T+39: A Tale of Towns and Passes, Part 1

Mile 865: NEWPORT, WA:  This is our last night in Washington.  After an L-shaped journey up the west side, then across the northern reaches of the state, we have learned a lot about it, but we will be glad to explore other terrains.

First of all, we had no idea that this was such a rugged state.  The incredible pass over the Cascades was a foretaste of travel to come.   We entered the Methow (Met-how) valley, where the three small towns each had a distinct personality.  We climbed a tough pass out of that valley to enter the Okanogon valley, which was rather surreal and unnerving.  Another big pass took us to a mining town perched on the side of the mountain.   A big hard pass that took all day dropped us into east Montana and the Columbia River Valley, where lumber is king.  One more climb dropped us into the Pend Orielle valley, which is remote, beautiful, and remarkably underserved.

Tonight we are in a town that is part Washington and part Idaho.  Our first impression was terrible, but has improved as we explored further.  This has been by far our longest day on the bikes.  We have cycled 63 miles, which is a testament to our increasing fitness, but mostly to the flat landscape of the Pend Orielle valley.  

As we wandered the town, had a nice dinner at a crowded Mexican restaurant, and observed the people, we saw signs of a town in transition.   This was obviously a former logging town.  One of the town monuments is an enormous 19^th century steam engine made Allis Chalmers which fueled a lumber mills that “cut more than 1 billion feet of timber.”  It is in the process of becoming a tourist town, but not there yet.  There is obvious poverty, some signs of drug addiction, but still a functioning downtown.

This is a pattern throughout the state.  There are towns that have given over completely to the hospitality/tourism industry, towns that struggling to hold to their industries and identity, towns that seem unsure about what is next for them.  

In the first valley after crossing the Cascades, “the Northern Cross,” as it is called, we first visited a very high end district, catering to the crowd that might visit Aspen.  There was heli-skiing; catered mountain bike rides with van, guided elk hunts.  The Freestone Inn, where we stayed, was a former pioneer dude ranch where guests stayed in cabins without electricity and running water.  Now there are photos throughout the facility harkening back to that time and claiming that heritage, but neither host nor guests would welcome that kind of ruggedness.  We stop at the pricey, beautiful store in Mazama and buy 10 blueberry newtons for $5, and forgo Wes’ latte because we can’t bring ourselves to pay $5.50 for it.

It is beautiful cruise in the early morning to the town of Winthrop.   The valley is filled with the smell of new cut hay.  As we curve in and out of Ponderosa pine forests, we see a mix of older, working ranches, and great big trophy second homes.   We are looking forward to breakfast at Winthrop, but when we turn the corner into the town, our hearts immediately falls.  The whole town has been turned into a fake Disney-fied version of Western mining town.  There are false fronts, goofy names like Black Bart’s; the only businesses in town are eateries, bars, and expensive kitchery, and one good bookstore.   The guy at the sport shop where we purchases a canister of cooking gas explained, “The town was starting to die, and there was a rich lady who told the town she would pay for it to become Western so it could bring in the tourists.”     Just down the street, we find out that she was the wife of the local lumber baron.   So now this town, deep in the heart of the Pacific Northwest, looks like a Nevada mining town, and draws the tourists by the busload.   At one point we look through a rough wood façade to see a miniature golf course, complete with Astro turf and plastic western décor.

The valley continues southward, with a more emphasis on working ranches and fewer trophy houses.  The heat is starting to pump and we are on a busy highway 20, with no shoulder and plenty of trucks.   It is well over 90 degrees when we land in the little town of Twisp.   A homegrown bakery called Cinnamon Twisp attracts us, where we go in, drink coffee, and work on the last blog post.  As I blog, and Wes reads the paper (exactly what is happening right now), an older man with a white beard approaches us and asks us about our trip.  This happens quite often.  These conversations usually last a few minutes; we answer the standard questions:  Where you going?  Where you coming from?  How many miles a day you travel?    However, this man is a veteran bicycle tourist.

