The last two years, we’ve been slackers in the bicycling department, failing to just get out and ride on nearby bike trails. But, we have traveled far and wide in our camper van to seek out new trails and revisit trails we’ve ridden parts of. Here, then, is a short list of rides in 2024 across Washington, Idaho, and Montana, most since we finished outfitting our new van, Bianca. The demise of our previous van, Bella, in January put a damper on our travels and bicycling until we completed the new van, a build covered elsewhere.

As soon as we acquired Bianca, we did take the bike out, ignominiously laid on the bare floor of the van, for our usual winter bike escape at the local airport industrial park.

After we installed the hitch rack for the bicycle, we started taking the bike with us when we went on the Tuesday morning hikes with the Senior Center walking group, then either camping overnight near the hiking destination or going to a bike trail or scenic route after the hike. In June, we revisited the Raymond trailhead of the Willapa Hills Trail State Park. We had ridden from there several years ago, but the trail had not been improved past the short paved section, and we had turned off into Willapa Valley, where we found a delightful winery and eventually found our way back to Raymond. But, this time, we continued on on the trail, which had been improved since, until we reached the part that wasn’t.

The first week in July, we had the opportunity to go to eastern Washington, to meet our granddaughter, who was traveling from Arizona to attend a July 4 concert at the Gorge at George. On the way, we arranged to spend a couple of nights at a state park on the Columbia River near the Palouse to Cascades State Park Trail. This gave us a chance to ride the rough gravel/railroad ballast trail to cross the Beverly Bridge across the river. The railroad bridge had been brought up to trail standards and opened in 2021, to join the two halves of the trail, which runs 237 miles from North Bend, east of Seattle, to the Idaho border, mostly following the old Milwaukee Road right-of-way, with a number of detours around collapsed bridges, collapsed tunnels, and private land.

Later in the month, we chose to head north after a Tuesday hike, seeking a place to camp and ride. In the height of the Olympic Peninsula tourist season, we managed to get the next-to-last campsite at Fort Flagler State Historic Park. We got in two rides, but only published video from the second one, where we pedaled in early morning through the upper campground and to the decommissioned artillery batteries facing the entrance to Admiralty Inlet.

After another Tuesday hike, farther west, we continued on to Lake Quinault, where we had made reservations at the popular national forest campgrounds near the Lodge. We rode from there along the south shore road, partly paved, and partly gravel, to the Olympic National Park boundary, repeating most of a ride we had done in 2013. The morning fog burned off for the trip back. The destination, Bunch Falls, was a disappointment, obscured by a screen of fallen trees, and we chose not to ride the additional mile to the bridge across the Quinault River this time, as the gravel part of the road was thicker and looser than last time.

When we first acquired our new van, we took it to a van outfitters to have the roof fan installed, since it was winter and not feasible to do it ourselves. When we dropped off the van near Washougal, we were on foot, walking to town on the levee trail along the Columbia River. We decided to come back when we could to ride the trail. By late summer, we did return, riding out through the Steigerwald National Wildlife Refuge.

In mid-September, we ventured out for an extended tour to visit friends and relatives in Montana and Idaho, and, of course, ride our bike when we could, on and off the beaten track. Over the next few weeks, we found time to ride in the Bitterroot Valley in a place we hadn’t when we lived there. We finished sections of the Trail of the Coeur d’Alenes in Idaho we hadn’t in our 20-year quest to ride the entire 72-mile trail in both directions, which took us to the east end and middle of the trail. We also meandered up near the Canadian border, to ride a relatively new trail, the Ferry County Rail Trail, on a groomed section completed in 2016, along Curlew Lake in Washington.

This is part 5 to start reading at the beginning, click here.

Phase IV: Eastern Washington

At Coeur d’ Alene, we stopped again to refuel at Costco, then to a nearby laundromat to do our weekly wash. We made our way through Spokane traffic to Riverside State Park, where we had reservations at the last available utility site, anticipating cool evenings. Using our Senior Off-Season Pass, we only paid for the utilities, so justified the splurge, and planned to spend two nights, to have time to ride our bike and explore the hiking trails.

The campground, officially called the Bowl and Pitcher for distinctive rock formations in the Spokane River, is a gem: we hiked across the swinging suspension bridge for views of the gorge from a different perspective. Taking advantage of electric power, we reheated leftovers packed for us by Judy’s sister-in-law for supper, a rare hot meal on the road. And, we appreciated our new sink for making dish washing a breeze. We talked to a bicyclist we met on the trail about routes into the city, but decided we would drive to a trail head in the morning for a ride on the Centennial Trail up the river toward Idaho, as the only practical way out of camp was on the busy Riverside Road, which has a few steeper climbs and no shoulders.

