I have a lot of catching up to do because it’s really been nothing but riding, and then being too exhausted to look through the limited photos I’ve been taking or write. So now that we are in one place for a couple of days I’m trying to review the trip so far….so…here goes.
Day 1 – the recap.
The intent was to hit the road at 7am, we managed 8am after getting gas at the Chevron in our little Village. So…close enough really. We’d had two different routes planned. The first was the “This is the plan” plan, and the second was the “This is the SR20 is closed because of the fire” plan.
We were really hoping for Plan 1 since it meant we could make it to our campsite at Pearrygin Lake outside Winthrop by about 5pm, have time for dinner in town and an evening walk, and do about 400km by stretching out the front end through Chukanut Drive and lunch in Edison.
But if SR20 didn’t open, then the alternative was a really big detour down through Monroe-Leavenworth-Wenatchee-Chelan-Pateros and back up to Winthrop and made it a 600km ride so long as we didn’t do the fun stuff at the front end and just basically booked it down some major (read – really not fun on a motorcycle) highways to get there.
We were thrilled when SR20 reopened on Wednesday!
Plan 1 it was!!
So we took the typical fun route down through Blaine, Drayton Harbour, Birch Bay, Lummi, Bellingham, Fairhaven, Chuckanut Drive, Edison (Lunch at Terramar), Bow Hill Road, Prairie Road, F&S Grade Road into Sedro Wooley where we filled the gas tank at a cool little old gas station that did have modern pumps…and, despite the sight that says 24 hours….was closed!…but the pumps still worked.
From Sewer Wooley it was down to South Skagit Highway, back onto SR20 at Concrete….and on to Winthrop.
Almost.
Ahhh, the highway was great. It was quiet…smoky and smelled like campfire, no small surprise given the fires in the area, and the road was awesome.
Over the course of the day we’d ridden through some areas that were eerily quiet…like …”where did all the people go” kind of eerie….but on this highway we were just thrilled to get the twisty corners largely to ourselves.
There were signs along the highway telling drivers that the recreation sites and rest stops were closed, that all drivers must not stop along the way. We were following a law enforcement truck for awhile and, rounding a corner and seeing a family out of their vehicle and taking photos…pulled in and (we assume) gave them what-for.
And we both had a niggling sense of…”where is all the weekend traffic?” To be fair, the road hade been closed for a couple of weeks and had only just opened, and the WSDOT website is not kept up to date very well….so I think we both probably assumed that people just didn’t know.
Along the way we were doing the roadkill count, mostly small animals….an opossum, a raccoon, a skunk, a pigeon…..as we came down a hill I watched Kirk brake and saw a grouse to his left. I assumed he would speed up again as the grouse stopped so I only marginally slowed down, until I saw the other one in front of him and walking calmly into my path. I chirped my back wheel when I braked hard, but no grouse were killed by our wheels. Kirk thought he was going to get a chipmunk that didn’t even seem to blink as we went by, but it just sat on the yellow line nibbling on something as we rode past. At one point an owl almost bounced off Kirk’s helmet!
And the bugs…..we had to stop and wash the helmet shields frequently. n
As we went through Marblemount I was at 70km. I didn’t need gas, but it always feels more comforting heading onto that road with a full tank whenever possible because I can “just” make it from Sedro Wooley to Winthrop and have to fill at each end.
I should have filled at Marblemount.
When we were less than 30 minutes out of Winthrop, just before the giant hairpin, there was a sign saying “Single lane traffic ahead”. It was alternating traffic between a section where there was a fire burning. Except it was stopped. When we passed a number of bikes sitting in the shade and pulled in behind the short line of vehicles the driver of the car ahead of us came up and said that he’d just been to the front and been told that the road was closed about 15 minutes ago and that it could be two hours, or it could be tomorrow, or it could be days. eventually a woman in a vehicle with a medical sign in the window drove to the front and then slowly made her way down the line and said, definiticely, that the road would not be reopening today.
The guy in fronton us lived 15 minutes ahead in Mazama, and now had a five hour drive home. The couple in front of him were from Vancouver and taking a different route to a family event later that day in Penticton, they intended to come up at Cristina Lake. They were going back up and would now be taking Highway 3.
So we had to turn round and head back…more than 80km, which would take me well past my happy place where fuel range is concerned. But I made it…. maybe it was the recent tuneup giving me a bit of added distance….or maybe it was just the slower speeds in a few places, but Kirk didn’t have to go get a jerry can for me.
We made it to Marblemount and fueled up, then found some shade to regroup. We helped a couple of guys from Denmark who had rented bikes out of Vancouver and were intending to be in Winthrop figure out distances and suggested towns to stay in, and then started figuring out our own plans. I cancelled the campsite in Winthrop thinking that someone stuck on the other side might be able to use it, and was surprised to get most of the fee back at that late hour.
We could always go home and start again tomorrow. That didn’t seem palatable to either of us. But to get to Winthrop would be another five hours and that didn’t seem palatable either. Wenatchee seemed like a somewhat doable, though long, compromise. It would still put us about and hour or two behind tomorrow, with about four hours of extra riding today. I said I could ride in the dark so long as there is a hotel at the other end, but I’m not setting up a tent at 10pm.
We found a hotel at a reasonable rate in Wenatchee and headed off in that direction….one hell of a detour….. getting as many miles as possible under us as fast as possible to capitalize on the remaining light
Along the way we pulled off for a break at Cavanaugh Lake road, a road we’d intended to ride a few weeks ago but decided it was too far for the day trip. We still didn’t ride it out because we were really on a time budget now….but we did find a nice little place to stoop, next to a cool old bridge where two teens were climbing and leaping into the far too shallow creek below, and had a fabulous snack of the sweetest blackberries either of us had ever tasted!
And then we took off as far over the speed limit as we dared to make the most of the daylight…and then got a bit slower after darkness fell. It was a very dark ride over Steven’s Pass, headlights seemed blinding…it was cold, but tolerable after a few very hot areas. I was happy enough in the areas with no traffic….while trying not to think about what we can’t see (wildlife).
It’s so odd the way you come down out of the mountain and out of the dark and suddenly, like Boom! you are smack in the middle of Leavenworth…..stop? Nah, another half hour to Wenatchee….just ride!
We got to the hotel at around 10:30pm and there was nowhere nearby for dinner, so we made do with a couple of cups of microwave KD, a couple of packs of peanuts, and a bottle of wine, from he hotel commissary.
The original route was 400km, but we ended up doing 740km instead. I think the most we’ve done in a day was 600km previously, and it was hard, I never thought I’d do that again….and was right…we did more!
A 15 hour day on the road is just too long. But we did it.
And that’s where day 1 ended.