Video: Doorstep Spaliday

I go on one of my Doorstep Adventures — biking from home in Port Angeles, Washington over to the Elwha River valley where I go past the road washout, cut some downed trees, visit the hot springs, camp and go snowshoeing below Appleton Pass. Because of the restricted access, there were few people in the valley. There was ample opportunity to appreciate early spring scenery like skunk cabbage blossoms, deer and warm sun on the pine branches.

https://vimeo.com/263770668

The fight for water hits the street: At the Trans Mountain Pipeline protest in British Columbia

Protestors at the pipeline gates

It wasn’t where you’d expect to see a salmon run, here in an asphalt parking lot beneath the sleek monorail station in Burnaby — just outside Vancouver.

Yet salmon had come to this place; so had a sea otter, a great blue heron. 

The whales were strong here too.

Black and white orcas were painted on protest signs, including those of my group, Olympic Climate Action. Six of us had carpooled from Port Angeles, Washington across the border to Canada the night before to attend an international march against a tar sands oil pipeline project that would threaten orcas and humans alike. Two of our members walked in orca costumes. Overshadowing everything, someone had built enormous three dimensional orcas out of fabric. These were easily the size of the real deal. While orcas and salmon might not get to cast votes in elections or weigh in on opinion polls, here on the streets, they made their presence known.

The humans would do the same. The march had managed to gather 10,000 demonstrators. A group beat tribal drums; their song and chant rising above the beat.

“We won’t stop until we win!” they cried.

“We won’t stop until we win!” we answered.

“Kinder Morgan’s got to go!”

“Kinder Morgan’s got to go!”

Kinder Morgan is the Texas oil company pushing for the Trans Mountain Expansion Project— over 7 billion dollars of new pipeline infrastructure to link the tar sands of northern Alberta to port in Burnaby, near our protest site. The capacity would be 890,000 barrels of oil. For comparison, that is 30,000 more barrels than the proposed Keystone XL pipeline would carry. 

Some may wonder why, as a US Citizen with plenty of other outrages to worry about at home, that I was bothering to protest on Canadian soil. Unfortunately, if the pipeline does go through, it will have an enormous impact at home.

All that oil will jackknife the number of oil tankers going through the Strait of Juan de Fuca by as much as 700 percent according to the Sierra Club.

That number means danger for places like Freshwater Bay near Port Angeles, where I saw my first (and only) pair of wild orcas surface unexpectedly within a stone’s throw of my kayak. If one of the tankers spills, the shoreline there will be clustered with tar balls, dead fish floating in oily water. The noise alone from all these ships promises to devastate the critically endangered population of Southern Resident orcas that rely on sound to communicate at sea. With only 76 of these whales left, it is likely that there were more whales at the protest than there are in the Salish Sea.

And then there’s climate change. Enough carbon sits locked up in Alberta’s tar sands that burning this oil would be “game over for climate,” according to James Hansen, the scientist who first brought global warming to national attention in the ’80s.

On the streets of Burnaby however, it was game on.

Thousands of marching bodies formed a pipeline of humanity as far as I could see forward and back. We filed past the gates of a rich neighborhood where a Range Rover and a sports car stopped dead to a halt as the protestors streamed past.

“Looks like they chose the wrong day to try to go anywhere,” one man remarked. 

Amidst all these people, young and old, there was a surprising number of baby carriages in the crowd. Older kids marched and held signs. Only a few days later, high school kids in Port Angeles would have a walk-out to protest school shootings.

If the Parkland protests were on the mind of many in the march, so was the #MeToo movement.

“No consent? Your pipe doesn’t get laid,” was one of the more clever signs.

I reserve my favorite spot, however — for concept and execution — for the sign that read “Justin’s in Bed with Kinder + Morgan.” The painting features Prime Minister of Canada is dressed in PJs holding the covers with an expression of sleepy wonderment. On the other side of the bed, two porcine execs in suites gaze back at him, smugness writ large across their bloated faces.

The hip, compassionate, progressive image that Justin Trudeau projects didn’t carry much water with the crowd in Burnaby. No amount of rousing words or woke selfies will change the fact that He has tied his political legacy to tar sands oil. He has pushed hard for the Kinder Morgan pipeline, even as British Columbia’s government opposes it along with 17 First Nations and 20 cities and towns.

My favorite sign

The show of people on the streets was only one component of a fight waged in courts, including lawsuits levied by the British Columbian government and by tribes.

Another show of resistance came from “Camp Cloud,” a trailer that activists had illegally parked in front of the Kinder Morgan pipeline station months ago. The protestors danced on the rooftop and solicited cheers from the marchers. Several of the protest coordinators were on the ground to tell people to keep moving. Kinder Morgan had won an injunction making it illegal for demonstrators to get within five meters of Kinder Morgan property. Still, the threat wasn’t enough to deter many from getting their pictures taken at the gate with defiant signs. More recently, protestors did get arrested while blocking the entrance there.