The planned morning bike ride turned to disappointment, as we found every trail head we visited infested with homeless folk, one promising turnout was closed for freeway construction, and more homeless on the trail ahead. So, we returned to camp, intending to explore the hiking trails across the river after lunch. As we crossed the famous swing bridge, the first raindrops began. We walked down the river until the rain began an earnest drizzle, and returned to camp before it became a downpour.

The cold and rain was starting to wear us down. We have electric hookup and the small heater kept the van at least in the high 50s at night, versus the high 40s we experienced a previous night when it got down to freezing outside, with no electric service.

In the morning, we headed north, then west on the remote WA Hwy 20, then Hwy 21 to Curlew Lake State Park. We checked in, then drove to the trail head at the north end of the lake. We rode to the other end of the lake and back on the Ferry County Rail Trail, a total of 11 miles (18 km). During the ride, we were paced by deer through a cut and by a chipmunk on the trestle across the north end of the lake. Another bucket list checked. There is one more “improved” section of this trail, north of Curlew, which we planned to check out the next day. “Improved” means they swept the railway ballast to the side and laid down fine crushed gravel. Most of the 40-km trail from Republic to the Canadian border is not improved, except for those two sections, reserved for non-motorized traffic.

By Sunday morning, Judy’s cold had set in with an agenda. We drove to the trail head at Curlew, but neither of us was game to get out and ride, so we turned about and headed for Wenatchee, where we got a no-utility site at Wenatchee Confluence State Park. It was good to arrive early, as the campground filled almost completely by dark. Another fitful night ensued, and in the morning it was obvious the best course was to head for home, just four hours away. We arrived home just before noon, and in time to get settled and prepare for a Zoom board meeting. We had been several days with minimal to non-existent network access, with no WiFi along the way and the usual “No Service” showing on the cell phones, so finding reliable WiFi and privacy to run a Zoom session would have been problematic.

So, our fall expedition came to an end, after 25 days wandering the Pacific Northwest across 2500 miles of driving and 93 km of bicycling. We look at it as a shake-down tour to prepare us for our planned late winter 2025 excursion.

Epilogue

After being home for a few weeks, recovering from colds and catching up on chores we couldn’t do with minimal internet access, we took a couple of days to escape to the beach. We returned home after a blustery night of wind and rain, and loaded the washing machine. At the spin cycle, the sewer system backed up. A late Saturday call to the sewer service got a quick response, but the blockage was obviously downstream from the laundry, the last point in the line, and the technician was unable to clear it. So, we spent a third night in the van, in our driveway.

Sunday brought another look-see, with a camera, which merely verified the general location: a crew would arrive on Monday to open the line to make it easier to deal with. We were preparing to retreat to a nearby state park when our son called us and offered a guest room and shower, so we took them up on it. Two more days of digging, blasting roots out of the system, putting in an external clean-out, and installing a high-tech liner to seal the joints in the old concrete pipe sections and extend the life of the sewer system finally ended the ordeal. But, we’re now left scrambling to arrange to liquidate a substantial percentage of our dwindling retirement funds. Full-time van life might be closer than we planned: our biggest asset is now our house. We probably can’t sustain any more maintenance expense. But at least the sewer will hopefully pass inspection when we go to sell, along with the new furnace we replaced earlier in the year.

Phase III: Central Idaho

Winchester Lake was a nice park, but with the usual stinky, eye-watering state park campfires that seemed to serve no purpose with temperatures into the high 20s Celsius late into the evening. Some, obviously, were for cooking unidentifiable and odoriferous meals, and, we expect, for burning the plastic packaging and left-overs afterwards. Still, we were happy to find vacancies on a weekend, to avoid sketchy stealth camping.

Early Sunday morning, we broke camp and headed south, stopping at Grangeville to do laundry at a friendly neighborhood laundromat. Moving on, we stopped at Stacy Cakes bakery in McCall, lunching on cinnamon rolls, scones, and coconut macaroons–not a healthy lunch, but a favorite stop, so we indulged. Driving down the scenic ID 55 along the Payette River, we arrived at Judy’s brother’s house in late afternoon, for a few day’s visiting. On hooking up the van for a few days’ “moochdocking,” we discovered we had driven off from the Heyburn campground without disconnecting our 40-foot electrical cord, the second time we’ve lost one that way. To prevent that in the future, I decided to put the cord reel in front of the drivers seat so we can’t drive away without it. We still have 50-feet of cord, but yet another expense, should we replace the long one.