When we tell him we are waiting out the day before tackling Loup Loup pass in the cool of the morning, he confirms our judgment.   He asks us if we would like to set up our tent in his back yard.  His mate, sitting a few tables down from us, says, “The basement would be much cooler.”   They offer us the use of the bedroom and we accept.  We haven’t even exchanged names yet.    A few minutes later, they give us their address, we exchange names and make arrangements to see them after we take care of some errands.

After errands, and returning to the bikes, I notice that the Adventure Cycling map we have been following is missing.  Not only do the maps guide you onto the best bike routes, they also provide critical information about camping, shopping, lodging, and bike shops.   After going o Wilson Hicks and Susie Gallaghers’ house, and discovering that both are artists and quite interesting people, I retrace my steps in search of the map.  No luck.  Perhaps I left it in Winthrop.   Wilson and Susie, understanding that I am distressed about the map, offer to drive us back to Winthrop to look.  Wilson, takes us the back way, through beautiful mountain scenery and lots of stories.  He has had a varied life and truly loved the bike trip he took with his son from Seattle to Colorado.  Susie is fairly recently retired from administrative work with San Francisco’s BART system.   At the tender age of 75, Wilson now works on call taking out cooking and shower trucks for fires, disasters, and big fundraising events.  Susie paints beautiful watercolors and volunteers at the library.

We talk and talk.  They are just a bit older than us, and we have a lot in common, artistically, philosophically, and politically.  They have been the soul of hospitality and helped us with our fruitless search for the map.  We take them to dinner at a delicious Mexican restaurant.  (The Latino community is big and obvious throughout northern Washington.)  We sleep like rocks in their cool comfortable basement, and leave before dawn to tackle Loup Loup pass.

In its own way, Loup Loup is just as hard as the Cascades.  It is dry and quite steep.  There is no shade for the first five miles.  We are glad we are pushing our bikes in the pre-dawn hours because it would be terrible during the heat of the day.  We push and ride, push and ride.  There are places where it so steep, we are reduced to the “25 steps, then breathe, 25 steps, then breathe” strategy to get over the hill.   It is about 35 miles to the next town, with the summit at about 15 miles.   It is slow, hot going, and we are going through our water rapidly.  Near the top, we stop for lunch at a national forest campground, assuming we can refill our water bottles.   We are thoroughly disgusted to find out that water and garbage service have been stopped in this, and most forest service campgrounds, a victim of budget cuts.   The fees, for a parking spot with a picnic table, remain however.  In my search for the water tap, I meet a young couple from Texas, traveling with two hounds who ceaselessly “arooh” at my presence.  They tell me there is no water and they were surprised that the campground was so primitive.  They offer us two bottles of water, which prove to be essential as we continue our journey.

We finally clear the top and begin the huge descent to the town of Okanogan, known as the hottest location in the state.  We pop out of the mountains into the sage desert, and see an unimaginably strange site.  There are thousands and thousands of fruit trees, perched high on the desert walls.  Some are swathed in netting, and there is the constant swoop, swoop, swooping of irrigating systems.  Right next to huge sagebrush are cherry, peach, apricot, apple and pear trees.   Just beyond the trees, there are signs of a very recent wildfire, which swept through the sagebrush, leaving a charred and blackened landscape.  It is growing hotter and hotter as we drop from the pine forests of the 4000 foot summit to the town center at 800 feet. 

There temperature is over 100 degrees during a hot ride through the nearly abandoned downtown.  We practically run into the air conditioned coffee shop.  It is too hot to cycle.  We have to wait.  As per usual, we read the local paper and are surprised to see story after story about methamphetamine arrests, deaths, and car-wrecks.  Wes engages the young woman working behind the counter, who tells us that most of her friends use meth and that she left the town for a while because she couldn’t stand what is was doing to them.  The coffee shop, however, is lovely and cool, and obviously, a well-loved community center.  We are there for hours.  We have a long conversation with a couple about our age, who own one of the last functioning retail businesses in town.  They were both former (short-lived) teachers who had been happily running a clothing and sporting goods business in this little town until two great calamities: the crash of 2008 and the opening of the Walmart (Sprawlmart in our parlance) in the next town.  Now they are watching their receipts go down every month.  They wonder how much longer they can hold on if the downtown continues to deteriorate.  

TO BE CONTINUED....