A trip with no plan

We smiled as we headed northwest, to Washington and Oregon. The skies were clearing as we left behind the rainy desert southwest. We smiled at the irony. We smiled at being on the road, with unknown adventure ahead.

Eszter had been recruited for a stage race in Bellingham. That was the excuse for the trip. The goals were simple and stated before we left:

1) spend time together
2) have fun
3) attend the race

That was about as precisely as we stated it. There was no plan. No itinerary. A rough idea that we’d travel in one big loop, discovering and hitting things in succession, but we didn’t really know what those things would be, or how long we’d stay in location A or forest B. We’d just make it up as we went.

We did, at the last moment, purchase a tent from REI. It was a good ‘plan’ since we used it nearly every night, and mostly at free sites. The pacific northwest is full of forest and thus, free camping. That makes it an ideal road tripping destination.

Well, that, and that there is much to do and see:

My friend Martin was kind enough to guide me around the Chuckanut Mountains on race weekend.

training for goat packing!

When I told him I couldn’t ride until 11:30, he was disappointed in only having ~10 hours of usable daylight to ride (!). So he warmed up on a couple hours of riding at Galbraith before meeting me.

my first taste of the Pacific Northwest Trail was a delicious one

Martin loves long rides and loves exploration. Check out his blog for detailed accounts on many rarely or never ridden trails in the PNW.

Thar be strange creatures in the forest.

So excite! So excite! Our first ever PNT blaze, and a section along the coast where bikes are allowed.

This trail system (Ft. Ebey) was a great tip we got from a scuba diver holding a giant Cod he has just shot with a harpoon.

Ah, the deep and dark forests of the Olympic Peninsula.

The Dungeness river wreaked some havoc with the trail here.

Good chance this gem of a trail (Gold Creek) will be a part of PNT-bike, and it’s on the Olympic 420, too.

Most of the peninsula is National Park or Wilderness. Luckily our bodies contained a meager ability to travel by foot (in the case of my IT bands, very meager).

This trail run brought us to…

Olympic hot springs! Good therapy for tight and grumpy IT bands, or so I told myself.

We were blessed with clear weather on Hurricane Ridge.

Blessed with an empty dirt road that rolls along the spine, presenting huge views of the Olympics.

The dirt road was good, but the ridgeline trails were even better.

Yep, like that.

This scene pretty accurately describes the Olympic Discovery Trail’s ‘adventure’ route. It’s as effortless and buffed a trail as I’ve ever ridden. AZT hero and local Ron Thomson joined us on his singlespeed, humoring us by turning around short of the full 50 mile distance. Effortless trail or no, we still have to conserve our energy.

For things like a beach run/walk in the park.

And exploring the Hoh rainforest.

Curiously, it wasn’t raining.

Such a fascinating place.

So different than the desert southwest.

Running to another beautiful waterfall, after a soak and quiet night in the tent at Sol Duc hotsprings.

2nd attempt at motivating to climb Mt. Mueller. We thought our lucky streak with the weather had run up, and that we’d just be in the clouds the entire time.

Not so! We climbed 3000 feet and above the cloud ceiling. Hey look, it’s Mt. Olympus!

The return trail was a mini rainforest, and open to bikes. Simply beautiful.

We got to ride a ferry over to Seattle to visit my sister, eat good food, wander along the beach and also visit Martin. Then we boogied out of Seattle before the traffic buried us.

Hashtag #coffeeoutside. We needed some rejuvenation after our only real consequence of not planning things: a late night drive in the hard rain, hoping to reach forest service land sooner than later. Not a bad price to pay for all the wonderful things that fell in our lap and worked out perfectly.

Like skipping out on rainy riding at Mt. St. Helen’s one day, only to find a quiet campsite and the “Ape Cave” lava tubes to explore.

The next day we would have our chance at St. Helens, climbing good trail up to the “Plains of Abraham.”

This ride left us speechless and was the highlight of the whole trip.

Maybe it was because of the views, views that reminded us of the desert.

Or maybe it was uniqueness of riding on an active volcano. Through landscape destroyed (or perhaps, better, changed) by the awesome forces of nature.

Perhaps it was that the riding was so fun, particularly the pumice-rut descending.

That this area and these trails are open to bikes is a gift. Everyone should go ride the Ape Canyon / Smith Creek loop, if at *all* possible.

In Hood River we were skunked out of a hot spring attempt due to the river flowing too high, but an interwebs tip led us to Surveyor’s ridge. It was a ride with fairly low effort level and killer views of Mt. Hood.

Another trailhead tip led us to running to Tamanawas Falls, and finally, to Smith Rock park.

Where our feet allowed us to climb trail like this.

From a different angle.

We had wanted to explore Bend, Oakridge, Umpqua, et cetera. But we were out of time. Our 3 weeks were up, so we pointed the van eastward, making camp at a small hot spring on an island that we only knew about from the book we’d purchased on the trip.

And then we were back in Salt Lake — dry and exploding with green from all the rain.

I feel very lucky to have experienced this corner of the world in such a rewarding way, and with such great company. We couldn’t have asked for better weather, luck or a better plan. Couldn’t have planned it better if we’d tried. (With much thanks to friends, family and strangers that made suggestions or helped out along the way).

We were able to see and do a lot in a small amount of time…. thanks largely to internal combustion and our trusty new REI tent. It was definitely the taste of the northwest we needed to whet our appetite.

We’ll be back, soon, and this time traveling by bike. Can’t wait.