After the gate, the protest, moved on to the “Watch House” that tribal activists were building where they could set up a lasting encampment against the pipeline. This was the end of the march and the beginning of a series of speakers that included several from Canadian First Nations and US tribes who were united against pipeline.

My group lingered near the sidelines of all the speeches where people were bustling and striking up conversations with each other. As our group chatted with the various attendees, a small blond-haired girl came up to my friend Ed (he was in an orca costume) for a hug. Without prompting, she pointed at our orca signs showing that she wanted to carry one around around. 

We gave her the one that said "Our Children's Future Over Profit," and she made her way around the crowd, gathering little clusters of people who would stop to admire and chat. This turned out to be some awesome marketing, because everyone wanted to pay attention to the the cute kid holding the sign.

Her mom and dad watched their daughter work the crowd with charisma and élan. Later, Ed gave her the orca costume for some more networking. Meanwhile, 13-year-old Autumn Peltier from Ontario, spoke about how important it was for her to protect water. Famously, she told Trudeau to his face, “I am very unhappy with the choices you’ve made.”

I thought about the many parents in the crowd that day who had decided it was important to show their young ones what they believed through action. When you love something, you fight to protect it.

The tragedy was that for seeing all this beauty, energy and defiance in people, I still doubted whether it would be enough to meet the darkness. The shear amount of money that the people are up against boggles the mind. We are seeing now, how unrestricted money has allowed countless dirty tricks in the U.S. election amongst other places. This monetary effluent tries to submerge all other voices and pollute democracy. Yet, the dissidents continue to say “me too” and demand a hearing.

The generations lean together, shoulders against the wheels of injustice and push back for a future that holds compassion and life. 

Hopefully, that future will have whales in it too.

Deer Park Doorstep Return

The Deer Park Road with skis and bike

Heavy Pedaling

The faded pink nylon strap looped around the bike frame, just below the handlebars, behind the fork. The tips of my telemark skis and ski pole handles went through here. The panniers on the rack clipped over the skis’ midpoint and then the last couple feet hung off the rear of the bike like a pheasant’s tail.

Hold together.

I gave it all a big shake to see if anything wanted to come loose, but nothing budged. Ready for this?

It shouldn’t be that hard, the overnight trip. 

Yet, I shuttled back and forth between my room and the front yard for the umpteenth time like a compulsive. I was falling behind schedule again. I’d decided to play music the night before rather than finish packing, and now I was paying for it.

Parameters are always tighter than you think they’re going to be. If you spend too much time screwing around in the morning, where will you be at sunset? Cooking dinner by the fire at Deer Park Campground? Pedaling up the switchbacks praying that you put the headlamp in your jacket pocket? Lying in your room reading about someone else’s adventure because you were too lazy, you didn’t have it together and you blew it again?

I want these adventures to be fun, but it’s the hard work and suffering that ultimately make them worthy.

In this case, I could have saved hours and a couple thousand calories by just loading skis in my car and driving up the Hurricane Ridge Road to snow line. But knowledge is dangerous. I know my car is an emissions machine that turns beloved snow into runoff. I also know I can get to the snow under my own power. Better to save the carbon and mortify the flesh.

Clouds had opened to reveal the gleaming slopes of Klahhane Ridge above Port Angeles, a chill in the air that was crisp, not the soggy numbness of the earlier gray weeks. The sun was high enough so I could feel warmth on my shoulders. Hallelujah sun! Alas for late beginnings. 

It’s 9:30, you slacker! Move!

My first pedal strokes lurched. The skis on the side of the bike frame forced me to adopt a slightly bowlegged posture. It was a compromise, but I wouldn’t have traded it for the shaky A-frame rig I’d used with skis earlier. My back was also far happier than it was last year when I’d loaded everything onto my spine. 

The rigging got its first real test when I turned onto Peabody Street for a big descent through city traffic.

The brakes shuddered, and the extra weight meant more time needed to kick off once traffic lights turned green. It all felt stable though, and fairly safe. As usual, I noticed people giving me  second glances as I went past. I’m sure they thought I was unhinged. Who is this man with the enormous backpack biking through town with skis on his bike?

Pedaling through an urban space with my hardcore (or hobo-core) outdoor gear may seem dissonant, yet, I partly enjoy the out of place-ness. Even an asphalt street can be part of a narrative that climbs to jagged peaks.

Or at least finds an asphalt bike-path. The Discovery Trail, along the Salish Sea, was a nice improvement from city riding.

