars!

Rhody at Greenbank

Rain rain rain rain rain rain rain rain rain rain rain rain

AGHH! I can no longer recall the last day it didn't rain! Make it stop!

Luckily, there have been some dry periods and even some "sun breaks". Last week I lead my first Beachwatchers beach monitor, and we managed not to get rained on. We combed the beach just below downtown Langley, and saw:

Pits in the sand where the gray whales have fed,

grey whale pits
and the ghost shrimp that they eat.

Big, scary looking, cool polychaete worms, some nearly a foot long.("sometimes called "goddess worms").

Pretty little chocolate-brown sea slugs with gold spots. Har to tell from the picture, but this guy is maybe an inch long.

Lots of shore crabs (hemigrapsus oregonensis).

And of course, Limpets, mussels, barnacles, clams.

Beach monitoring also involves "profiling" the slope of the beach, which is what we're doing above. The beaches around here vary an amazing amount from year to year. According to our measurements, this beach has filled in about 4 feet since last year. But this is right in the middle of the 10 year's worth of data we have... 500 feet out from the shoreline, the drop has varied from 6 feet to 13 feet over the years.

The movement of the sand really amazes me. At Maxwelton, just a few miles from my house, there's a boat launch where I've launched my kayak many times. Over the past several years, a sand spit has been growing near the boat launch, but last summer the launch was still usable. This year, not so much. Instead of water at the end of the launch, there's now a 5-foot sand dune!

Note: All photos in this post were taken by Mary Jo Adams.