We also stopped at hardware stores along the way to stock up on M6-20 socket-head bolts for the bicycle, which hold the pieces together. I had broken one of the bolts when adjusting the timing chain tension before our mid-TCdA ride, but we had ridden anyway, figuring two bolts made for redundancy. I had to loosen the other bolt and spread the tabs to align the holes for the new bolt. At least we now have spares for all the bolts on the bike, the others mostly M4 and M5 of different lengths. We had to replace a rear rack bolt a few weeks ago, during a ride.

After two days of visiting with Judy’s brother’s family, we headed north, up Hwy 95. We stopped for lunch at Council, where, years before, we had ridden our bike on the Weiser River Trail, a ride cut short because the trail was washed out north of town. Moving on, we arrived back at Winchester Lake State Park, where we had stayed Saturday night. This time, it was very quiet, with the main hookup loop closed for the winter and few sites taken in the dry camp loop and yurts. Being off-season, we paid $9 less than we had the previous week. The lake was populated with a large population of geese and ducks, which we observed on a walk into town for ice cream at the gas station/liquor store/C-store, the only business in the tiny (200 pop.) town.

With the campground at 3900 ft elevation, the temperature dropped outside after sunset, but more slowly inside: we woke at dawn with the van at 9 C (48 F) and the outside temperature at minus 2 C (28 F). On the road, the temperature rose rapidly as we descended into Lewiston, and didn’t drop much as we climbed up the other side on US 95 toward Coeur d’ Alene. We finally stopped for breakfast at the only rest stop along the route, Near McCroskey State Park. We took a side excursion into the park, thinking the ridge road had a view, but instead it was a steep one-lane gravel road on the side of a steep, deeply wooded ridge: we turned around at the first opportunity, which was way too far up for Judy’s innate fear of cliff-hanging narrow roads.

(to be continued)

Phase II: North Idaho

So, we embarked on Plan C: drive over Lookout Pass to Wallace, Idaho, where we kitted up, took down the bike, and rode the 12.5 km up to Mullan, 250 meters higher elevation. The ride back was very chilly, at speeds up to 30 kph. This 25-km ride completed our coverage of the entire east end of the Trail of the Coeur d’Alenes, a 115-km (230 km round trip) paved rail trail from Mullan to Plummer. The only part left we hadn’t ridden was in the middle, from milepost 29 to milepost 39. As we stopped for lunch in Wallace, I discovered I had lost part of my keychain in the last few days in all the excitement: It had my Army dogtag and our bicycle lock keys on it: fortunately we hadn’t locked up the bike, but it’s still a loss. We have duplicates of the keys at home, but I had lost the other dog tag many decades ago.

We planned to camp near milepost 29, but the camp spot listed in iOverlander as a lakeside space for a few campers and a pit toilet turned out to be not as advertised, up a narrow track to the top of a hill, where we were saluted with a beer held high by one of the two guys who were already there. The pit toilet was at a boat launch farther up the road, which was posted no overnight parking. So, we backtracked to the CDA River RV Park in Cataldo, where we had camped in 2019 and had cut our bike ride short at milepost 39 when a thunderstorm rolled in, barely making it back to camp before it hit.

In the morning, we decided not to ride from the nearby Cataldo Trailhead, as it would have been a long ride upriver on the return, so we drove to the Bull Lake Trailhead (MP 33.5), rode to MP 29, then back up to MP 39.5. We met another couple on a tandem who had been riding the whole trail in several days, camping along the way.

This completed the entire trail for us, which began with a 61-mile ride from Harrison to Plummer and Medimount back in October of 2004, with five to 20-mile segments over the years, as we had time when we passed through and the weather cooperated (which it often didn’t). Most bicyclists ride the entire trail both directions in two or three days: we were passed coming and going by a woman on a time trial bike, full aero, who passed us going up-river at at least 45 kph, while we lumbered along at 17-18 kph. This final segment turned out to be 33 km.

A bit tired after two days back-to-back rides longer and harder than we had done all year, we drove down to St. Maries, hoping for a decent camp at the fairgrounds, but it was a dump, so we phoned the Heyburn State Park office just before closing and were assured there were four sites left to choose from: 13 miles of winding cliffside road later, we backed into a level site next to the showers and had a great evening and good sleep.