I got to enjoy a couple of miles of flats with the best scenery you could ask for. Mount Baker loomed above the San Juan Islands. The peak was 80 miles off, but hyper-visible in the cool, dry air. Further flung Canadian peaks glittered in the distance.

Eventually, the trail cut into the woods, across the old rail trestle above Morse Creek. Tiny green leaves sprouted out of branches — a disturbing development for early February. The forces of warming hard at work on Highway 101, which was glutted with weekend drivers headed for Port Angeles. The dip beneath the overpass would be my last downhill for a while.

Then, I’d be looking at nine miles of climbing to where the pavement ended at the beginning of Olympic National Park, seven more miles of climbing to the Deer Park Campground at 5,000 feet. Somewhere in there, I’d encounter snow, but I didn’t know when or if it would become skiable in this powder-lean year.

The first snow sign was the pine tree frosting at the top of the foothills, though I doubted it indicated anything deep enough to ski in. I took a short break to eat and drink, then started pedaling for the highlands. 

It took about an hour of climbing the pavement before I started seeing little traces of white in the shadows of a clear cut. Another mile later, I saw the gate for Olympic National Park. A few cars were parked there with people milling about. Some of them, I found out, hadn’t realized that the road would be closed here. Not closed to me though. I had miles to go, onward and — uhhh… why was the bike getting so hard to pedal? 

A tanker ship moves in front of Mount Baker as I pedal out of Port Angeles

Deflated expectations

I looked down to find the rear tire smushed flat against the pavement. 

Here it was, just as I’d feared: the snafu of the day.

I have switched out road bike tires without the aid of levers, and someone had told me that mountain bike tires are usually easier. Hence, I had not bothered bringing any levers with me.

As I struggled to get the bead of the tire off the wheel with my cold fingers, I realized that some nice firm levers (ounces of weight added to my load) would have pretty nice right then.

In some ways it would be better to have broken down in the remote mountains, more helpless, but without anybody to feel like an idiot in front of. A gray-haired couple ambled over to render assistance.

They didn’t have any levers, but they did have a pair of pliers with an end that I could jimmy beneath the tire bead.

 I combined these with my own allen wrenches (not good for the rim, but you gotta do what you gotta do). After I got the tire off, I put my replacement tube in and pumped it up. I gave the pliers back with a thank you and my benefactors who were heading back down the road.

As soon as they left, a new visitor arrived.

I had a new visitor who was a mill worker, just moved to the peninsula from Spokane to find a work and to try to get over alcoholism. He helped me push the tire back on, expostulating about how it was impossible to look at the beauty in the mountains around us without believing in God. I tried to explain, politely, that as an non-believer, I still found a deep measure of solace and wonderment in the mountains. There was a helpline for atheists at Alcoholics Anonymous now he said, but added (with satisfaction?) that a woman in his group had tried calling and found no one to talk to.

I reckoned that I probably disagreed with my new helper over a thing or two, but the rim of the tire was an almighty beast to get back on and the second set of hands made the job go much more easily. I mm-hmmed in the right places and started pumping up both tires extra full.

It was 3p.m.. I’d lost an hour. Hopefully nothing else blew, because I didn’t have another spare tube nor a patch kit.

I thanked the man, who got back into his truck to head back down to the coast, where the sun still shone brightly. The mountains above brooded in unwelcoming purple gray clouds. That was where the cellphone coverage ended and real hardship began.

If I turned back from the challenge, it would only be a half hour downhill riding to get back in the warmth. I’d get back home just before dark. Easy. Then I would have to pretend that I never bothered with this crazy trip.

Otherwise, it would mean that I’d truly softened up, that perhaps it was time to put away my self-image as an adventurer or as someone who pushes himself.

These thoughts swirled around as a group of armed men began shuffling past me toward the unofficial gun range next to the road — the place where I’d camped last summer.

They set up and commenced to engage the enemy with a fusillade of black powder and semiautomatic firepower.

I exited the perimeter via the Deer Park Road gate, onto the road where no trucks would pass. It felt like I was escaping the third world war. Up the switchbacks I went toward the clouds, into the snow. Blam! Blam! Blam!

I pedaled until I was warm again and had to peel. Snow was now dusted on the salal leaves and hemlock boughs. Snow on was starting to gather on the road surface as well. This was still too shallow for skiing, but it was just deep enough to make extra work for my bicycle.

The effort of pedaling kept me warm in the way that you feel when you know that you can go to freezing cold in an instant. I was nervous I would end up setting up shivering while trying to set up camp.

Circumstances had been similar for the suffering-rich night I’d spent in the outhouse at the Heart Lake Campground, an ordeal that had also stated when I started pushing the clock going uphill in cold weather.

