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We only spent 1 day and travelled 35 miles in Idaho
We were just on the northern tip of Idaho, a lovely area of mountains,pine forests, and lakes. It is logging country. We also did some time travel and moved into Pacific time. There were a lot of these nests alongside Lake Pend Oreille and there was at least one chick in most of them.
We treated ourselves to a big breakfast and got some useful information on our intended route from the locals. It was a case of hello and goodbye to Idaho but we enjoyed speaking to the locals and liked what we saw.We spent 9 days and travelled 328 miles in Washington.
We arrived in Ione on the weekend of their Down by the River celebrations, there was a full program over the weekend so we squeezed our tent into a corner of a very crowded camp site and waited for the fun to begin. The weather is still unusually hot, so it was nice to have a soak in the river, before the Wake Boarders kicked of the entertainment. The things those guys and girls can do is amazing. There was a pipe band, craft stalls and games, most of which involved water, one way or another. During the evening there was live music well into the wee small hours. The next day was a first for us. The guys rode their snow mobiles across the river. Well some of them did, they didn't all make it. It was a crazy weekend, everyone had fun.
The next five days were quite hard with a high pass to cross each day. The first and easiest climb took us up through forest and past small lakes, then back down to Kettle Falls, a small town. Our first impressions were that this would be good town for Stephen King to write about, we don't know why, perhaps it was the smoke. We had arrived right in the middle of the fire season. There were two big fires burning not too far away.
A cold start to the next day, but it wasn't long before we were puffing and panting our way up the second; and highest pass, the 4000ft and 24 mile climb took us 4 hours of steady peddling to get to the top of Sherman Pass at 5,575ft, and 1hour with no peddling to do the 3,000ft 18 mile descent. Logging and mining silver and lead ore is what fuels the town of Republic. We found a nice little shop that sold original Native art and we got a lovely dream catcher. We also found a fish and chip supper which was delicious, followed by a cold beer. That afternoon the sun turned red (not because of the beer) because of all the smoke.
The third days climb was an easy one only 2,000ft up and 3,000ft down. The forest opened up and as we moved down the valley the land became sparse and dessert like, with a few trees and a lot of sagebrush. The smoke didn't help, so all in all not a very nice ride. After speaking to a local fireman, there was also some doubt about whether or not we could continue with our chosen route due to the fires. We were between the 2 fires at this point and they were slowly coming together, they had been burning since the 4th of July and weren’t expected to be extinguished until the snows arrived. We had to check in with the police before we proceed.
We were told that we could continue [thank goodness we didn't fancy back tracking] the route to the pass was still arid without much beauty but the big contrast was the huge orchards along the road side, the trees were dripping with fruit. Apples, nectarines, cherries and much more. The climb up to Loup Loup Pass at 4,020ft was just over a 3.000ft climb, taking us back into pine forest, it was very steep in places and was another very hot day, we both ran out of steam, and a sense of humour and by the time we got down to Twisp we had decided we didn't fancy another 25 miles, we'd had enough for one day. So we found a nice camp site and chilled out by the river.
We got an early start next morning, it was very cold so we headed to Winthrup looking for a hot breakfast. Winthrup is a truly lovely old western town. Unfortunately the smoke from the fires was very thick in the town, not a good way to encourage visitors, and it was very detrimental to the health of the locals.
As we continued west we passed the fires and left the smoke behind and started the climb to the last pass on this section. Washington Pass. The road ran between huge rugged mountains, lined with fir trees and wild flowers. It is a true pass, lovely and forbidding at the same time. We also had a strong head wind, so we found a good camp site in the forest of the North Cascades National Park. It may be our last opportunity to wild camp in such a wonderful setting.
A very cold start but. !wow! What a pass. We think it's the best pass of the whole trip. Washington Pass at 5,477ft and Rainy Pass at 4,855ft. There were snow capped mountains, fir trees, meadows full of wild flowers, water falls and glacier fed rivers. Heaven on Earth, we loved this area.
Reluctantly we moved on heading down we came across Ross Lake and Dam the water was a lovely blue/green colour, because it is fed by glacial rivers.
We were moving away from the mountains, flat riding once again, only a day's ride to the Pacific Ocean; we could smell it in the air long before we saw it. The vegetation on this side of the Cascade Mountains was completely different to that on the other side; it was more like rain forest, very green and lush, with a lot of moss and lichen, damp and humid. It was like another world.
The first sight of the sea was an emotional moment, after over 4 months on the road it was sort of like, "Oh God what do we do now?" We came up with a good idea. When we got to Anacortes we went shopping. Next we headed to the beach to dip our front wheels in the Ocean, to signify the end of our coast to coast tour. We cracked a bottle of bubbly and toasted each other on a job well done.
We were on the route for 131 days in total, 90 of those were actual cycling days and we covered 4,494 miles. We didn't stick rigidly to the official route, because as we travelled and met people, we were given advice about the route ahead. For example, better roads, nicer scenery, and places to miss and places not to be missed etc. The local knowledge was very useful and we visited some lovely areas that we would have otherwise passed by.
