John Wayne Trail 2014: Day 4

Between trains and deer, I didn't sleep great in Marengo

I was a little bit sleepy but feeling good the next morning. I tend to wake up early and was on my bike just before sunrise. It was another beautiful day full of promise!

I hit 100 miles pretty early that morning!

This was my last day of dry farms and pastures

In the late morning, I came across a really interesting dilemma. There was a large valley where a bridge used to be. The bridge was gone and the valley was now fenced in for cattle pasture. I got to climb over some barbed-wired fences with my bike, scale the valley wall, and cross through the cattle. When I got to the other side of the valley, it was way too steep to be climbing with a bike, so I followed a gravel road until it brought me back near my trail. Then, I cut through to continue my journey. That was a first for me!

There should be a bridge here

My bike is leaning against a foot of the old bridge

Not gonna carry my bike up that!

Cool of railroad signal

That elevator is Ralston

Resting in the shade

 As I approached Lind, I took to the empty road that was parallel to my bumpy trail. It was a nice break and my butt appreciated the pampering.

Is he waving at me?

I would love to go to this event one day!

In Lind, I bought lots of snacks at the local grocery store! Milk, Ice Cream, JoJos, Chips, and more. I also bought safety pins to fix the old backpack I had been give. Then I rested at the park and went to the public pool to cool down in the early afternoon. It was an amazing oasis in the miles of dry farming going on everywhere.

Stores mean cold food and drink

Backpack started to fall apart

Went swimming here

Took a short nap here after pigging out

I chose to take a road out of town because it was parallel to the trail and the trail was rough, with some major missing bridges. The upside of using roads was their smoothness. The downside was that they were terribly graded for biking, going up and down continually.

This was a BIG hill... I am talking miles long

One last look at golden wheat farms before irrigation in Warden

What a sunset!

Hurrying into town before dark

I finally arrived for dinner at Warden. It is a small farming community north of Othello. I pulled into a Subway on my bike and asked about places to camp. A nice guy across the counter suggested that I not sleep in any public park as there had been gang related activity in the past. I was going to find a spot behind a church but he made a call and asked if I would mind staying on a farm for the night. I was game! A couple hours later, I was taking a shower and getting into a real bed. What a great ending to a nice day!

John Wayne Trail 2014: Day 3

Heading toward Rock Lake

I woke to a beautiful morning and got started! I was excited to make up for my first two days, which were very disappointing with reference to the distance I covered. This day, I covered a solid 70 miles and enjoyed them all!

Beautiful sunrise

The trail from Malden to Rock Lake was amazing! I rode through small herds of cattle as the trail became more and more rocky.

Cattle gates that were luckily unlocked

A view from a bridge over the creek flowing into Rock Lake

 

An old derailed train car on the side of a bridge

I passed over a few old bridges and a tunnel as I approached the lake. Because I was in a canyon of sorts, it was a comfortable and cool morning.

My first tunnel... they are DARK!

I was told by my friends in Malden that many ranchers dislike the trial. It has not been used or developed in a long time and cuts through their lands. Apparently, they even tried to bury it at one point. The picture below shows where they used dynamite to blast down a rock wall across the trail. I carried my bike across and continued.

Climbing over these rocks with a bike was kind of fun

After the tunnel and rock slide, I got a chance to herd deer! The trail ran along the south side of the lake between water and canyon wall. I came upon a few deer and they ran ahead of me for about 5 minutes. It was a strange experience to herd deer like cattle along the trail!

There were old half-rotted bridges with decent falls below them

My new setup!

Trying to take a selfie in front of Rock Lake... too bright!

When I got to the south side of Rock lake, I started a tradition that I observe to this day on all trips. I filled my hat with cool water and dumped it onto my head. I strongly suggest that you try this on any hot day, It is a great way to cool off. I got 2 more flats not long after that.

Happy to be here!

 

A nice shady resting spot

Around noon, I arrived at a kiosk near a grain elevator. Tried to take a nap in the shade of the kiosk but I soon found that it was infested with yellow-jackets. When they started to land on me, I got up and continued to the grain elevator. I was invited in to chat, offered lunch, and had a great time! We talked for a few hours before I continued on my way!

Darn Yellow-jackets! At least it isn't far to the grain elevator.

Lunch of champions!

This is some of my favorite scenery of the trip

The rest of my day was just amazing! I made great mileage because the trail used to be a railroad so it is very flat! It cut through gorgeous plains as far as the eye could see. I saw plenty of hawks and eagles, a couple coyotes, and tons of deer.