At least if I made it to the Deer Park Campground, there would be larger, handicap style outhouses — a Ritz Carlton for the dirtbag camper. The sound of strong winds rustling the trees above gave me second thoughts though. It was 4:15 and I was still far from such sumptuous accommodations. The higher I climbed, the more exposed I’d be. If not the outhouse, I would need the tarp and I’d need time to set it up with everything else..

Camping along the roadside was its own challenge. Other than the road itself, the land was tilted steeply. Also, I had neglected to refill my water at the last stream, and now there was nothing nearby. Here in the rain shadow of the Olympic Mountains, there were very few options to refill my water supply. Promising gullies that would gushed with water in Port Angeles were bone dry. The best water source was the thin dusting of snow on the ground.

I found myself climbing up an embankment so that I could find flattish place to camp on the ridge line. I pitched tarp over some dry moss on a moderate slope between some narrow spruce trees. I walked among pines, knocking snow off of the boughs into my bear can, scooping more of it off the salal.

The heavy fuel canister that I’d had in my closet had been a reluctant add-on to my burgeoning gear collection leading up to the trip. It turned out that this was exactly what I needed that evening: abundant fuel that I used to melt down the powder. The bits of bark and goatsbeard lichen that I’d dislodged garnished the pea soup I boiled for myself. I nestled up into my sleeping bag and went to sleep on the tilted ground.

Tarp tent camp

A shot at Blue Mountain

The morning after, it was the usual sluggishness, reluctance to leave sleepy warmth for cold elements. I spooned breakfast of lichen-enriched oatmeal, then proceeded to march all my gear back down to the bike. 

I pedaled hard for a couple miles uphill with the weight of skis and gear through the shallow snow. A pall of frozen mist ghosted through the trees. Here and there I had to get off my bike to push it up a deeper section of snow. Though it was tempting to just ditch the bike and start skiing, there would inevitably be another section of road up ahead where the wind had blown the snow away to bare gravel.

Then it was back into the deeps. I gritted my teeth and aimed for a brown plastic marker staked into the road, I was going to make it there, dammit. Tires slowed; neck veins popped out.

“C’mon! C’mon!” 

The pedals stopped and the bike toppled. I fell off the seat and over the snowy embankment. My slide stopped ingloriously with my feet above my head and bare belly resting on the snow. The hill sloped down steeply, so it was tough work squirming my legs back under me to regain my feet.

I got back to the bike, reset the twisted bike-rack and started pushing through the powder.

Five minutes later, the snow was just as deep. I was ready for a break.

I threw on the layers, sucked down water, and started gathering snow to melt. 

The stove gave me a reviving warm pasta meal.

Suddenly, the cold gray miasma broke open. There was blue sky. Just 50 feet above, the mountain slope burst into brilliant color — warm light on the snow, diamonds on the branches.

The sun shone on the road just a hundred feet up. It was time to move.

I took the skis off the bike, put my telemark boots on, clipped in and started shuffling up the road. I was climbing without skins, favoring kick wax smeared on the ski bottoms. This gave me enough grip to take on the moderate slope angle, and gave me better speed than skins would have.

Skinny nordic skis would have carried me even faster, but I would have maxed out their capabilities with the steep icy turns waiting when I went back downhill..

Ice clouds drifted in and out, half veiling the light. Even the compromised sunshine was spiritual balm. I remembered what a joy it was to be in bright light over white snow, took pleasure in the way my surroundings popped in the crisp illumination. I thought of other smiling days I’d spent on mountains in Wyoming or Colorado, or in the Whites back east.

The warm rays also brought my core temperature up again. I was beginning to roast in my many layers, but rather than peel, I just skied slower. I was sure the cold would come back soon enough. A dark cloud mass was bearing down out of the west trailing gauzy curtains of white flakes. The trees were thinning now. Whatever was coming, I would get it full strength.

The sun opens over the valley below Deer Park Road

The wind-scoured zones above the road

Clear skis and cleared out slopes — Watch what happens in 15 minutes though

And the snow came in

I finally skied into Deer Park Campground, pumping my fist in victory. This had been the furthest point I had skied to last year. Now, there was less than a mile to go until I hit the summit of Blue Mountain. I was gliding along nicely on the skis, making good time. Yet the clouds were closer now.

The road climbed into an alpine steppe, with shrubs blasted free of snow. Only the gravel road held onto a residue of white — barely enough to ski over. I had to shuffle so I wouldn’t scrape up the bottoms. 

A blast of wind nailed me and whipped flakes into my face.

Visibility dropped to perhaps a hundred yards. The road was difficult to distinguish from anything. I started worrying about about how I would retrace my steps if the weather deteriorated more. I shuffled on anyway, into a cluster of pines where  snow was deeper and I had a short respite. The wind showed no sign of calming, though. Soon I was out of the trees again, in the teeth of the storm. The view to the west was endless gray.

