Snoqualmie Ridge to Easton

May 8 - 47 miles. 7 hours. Yes......7 hours.

The next morning Bunny and Poodle took me back to the scene of the blood sacrifice. I got back on the bike and rapidly descended from Snoqualmie Ridge into North Bend. In an ideal world I would have had enough time and energy to finish yesterday's ride here. If you haven't spent any time in North Bend, please make time. The downtown corridor is idyllic with its boardwalks and shops. I highly recommend making time/planning to stop here to enjoy the community.

Leaving North Bend I traversed a number of pastoral fields and bleated at some baby goats as I made my way to Rattlesnake Lake/the trail head for the Palouse to Cascade Trail. At the parking lot, Bunny informed me that there was a trail closure due to a land slide. The detour involved about a 5 mile ride along I-90 and I just wasn't ready for that mentally, so I loaded the bike into the van and Bunny and Poodle took me to the Mt. Washington trailhead.

This isn't the slide at Rattlesnake lake, it's just another place where the directed course needed to be 'overcome'.

Google maps informed me that I should ride about 3/4 of a mile and then 'squiggle' around the forest for a moment, and then I would find myself back on the Palouse to Cascade trail and could begin my ascent to Snoqualmie pass.

But that squiggle turned out to another opportunity to hike-a-bike up an enormously steep path. This ordeal was made slightly more frustrating by getting passed by a young hiker who looked back and said....'You know...for next time...there's a bike path about a mile 'that way'. <points in random direction>.

I take my bike off my shoulder and say, "Thanks, but there probably won't be a next time."

"Okay!" he says, and saunters up the hill like a mountain goat. I put the bike back on my shoulder and trudge along behind.

The squiggle in the forrest.

Maybe this conveys 'steepness' better?

Perhaps this looks dramatic? A contrast of light and dark. Really, I'm just out of breath again. Taking a picture lets me rest.

After a strenuous huff and puff....I mean hike-a-bike....I finally arrived at the beginning of the trestle bridge. I was greeted by more mountain goats who were also amused by my carrying a bicycle up a hiking path. But they were too busy filming themselves doing mountain goat things to point in the now obvious direction of the bike path that could have gotten me here.

These are mountain goats. Work with me here.

And so the ascent to Snoqualmie pass began. The grade is not particularly steep. I can ride up it at about 6-7 mph, but the effort required makes by thighs and quads burn pretty quickly and I find myself changing position between upright, to flat bars, to aerobars rapidly. My process for riding up the pass quickly devolves into mental games where I try to do a half mile in each position and then walk for 5 minutes. I'm making deals with myself where I can have another Gu chomp when I complete another mile.

Just another random view before hitting the top of Snoqualmie Pass

The time spent in each position shortens to 1/4 miles. Then to minutes. Eventually I think I'm spending 1 out of every 8 minutes walking. It was exhausting but through perseverance I got to the top and I rode through 'THE TUNNEL'.

Pacific Northwest and/or Seattle natives may be aware of this tunnel. Particularly if they are into distance running or multisport. At Snoqualmie Pass, the train track passes through the mountain for 2 miles. At first glance into the tunnel, I thought I was seeing a distant reflector indicating where the tunnel turns within the mountain. But no, that tiny little spark of light is the light than can be seen at the far end of the tunnel.

Lake Keechelus from the South

At the exit to the tunnel is the Hyak trail head, which is a great place to stop, take care of biological needs and sigh with a misguided sense of relief because the hard part of the day is over. Or is it?

Up to this point I've been riding on a strange combination of tires for entirely stupid reasons. The rear tire is a Continental 'Gatorskin' 23mm road tire. These have always been my 'go to' tire for road riding and multisport. During the Olympic peninsula leg of this journey the stock....and I do mean stock....as in 15+ years old...rear tire popped innertubes twice. After the second tube popped I decided the old tire was dead and needed to be replaced with a new-ish 'Gatorskin' I had laying around. The front tire remained a stock but very old Schwalbe 28mm tire.

All of this is relevant because shortly after taking the picture of Lake Keechelus above, I got a rear flat again. In the beginning of dusk it was hard to find where the leak was in the tube, so I installed a brand new innertube and continued on for another 4 or 5 miles. Then I flatted again.

The trail surface after the top of the pass gets pretty rocky. Something like 1" minus compressed for those of you who have ever done land scaping, but I had just rolled through a construction are that was building new road and the surface I rode over was more like 1.5" minus uncompressed and clearly I should be riding on mountain bike/gravel tires by this point. The road tires are just getting beat to death.

From the beginning it had been my intention to have road wheels and gravel wheels for the bike, and swap between them when appropriate. I just hadn't realized that I'd arrived at a place where switching would have been appropriate. So, my advice, ride what you like from the Coast to the top of Snoqualmie Pass, but switch of gravel/off road tires at the top of the pass.

This would be way more beautiful to my eye if I didn't know I had a flat tire when I took the picture.

The second flat was demoralizing. It started as a slow leak and I tried to keep pressure in the tire every mile of so by pumping the tire up again, but 2 miles short of my destination, just as I crossed the Yakima river, the second innertube gave up. I walked the remaining 2 miles to camp at the edge of Lake Easton.

Lake Easton at Dusk

Bunny and Poodle walked to backward along the edge of Lake Easton to meet up with me and then walked the final mile back to camp with me. Morale support like this is critical.