As evening approached, I heard packs of dogs or wolves howling all over the place. I found that disconcerting and made tracks for the next man-made location on my map. That turned out to be a grain silo on the side of railroad tracks. There were a doe and fawn wandering around eating grain off the ground. I was sorry to scare them away but I didn't feel like sleeping elsewhere.

Another great sunset

At about 2 in the morning, I was awakened to the sound of hooves charging. I could see absolutely nothing in the dark but I could hear something running toward me. Just as it sounded like the animal was going to hit me, it stopped and made a strange yelling sound. It was the deer trying to scare me away from her and her baby's feeding area. I had no idea how territorial deer can be! I flashed my light at the deer to confuse it and eventually it stopped and I got back to sleep. In the morning, the mother and baby came back as I was leaving... no harm done!

John Wayne Trail 2014: Day 2

I began my second day a little bit frustrated that I had spent so much time fixing my bike rack and so little time actually riding. I finally fixed up my rack in a more permanent way using the zip ties I had acquired the previous evening at the Brass Rail.

Thank God for zip ties!

I was feeling great! I snapped a few pictures on the way out of town.

Old church full of birds

Thanks Rosalia!

All was going well! Then reality caught up with me a few miles out of town. A small screw that connected the rack to my rear tire hub rattled loose. The rack leaned to the right and the metal support slipped down and started clicking against my rear spokes. I had brought replacements but not many. I couldn't replace a screw every 40-50 miles of the trail! I also got my first flat tire. These were demoralizing events! By the time I got to Malden, I had lost two screws and I felt I might need to quit.

The first of many locked gates I had to climb over

Cool canyon on my way into Malden

  I called home and nearly asked for a ride home but received the encouragement that I needed. I chose to see if there were any resources I could use in the Malden area. I found the nicest family! We chatted all evening, ate dinner, and got the bike working again. We found screws for extra replacements and super-glued the screws in the bike. They also gave me an old backpack and I took most of the weight off the rear bike rack. It was a wonderful blessing!

Malden Post Office

Watched a beautiful sunset from City Hall

I was told that I could sleep on the lawn behind Malden's City Hall, a portable building that also housed the library. I slept well and was excited to give things another go the next day. I didn't know it at the time, but I had made it through the hardest part of my trip. After Malden, things got gradually easier.

John Wayne Trail 2014: Day 1

My first day on the trail was something of an emotional roller-coaster. In fact, I nearly quit at the end of the second day! But I am getting ahead of myself.

Beginning my journey

Since my wife was out of town, my mother was kind enough to drive me to the boarder of Idaho and drop me off just NE of Tekoa, WA. We had a wonderful drive, talking about life, family, God, and why this trip was an important thing. It is a weird feeling being dropped in the middle of nowhere and starting a long solo trip. While the plan is obvious, I always feel strange and wonder if I am really gonna make it. The silence is a shock! That shock mixes with excitement into a bit of a heady cocktail. Anyway, mom dropped me off after a good 8 hours of driving and I was on my own.

It was August 1st and it was hot! Just how hot it was did not really register until the afternoon when I really started to feel it and my first bike issue occurred in the middle of nowhere.

Thanks for the ride and the prayers, mom!

 The first day of riding started nicely. I quickly arrived at the border and snapped a picture. Then I managed to find my way past an old bridge in Tekoa and back to the trail on the other side.

Goodbye Idaho!

This bridge was the first of many trail-finding opportunities on the east side of the state.

After Tekoa, I spent virtually all day in dry exposed expanses of wheat fields... except one memorable encounter. Just outside of the town, I came across a short section that was shady, a little swampy, and overgrown with grass (in the picture below). I had to dismount and push the bike because grass was wrapping around the pedals. The moment I stopped, a large moose jumped out of the shade and stood about 20 feet away looking at me. I was scared to death! If that moose had decided to, it could have messed me up very badly but it chose to leave. You can just see its head in the picture below as it is leaving. This encounter was really strange because this is a tiny dell. On the other side of the trees are golden wheat fields as far as the eye can see... which made me wonder what a moose was doing so far from any real forest!

Can you spot the moose?

 Not long after the moose encounter, a bolt on my bike rack stripped and the rack started rubbing on my rear wheel. I had stupidly put a lot of weight onto a cheap bike rack on a gravel road and I quickly learned the consequences of that! Because the bolt was stripped, I could not fix it with tools. I ended up using my bandana and some sticks to tie around the problem spot and tighten it like a tourniquet. It got me to Rosalia but just barely!

There were many old bridge trestles. I would have to off-road it to the other side.

Did I mention it was hot?

 After a long day of worrying about my less-than-functional bike, I made it to Rosalia. There, I got a cool drink, some food, and made some local friends... one of whom had some spare zip-ties among the tools in his truck. He was a life-saver!