Now there was a turn in the road.

Wait? Was that the road over there? Or was that it to the right? The washed out snowscape offered few clues. There was a notch in the hillside above me that looked road like, so I started side climbing towards it. The snow was ice hard. I squinted from my new vantage point; it looked like a road, yes, but maybe I was wishful thinking. One thing I knew: finding my way back down in the current visibility would be tough. Meanwhile, my watch said it was 1:50 — ten minutes before my designated turnaround time. How much further up was the mountaintop? 200 feet above? It had to be close. The western view was only more flakes and darkness.

I decided to call it.

Descent and the validation of the doorstepper 

I cut my way down the crust face on my metal edges, then it was a fun glide over the road. I ski-walked delicately on the shallow snow, then regained my speed at the Deer Park Campground. 

A blurred group of forms stood in the road. I approached, realized that they were a group men and woman on a ski trip.

They were as surprised to see me as I them. 

“Say, how much further can you ski down this road?” one of the men asked.

“What, didn’t you see my bike? I asked.”

It turned out that they hadn’t seen my bike because they were coming from the other direction, via the  They had skied from the Hurricane Ridge Road, and over Obstruction Point Ridge, where they had camped the night before.

I broke the news that they wouldn’t get to ski much longer. Beyond my bike, they probably had about a five-mile walk back to the park entrance where their vehicle was waiting.

They had enjoyed an enviable blue bird day up on the Obstruction Point the day before, but I didn’t envy the long walk they had ahead of them, fully loaded with skis and boots. They’d be huffing for hours under the load, while I cruised out of there on wheels.

They seemed like fine people, but I’ll admit it; I felt a little smug. 

They burned the gas driving from Seattle. They had driven to the top of Hurricane Ridge and back up the Deer Park Road to the gate. They’d had their fun skiing, but now they got to pay the piper, while the doorstep adventurer sat pretty.

Before I left, a woman asked if there was a good spot to get food and beer in Port Angeles. I knew a few places.

“We’re going to need it after this.”

I skied down ahead of them, but they passed me as I loaded the skis on my bike. I heard the collective groan go up when they found out where the snow ended. I turned the bike around and started pedaling. It was sketchy going in the deeper snow, but I could stabilize myself by putting a foot out outrigger style. I also had to watch out for the occasional ice patch where I’d avoid turning or braking hard.

Within five minutes, I re-encountered the skiers, who were trudging down the road under heavy packs. I cruised by.

It felt awesome, honestly. 

“There’s a smart idea!” Someone called. “I like your rig.” 

“Thanks,” I said. “But, to be fair, it was a real bear getting it up this far.”

Another humbling reality was that I was only one flat tire away from having the worst slog out of everyone. I really hoped I didn’t blow a flat.

Going down the mountain road made for fun riding. The snow smoothed out a lot of the teeth-chattering bumps I had weathered last summer. Another improvement: I didn’t have to worry about cars bearing down on me and could cruise where I pleased. It was a nice payoff for the hard work needed to get up the hill.

I was cruising down into a corridor of salal, highlighted nicely by the snow on the green leaves.  The flakes had stopped at this point.

I passed the park gate and back onto the paved road, where I had a prime view of the sunlit strait, still far below.

I just needed gravity to take me there. The struggles of the past hours faded as I gave myself to the exultation of the ride.

Sure, I hadn’t quite made the Blue Mountain summit, but I blamed it more on circumstances than a failure of will. It would have been different if I’d turned around the day before. I’d made it further up the road than I had last winter, so that was something.

I rolled down into rural suburbia, where the snow ended, the sun was shining and most people were dressed casually. The mountain chill was still with me and my parka and ski goggles stayed in place.

Finally, I got to the shoreline, where I parked my bike to go touch the water. Little wavelets were coming in golden on the afternoon sun — above them the luminous slopes of Baker. A stipe of bull kelp startled me when it popped beneath my ski boot. Funny that not long ago I had been at almost 6,000 feet in the snow world. Tragically, the view to the top of Blue Mountain was clear as crystal.

I sighed. Maybe next time.

I got a second glance when a passing biker saw me, still in a parka, still in ski goggles.

“Hey!” I almost shouted. “I know I this looks crazy, but I was really using this stuff! I was skiing two hours ago.” 

I saved my breath. She probably would have thought I was crazy anyway.

Back at sea level

Tom's On The Move Has Moved

                                               
Howdy readers,

If you've reached this page looking for awesome new Tom's On The Move content, do not be afraid.

There's plenty more stuff, it just ain't here anymore.

I finally got around to getting my own website. It's tomsonthemove.com. Basically, it's the same thing as before, but I nixed the ".blogspot" out of the web address. It cost me over a hundred bucks for the privilege, but I thought I might do better pitching my writing to folks if I had a more professional-looking website. Of course, as for whether the writing itself becomes that much more compelling, that's for you to judge.

