07.03.2023 - crossing the columbia

what can i say?  this was a tough day.  it finished off any potential love affair with the great american rail to trails (gart) route.

it started off well enough, up at 5:00 to the sound of garbage men across the road.  then off to find a much needed toilet.  after walking around the event center grounds, i found a community indoor swimming pool open and friendly.  a relief.

we packed and were on the road by 6:30.  i think this is probably the first time i ever had anyone waiting for me to get packed.  dan is my payback for all those trips with maurice and jim.

a half hour later, we pulled into the 509 cafe in kittitas.  a small hole in the wall cafe in a one block downtown, that opens at 6:00 am.  perfect.  we were the only customers, and it didn't take an hour to be served.  very nice people, he is from south philly, she from the phillipines, who appreciated the biking community coming through.

the trail surface was loose and sandy, a little challenging to ride.  because of the this, dan and i agreed that we would ride on the parallel road where we could.  but that option only existed for a few miles in the beginning, unfortunately the trail rose, crossed over I-90 and then headed 20 miles southeast cross country through yakima to the columbia.  there is no parallel road.  none-the-less, the trail quickly turned to crap.  after crossing the interstate, the trail was largely sand.  

there were 2 loosely compacted tracks, but on either outside and most notably in the center was heavy, loose sand.  not an experienced trail rider and being on 32 mm tires, it was very hard for me.  dan was the opposite, very experienced trail rider and using 45 mm tires (approx 1.75 inches).  he handled it okay, but he still felt it was hard.  he says 2" tires would have been better.  

i am what they call 'a grinder', i tend to over stress my gears and use a slower cadence.  dan told me that i needed to be more of 'a spinner' on sand, lower gear, faster cadance.  the other difference is that i tend to coast when i start slipping, where ideally one needs to keep peddling through it.

as a result, it was a lot harder work.  i kept sliding in the sand, drifting into the deeper edges and bogging down.  it was taking considerably more effort.  not to mention frustrating.

i had been told that the sand was only for 1/4 mile. it was not.  elsewhere, i had read it was a 5 mile stretch on one side of the tunnel.  it was not.

but we finally reached the tunnel, the one with the "tunnel closed" sign.  i had previously read about a women's adventure through it, so i was prepared.  dan and i looked at each other, shrugged, pulled out headlamps and went forward.  i figured if it was really that dangerous, they would have gates over the entrances.  they didn't.

the approach was a  long chasm through rock with many chunks lying on the ground.  the inside of the tunnel was littered with fallen stone.  we walked the bikes in, through and out of the tunnel.  no problem.

at the exit, the route was overgrown with brush we had to pick our way through.  there was a little bit of standing water, but not much.

once we made it past the tunnel, it was around 18 miles downhill to the columbia at a 2 - 2.5% grade.  steep for a railroad.  but again, the east side turned out to be sand as well.  not quite as bad, since going downhill definitely helped, but on-the-other hand speed made it more difficult to keep the wheels in the tracks.

and when it wasn't sand, the rocks strewn through the cuts were almost as bad.

but finally the columbia came into view.

ah, and did i mention there was no water on the last 25 +/- miles?.  what a joy to get almost to the bottom and find potable water.  a spicket near a water tower.  nothing else there.  we soaked and drank our fill.  an excellent find.

and then we rode the final approach to the bridge.  i remember so well seeing similar topography 10 years ago when jim o'kane and i came up the river from portland and turned east to walla walla.  incredible rocky, barren, dramatic earth forms.  thoughts of lewis & clark, what must it have felt like to them?

on the other side of the river, we abandoned the trail once more.  it only went another 10 miles anyway, but no way were you going to get me on that trail again.  we took the local roads up onto the plateau above the river, the climbs well worth the smooth pavement.  

and then proceeded to ride through apple orchards.  very interesting, most of the "trees" are spaced just a few feet apart and the trunks are devoid of spreading branches.  and a lot of these were marked as "organic."

we wound around and through orchards and irrigation canals till we were high above the valley, orchards everywhere.

hats off to dan at this point, who was looking a bit tired.  we hit one last gravel road that finished with a very steep, 15%?, slope.  i couldn't get the traction to get up it even if i had had the legs, i dragged the bike up the last 100 feet.  dan powered through it all the way.

then it was over the ridge, swooping along the valley on the other side.  we finally pulled into our destination for the night, potholes state park, around 7pm, and got a shower, the first in 3 days.