If you are ever in Rosalia, get a bite at the Brass Rail!

 The local crowd told me that I could probably set up a tent at the battlefield memorial on top of their highest hill. It was a beautiful place to sleep, especially when there were lightning storms in the distance to watch that night!

The Steptoe Battlefield Monument where I camped

Eastern Washington is gorgeous!

John Wayne Trail 2014: Pre-trip

 Riding on the trail at the Idaho Border

 The 2013-2014 year was my first year teaching. It had been a rough one, with many a 60+ hour week. While my wife was off singing music in England, I decided to try something new: I would ride my bike across Washington from Idaho to the Pacific coast. I had read up on the John Wayne trail across most of Washington and decided it was worth giving a try, particularly because riding on roads scares me!

This was my first major trip as well as my first time traveling a long distance by bike... and boy did I learn a lot! Any person who has taken a long trip that is self-supported will tell you: It is impossible to be truly prepared for everything that will come up! We simply plan our best, begin the trip, and take the rest of the adventure as it comes.


To the left, is a picture of my gear... it was way more than I needed... also more than the bike could carry. More on that later. But I come from a boy scout background and I like to prepare for things. The trick with biking is knowing how fast you will go... it is quite possible to carry almost no food and bike fast enough to eat exclusively in towns if you know your pace (still bring food just in case). But I didn't know my pace. I had never done this before.


Just to show that I really didn't know what I was doing and it still worked out, I will list some of my mistakes.



Mistakes I made:

1. I started in August on a HOT year in eastern Washington. It was very uncomfortable!

2. I bought my bike for $150 on Craigslist and fixed it up myself. It worked out fine but could have been a disaster in the heat.

3. I bought my rear bike rack at Target and proceeded to put a lot of weight on it while mountain biking on a rough gravel road. I have nothing against Target but they themselves would admit their bike racks are not meant to be used that way... this decision caught up with me very fast!

4. I "winged it" when finding places to camp, never getting reservations beforehand and not doing much research... this got difficult on the west side of the state where there are a lot more people.

I made many more mistakes... but life went on and I learned. I want to encourage anyone who dreams of going on a biking or hiking trip that you don't have to figure everything out beforehand! You don't have to start out as a pro. All you really have to do it plan well enough that you don't injure yourself or die. Anything else that happens is part of learning the ropes. And the payoff of taking scary risks like this is often really a wonderful thing! So go for it like I did!

Posing for a picture on the beach in La Push

About me

Hello! My name is Joel, although  I go by "Scoutleader" when long distance hiking... it is a long story that will be told later. I have lived a blessed life!

I have been married - for quite a few years at this point - to my childhood sweetheart, Laura. Isn't she pretty? We have had many adventures together and share many interests. We are both musicians, although I now spend most of my time teaching High School math classes.

We have spent many years in college, studying hard and counting pennies. I worked my way through my math degree as a professional accompanist/piano teacher and a math tutor down in Indiana. That is when the urge to go outside and see all the world had to offer became important to me. You see, we both grew up in the Northwest. We saw mountains, rivers, the ocean, and wildlife all of the time and barely gave it a second thought. But in the mid-west we both really started missing all of those things; especially when we were usually locked in practice rooms all day long. I am sure that anyone who works in an office all of the time can sympathize.
 
Anyway,  we both chose to move back to the Portland area. I took a math job, and needed something to dream about since most of my musical dreams required more time than I had to give. So I have done something challenging every summer. Laura had her own dreams about hiking and we were lucky enough to do a large section of the PCT together. That was a few years ago and there are many stories to tell... so things will be post-dated for a while. 

I am thankful each day for the beautiful world that I live in, for the healthy body God has given me, and that I live in a time and situation that allows me to experience so many things just for the joy of it! I don't want to waste a moment of this life, whether working or playing. Life is so short and so precious and there is far more out there to see and do than I can ever get around to! It is an overwhelming truth at times. I will finish this post with a poem that I really love despite it's mild morbidity. When I think of the size of the earth, of the beauty of a spring morning, of the slow rhythm of the earth, I am reminded what a short life I live. In that light, I try not to live my life worrying about the future of the world, my mortgage, and having a nice car. Rather, I want to live abundantly, sharing beautiful moments with others, achieving things I can be proud of, and stopping every once in a while to recognize all of the ways that God has blessed me.

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now,

Is hung with bloom along the bough,

And stands about the woodland ride,

Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now, of my three-score years and ten,

Twenty will not come again, 

And take from seventy years a score,

It only leaves me fifty more.

And since, to look at things in bloom, 

Fifty springs are little room, 

About the woodlands I will go

To see the cherry hung with snow.

- E.A. Housman