I've enjoyed all the feedback that I've had from readers, and consider myself lucky to have so many people take an interest in my doings. Thanks for sticking with me.

This is my 99th post here. Imagine that!

Keep reading,
Tom

The Last Miles

The clouds break.

Paths of sunlight fall to the damp moss.

Whose golden breath

Billows up from a chalice of shadowed pines?

October 8, 2013 — halfway between Seattle and Portland, Ore.

I stood for several minutes atop the highway overpass.

Lanes of rush hour on Interstate 5 traffic screamed down the tarmac and beneath my feet, swarming out of the city like hornets from a nest.

The lanes into the city were gridlocked in a river of taillights.

The Seattle skyline glinted dull orange in the hazy, late-day light. Its skyscrapers could have been alien sentinels, some metal form of life tapping an invisible energy out of the atmosphere.

Still the cars came, dashing for the suburbs. Maybe some of them had been through California, covering the same number of miles that had taken me almost a month, in a couple days.

Mt. Ranier towered above it all, the epitome of massiveness. The volcanic cone begins almost at sea level, then climbs to over 14,000 feet above the proud city.

A narrow ring of forest circled the base of the beast followed by two vertical miles of snow and ice, set ablaze in brilliant, pinkish hues.

I stayed for a couple days in Seattle, crashing at a friend’s place in the University District. Between the steep streets and my crappy brakes, I had plenty of excitement on the hills. In one instance, I used my shoe to drag myself to a stop along the pavement right before I went careening through an intersection.

Eventually, I managed to get an appointment at a bike shop, where I paid to have my gears fixed too.

Maybe I needed some repair as well. My knee had started jabbing little pain tweaks at me every time I turned the pedals. I had less energy when I got on the bike than I’d had at the start of the ride. Fatigue set in as soon as I started going anywhere.

I realized that I was lonely most of the time. Somehow, I hadn’t been psychologically prepared for solitude, especially not as I carried feelings from a dwindling relationship. They lingered. They knocked around my cranium as I tried to think of other things.

Coming into the city was a welcome break from the tedious miles that I’d spent alone. My friend Josh must have worried when it began to get dark and I still hadn’t showed up at his apartment. Seattle may be a bike friendly town, but I found its suburbs to be pure hell.

A highway that I’d planned to take into town turned out to be a four-lane behemoth with on ramps and a steady flow of traffic. My atlas didn’t have detail maps for the area immediately outside the city, so I used guesswork instead. I kept my compass needle pointing south and followed a river, thinking that it would take me to a familiar landmark. It took me to a dead end, forcing me to retrace my steps for three miles.

The burbs gave way to another highway, then more burbs and more hills.

All the other cyclists had turned on their flashers to make themselves more visible to traffic. I had my reflective vest and that was it.

Seattle had to live up to its reputation, of course, and it started raining. Gouts of water ran down the streets, reflecting the neon storefronts and headlights. Cars whirled around a traffic circle in a malicious carnival as I feebly attempted to get around.

Finally, I hit a bike path and promptly lost 20 minutes pedaling around a big loop. By the time I figured out the route it was full night with miles to go. A steady stream of city bicyclists whirled by me, their lights coming up quiet and ghostly through the trees.

Hope sprung when I realized that I was crossing the Washington University campus. I couldn’t have been far from Josh’s apartment. My phone rang right then. Josh wanted to know just where the hell I was. I told him.

“Hold on a second man; I’ll come out and find you.”

He came out and found me.

I bummed around the city over four or five days, taking walks, playing music with Josh and his friends, enjoying local beer and food.

I also got to see my friends Rachel and Dustin who had just moved to the area from Wyoming. I didn’t want to break my own-month streak of not using motorized transport, so I ended up pedaling up to their place in Lynnwood. I went back to Seattle the next day and got a flat — the first on my trip. Luckily, I was near a bike shop where I got it taken care of. It was pretty lazy, considering that I had the gear to do the job, but I wasn’t in the mood for the time and effort, nor the possibility that I would screw something up.

Later, I met Rachel and Dustin at the state park along Puget Sound. They’d brought bicycles so we could pedal around together. We ended up sitting on a driftwood log by the beach with the Olympic Peaks in front of us across the water and Mt. Ranier rising behind us and to the south. It occurred to me that I’d never swum in the Pacific Ocean before, so I stripped down to my running shorts and took the plunge. The rush of cold was a welcome stimulant, so was the warm prickly feeling on my skin as I boogied out of the water. Aside from a mild brain freeze, I felt great.

It might have been best to call the trip right then.