We checked in/out in the morning and found our way to the bike trail for photos of the Chatcolet Bridge we had crossed on our 2004 segment, and views of the lake and Plummer Creek Marsh. Then, down ID 3, a new route for us, enroute to Judy’s brother’s in Caldwell, Idaho. We stopped for lunch at a riverside forest service camp, then made our way to US 12 and US 95 to Winchester, for another state park, checking in in mid-afternoon, after a day of driving through the mountains and eastern end of the Palouse, and down into the fire-ravaged canyon and the town of Juliette, then up US 95.

(to be continued)

Phase I: Montana

We loaded up as we completed fitting drawers and painting doors, setting off mid-morning, determined to make this an adventure instead of just a point-to-point run. We took the Chinook Pass route over the Cascades, a route we hadn’t taken in decades, probably since the late 1980s, and an alternate route through the Palouse, ending up for the night at a city park in a small town, parked on the street, our first venture into urban boondocking. We left early in the morning, stopping for breakfast at a riverside fishing spot on the Snake River in the Nez Perce Nation just before heading up the Clearwater River toward Montana. We arrived at our destination near Florence, Montana in late afternoon. In a typical example of Montana creative adaptation, we were invited to a neighbor’s office Christmas Party, held between the summer heat and smoke and winter cold, so it could be held outdoors, with live music and a catered food truck. We do miss Montana living!

We planned to spend a few days visiting and unwinding, as this was a real vacation from a furious seven months of van building for me and a hectic spring and summer for Judy. She had taken over coordination of resident scheduling and presentations for the women artist’s residency, Hypatia in the Woods, for which we serve on the board. That’s been a full-time job for her, with the learning curve and the workload.

Our new van worked well. Plugged in to friends’ house power, we had a chance to try out our small electric heater to see how it went with the better insulation. It did, to the extent we turned it off soon: we probably won’t need heat unless the temperature is below freezing, which will save us money camping this winter.

On the downside, our plan to lose a little weight during our trip by not snacking was scuttled by the hospitality of our friends with great meals. Nevertheless, it was good to be on the road again.

After nearly two weeks of visiting friends in the Bitterroot Valley, bouncing back and forth between them, it was time to leave. During our stay, we had taken a morning to ride our bicycle through the Lee Metcalf National Wildlife Refuge. I helped a neighbor assess his solar system, and helped a friend with her own van build. We helped modify her van doors to make space for storage inside the doors and cut the hole in the roof to install a vent fan.

We drove up through the Jocko Valley, stopping late in the day at the Garden of One Thousand Buddhas, as we usually do when we pass that way. We ended up in Polson, at the Super Walmart, with a view of Flathead Lake. Unfortunately, a young man who had pulled into the parking lot to make a phone call backed into us with an extremely loud thump and a jolt. Fortunately, he missed the bike, but we took it and the rack off to inspect it and the van doors. The doors opened normally and sealed, but the magnetic door stop on the left side had been pushed back into the door. This seems to be fixable without too much trouble, though we will have to remove the lower inside door panel and the insulation to inspect it.

After that, we moved back against the curb, just to make sure we weren’t in direct line of fire from traffic, and had an otherwise uneventful evening. After this, we’re not sure free parking at Walmart is affordable.

In the morning, we took a walk on the waterfront trail, which extends over the water under the bridge. Then, off again, through Ronan, Charlo, and Dixon. We found a great Lolo National Forest dispersed camping area on the Clark Fork River. Although we had an ideal campsite, and even cell service, a rarity at most remote camps, we got a weather alert of an approaching violent thunderstorm. Being a mile from the highway in dense forest on a dirt road seemed risky, so we buttoned down and headed out, seeking shelter in St. Regis. The storm hit as we approached the town, with wind gusts and flying needles and branches. Before it got dark, we could see the approaching wall of water at the edge of the storm, and it hit us just as we parked in an open parking lot.

The heavy rain carried no hail and the storm passed quickly. The lot was posted no overnight parking, so we drove on west on I-90, noting the power was out in DeBorgia and Saltese, as well as Haugan, our destination. The 50,000 Silver Dollar casino was dark, but we had stayed in their free campground before and found an open site in the pitch-black dark. The power was back on by morning. We left, thinking we were going to ride up the Northern Pacific Trail from Taft to Lookout Pass. But, there was heavy construction on I-90, as there always is before winter destroys most of the improvements. We couldn’t find the trail or a place to park, with the trail head a staging area for the road construction. I think the trail is a once and future undertaking, as there seemed to be a muddy, overgrown track where the trail should have been. We proceeded to the rest area 2 km up the road, where we could see the trail above, but no way to get to it.

(to be continued …)