Even before I started this trip back in Utah, I’d decided that I could be satisfied with Seattle — even though my full plan called for going down through Oregon and eventually coming back to my start point at the boathouse in Jensen.

I looked at myself and asked how much more I was really capable of doing.

“Well, I could at least make it as Oregon,” I thought.

Some family friends, Mike and Margie, lived in Eugene. Mike, who knew I was a runner, said it was basically required for me to see Hayward Field, the most famous track in America, home of Steve Prefontaine amongst other running legends.

I left Seattle the next afternoon. My course took me beneath the Space Needle, then along the waterfront. People were in their summer clothes, strolled out among the ships and docks, soaking up the October sun.

I made several miles of progress along bike paths, followed by suburban streets. There were several hills along the water that afforded spectacular views of the breakers coming in along the miles of shore. Having a new set of brake pads added peace of mind on the down grades. 

I ended up quitting early at a state campground, then going through Tacoma the next day.

The rain started when I was pedaling along the shipyards along the sound, let up around noon, then poured with gusto as I entered the forest. The knee tweak pinged each time I turned the pedals over.

There was only a light wind, but I could barely make the bike move against it. I swore like a madman, trying to make my legs work when nothing else would.

Sign near Elbe, Washington (transcribed approximately):

Mt. Ranier Closed.

Thanks Federal Government.

Let’s take your paycheck and give you an IOU.

I could have quit at a campsite near a reservoir, but decided paying the $15 fee would be a cop out with all the national forest land nearby. Plus, I’d barely done half the miles I’d planned for that day. I pushed five more miles to a forest road and ended up camping by a stream in a soaking hollow.

It was misting gently the next morning. The temperature must have been in the 30s and I couldn’t get my hands warm for the life of me, not even when I wore all my laters and pedaled myself into a sweat.

“I’m going to quit in Portland,” I kept repeating to myself. The idea of getting off the bike for good was a comforting one.

To celebrate my capitulation, I pulled into a rest area and sat inside for two hours, downing hot coffees and eating frantically as it misted outside.

“Fuck this trip.”

I walked outside with the food and coffee lurching inside my belly. It was kind of enjoyable to hate every moment of the ride. Once I accepted that every mile would be shit, I was rarely disappointed. What would be next? Sleet? Some dickhead trucker splashing me with a wall of dirty water?

The cloud break to the south gave me pause. The sun shone down in golden beams above a bowl in the hills, illuminating drifting whorls of steam. It looked like someone’s breath coming out of the hills. I knew I had to shut up for a second and appreciate it.

I had become regimental about enjoying such moments, taking them in the way some people pop vitamins. It felt like they were keeping me sane. If I didn’t make an effort to appreciate them, I would go pedaling right past in an unbroken string of miseries.

It occurred to me that this was the way to get through life itself. Most people’s lives are a train of tedious tasks, insults, and thwarted expectations.

Amidst this, the clouds will break sometimes. Seize that moment! Cherish it and hold it close, just as you would cherish someone close to you.

If I could remember these moments, better yet, to write them honestly, perhaps some of this trip would be worth salvaging.

5 p.m. light.

The rain wet fields

Behind the tractors

Set ablaze.

Each blade of grass

A green flame.

I couldn’t decide if aiming for occasional happiness was a realistic goal or depressing defeatism.

I camped out in a strand of trees by the highway.

The next day, I hoped to make it across to Oregon, if not to Portland. I began to think about whether I could make it the rest of the way to Eugene.

Such thoughts faded when I woke up to yet another cold, misty morning. The route took me to the west side of Interstate 5. It was a straight shot down from there to the Columbia River where I would cross into Oregon.

Even so, there were plenty of hours of biking ahead.

The blue sky broke through the clouds. This would be a lovely time, I thought, to munch on those graham crackers I just purchased.

I pulled of the road, enjoying the pastoral environment. Suddenly two other bikes came down the hill. They had panniers clipped to the side to hold gear — like they planned on traveling a long way.

“Howdy,” I said.

“How’s it going man?” the lead bike asked.

“Not too bad.”

“Where you headed?”

“Portland.”

The bikes slowed.

“Do you want some graham crackers?” I offered.

They swung around.

Mike and Cree were also going to Portland. From there, they planned to bike down through California and then power east all the way back to Kentucky where they’d grown up. If this wasn’t ambitious enough, come spring they planned to start along the Appalachian Trail.

Like me, they were four days out of Seattle. Cree had worked at a bike shop — a useful guy to have on this kind of trip. His bike was loaded down with a couple dozen pounds of repair gear.

Mike, an ex-coast guard guy, had been reading up on survival knowledge.

We agreed to ride together as far as Portland where they would split off on the way to Hood River, which was further east. I still wasn’t sure if I would have it in me to pedal all the way to Eugene.

Of course now that I’d agreed to bike with them, it meant I had to keep up. The two set a brisk pace that kept me working. I didn’t want to drop out though. It was the first time on the damn trip that I’d had any company on the road.

We cruised into a town where the boys were jonesing for some Wendy’s. Our bikes blitzed through several intersections, and bounced up onto sidewalks as one of them checked his smart phone to confirm the directions.

There was an A&W that was close by, so we parked our bikes their and ate outside. I had fries with root beer, while the others gobbled down grease bomb sandwiches.

All of us decided it’d be a good plan to hit a Safeway to restock our supplies. It would be a mundane detail if not for the fact that we saw two other bikes with panniers outside the store. They were an Aussie and a Canadian pedaling from British Columbia to San Diego. The two were logging 100+ mile days — more ambitious than the three of us who were more in the 50 to 60 mile range now. It was probably best to let them beast it down to Portland, while we would hang back and camp somewhere between Portland and the Oregon border.

A bunch of teens were out of the local high school on lunch break.

“Where are you guys coming from?” one shouted.

“I’m coming outa, Utah. “ I shouted, “but these two bros are going all the way to Kentucky!”

The chorus of whoas and holy shits brought a smile to my face.

A long steel-truss bridge spanned the river between Washington and Oregon.

The group of us pedaled like hell up the span, only a couple of feet from heavy car and truck traffic on our left. Big chunks of bark off of logging trucks littered the breakdown lane, forcing us to bounce over them or weave hazardously around.

From the crossing, our road went east. It wasn’t too late in the day, but no one had a problem with quitting early before we came into Portland.

We ended up at a state park where camping was prohibited and the woods were full of poison oak anyway.

The park caretaker recommended a $5 a night place at a marina two miles down the road. Sold!

We were pedaling back for the road, when I heard a groaning from the back of my bike. I got off and found that part of my rack was rubbing against my rear wheel.

Cursing generously, I tried to bend it out of the way. Eventually, Cree managed to undo the bolts that held the rack in place. We tied it off to a different place using cord, hoping that it would remain in position, away from the wheel.

Our camp area adjoined a convenience store and some moorings. 10-story ships would come chugging down the river, trailing enormous wakes.

We enjoyed some beers out of the convenience store while one of my new friends hollowed out an apple.

“You know that’s not legal on this side of the river,”

“I’m not too worried about it? Want some?”

“Sure.”

Cree and Mike were taking a smell the roses approach to the trip, planning several stops along the way. They figured if they took it easy, they’d have a better chance to stick with it. Considering the state I was in, I thought this made a lot of sense. Since they were south, they hoped to avoid the time pressure of an encroaching winter, though I was sure they’d have a cold time for some of their journey.

We took a leisurely start the next morning. It was ironic that now that I planned to kill the trip, I felt unusually energetic. Some of this could have been Cree putting the proper amount of air in the tires — something that I’d overlooked because I’d gotten used to squeezing them in a slightly under-inflated state. I stayed up with Cree and Mike no problem and genuinely enjoyed pedaling.

We grabbed some street food and ate it near the riverfront. They still planned to high-tail it on the way to Hood River, though they would need to haul serious ass if they planned to make it by nightfall. I had my eye on a campground south of town. Yes, I’d changed my mind again, deciding that I might as well take my push all the way to Eugene.

I pedaled up the thoroughfare out of town only to have the groan come back again. The bike lurched and I got off to the side to try and fix things. Try as I might to wrangle the rack into a decent position, it seemed all the more determined to rub the tire. I must have spent the good part of an hour trying to fix things, then said to hell with it.

I posted up for the night at a cheap motel, handing the manager my debit card in disgust. I called my friend Mike in Eugene to see if he’d be willing to take me in if I came in on a bus the following night. He was game, and better yet, excited to have me down there.

If there was anything I felt at the end of the journey, it was relief to have it over. There was some regret, like I’d bowed out but there was also the relief that I cold get on with life. Along the way, I’d envied people I saw working in stores or having a day out with friends, just living their lives without the compulsion to break themselves on some kind of hard-core trip.

I pedaled back into Portland the next day to see about getting a bus. The rack kept rubbing against the bars, and I had to keep readjusting. As I crossed one street, I heard something honk behind me, a trolley bearing down right at me. As I whirled to steer away, my tire caught on the tracks, sending me flopping onto the pavement. I grabbed the bike and dragged myself away quick as possible, though the trolley stopped before it reached the point where it would have flattened me.

There was a stab of pain, in my rib, definitely a bruise.

Someone helped right my bike.

“Are you alright?” he asked.

“I’ll make it,” I said.

I got on the bike and almost flopped over again. The pedals just spun in place without turning the wheels.

I dismounted, and started pushing the bike toward the train station.

The trip was over.