Days 1-4, June 2-5. 120ish miles.
I wrote much of this from the South Beach campsite on the western coast of the Olympic Peninsula. It’s calm here with the crackle of the fire and the roar of the surf which must be just a hundred feet from my site. I was surprised to learn that this blustery camp is a regional destination for whale watching. A medium named Lula told me that before she generously gave me some firewood. She said there’s a spirtual power throughout Olympic and I believe it. Here, grey whales seasonally pass through the strait here between Olympic and Destruction Island, which is an ominous-looking grey mass on the horizon to the northwest. Luckily I was able to see the arched back of one just beyond the surf. I did not see the giants that she said roam Olympic and occasionally rip full-grown Douglas Firs from their roots.
I think I’ll structure the blog this way: a section to follow of info for bike tourists, then a portion on people I’ve met, then some musings. I’ll hed the sections so that if you’re only interested in some things and not others you can skip around.
Cycling
Day 1: I started from Elma at about 5 p.m. My first turn of the tour was, to my dismay, onto an onramp announced by a sign that said FREEWAY ENTRANCE. I merged onto highway 12. This is a major thoroughfare that, to Montesano, has a giant shoulder — except for one quarter-mile stretch of one long bridge over a river followed by several shorter bridges after. I had to time in across the bridges and made it safely. It sure got my adrenaline up. I camped that night in Lake Sylvia State Park, which is up and over a big hill from town. There’s hiker/biker sites (which are $12). I rode ten or eleven miles this day.
Day 2: I rode fifty miles this day and passed into the Quinault Indian Reservation. In the morning it was foggy. The ACA route here does not take you to Aberdeen. Instead you wind your way through country roads, including several variations of “Wishkah” Road. It’s a native moniker that means “Smelly Whale.” A white lady told me that and I don’t have WiFi at the time of writing so I can’t fact-check that. It’s pretty good riding through to the 101. Traffic was light, but these are curvy country roads with no shoulder. Drivers were courteous. Then I hit the 101 and took it north essentially to Lake Quinault, where I camped. Highway 101 here started with an enormous shoulder. Just colossal. I was elated and then, as ten and 20 miles passed, the shoulder totally disappeared. And the logging trucks appeared.
These trucks are huge. They drive extremely fast and menacingly. A woman named Jigger told me that they are so heavy that they are literally incapable of stopping. So you gotta keep your wits about you through this stretch. My method was listening for them and siting the rig and then immediately pulling over into whatever was on the side of the road, usually a plume of scotchbroom, which has hopelessly taken over this region where it has been logged — which is most places outside of the national park, it seems. I camped in Falls Creek campground on the southern side of Lake Quinault. $25, no hiker/biker. I split this with someone else.
Day 3. I rode 30 ish miles on 101 to Kalaloch Campground and then doubled back a few miles to camp there. This is out of the reservation and just west of the national park. It seemed like there might be a better vibe here and I struck gold. No water here. Not even sinks in the bathrooms. Whales though.
On this first stretch drivers have been courteous. They’ve generally given me a wide berth. When there’s no line of sight or particularly large vehicles approaching I pull over. This has been true even for many of the logging trucks. It’s tough riding but I’m glad I stuck it out.
Day 4: I never knew riding could be this good. The logging traffic ceased altogether and I relished in the ten miles or so on the coast. I easily rode another 20 miles or so to Bogachiel State Park. It’s nice and quiet here and very, very lush. There’s two hiker/biker sites. It’s the weekend and the site is totally packed with folks with their RVs and roaring fires and grills. And here I am in the rain. If I wasn’t enjoying myself so much I could see how depressing this probably looks.
Physically I feel better than I expected. However this is only thanks to the hospitality of two wonderful camp hosts, John and Denise, at South Beach. I’m taking it slow this first week.
Aside: Backcountry blunder
When I rolled into that site everything rapidly fell apart. I was starving and exhausted, my elbow hurt, my butt hurt and rain was on the horizon. And I was utterly disorganized. I desperately wanted a grilled cheese and miserably had to dig through all of my panniers to assemble the ingredients: cook stove, fuel, lighter, bread, cheese, and handle for the pot. I then discovered that I’d made a fatal mistake. When hanging my food in a tree so a bear wouldn’t devour it, I’d forgotten to remove my 30% DEET bug lotion. When jamming the bag back into my pannier the next day, it must have exploded. All of my food was covered in this sticky viscous lotion that would not be washed away by sand or salty water or in the grimy little creek that bounded the campsite in a ditch. As I ran from the creek to the ocean to the site crows picked through the ruined food. I was able to salvage much of the grub, but my drybag has not yet recovered. On Day 4 I woke up utterly exhausted. This is where Denise and John enter the story and rescued me and I’ll pick this back up below.
Encounters
I met Michelle in Humptulips. It’s a goofy-sounding town that is on the banks of a supremely beautiful river of the same name. She told me it means “Hard to Pole” in a native tongue, as in pole a canoe up-river. Apparently the river and its surroundings are a major destination for fishermen and kayakers and the like from all over the region. This has brought more problems than benefits for her community, she said — even though she runs the only pit stop in town with some food and water. She said backpackers and campers have a serious littering habit that’s detrimental to the landscape and does not mesh well with the sanctimoniousness of these urbanites spending a few days on the river. A man walked into her store as we sat there and stood listening for a moment, then added that he’d picked up another several bags of trash just that week. Then he walked inside. Michelle went on to say that some backpackers once tossed bags of shit outside of their car as it sped through town, littering the road in front of her store. She added that certain conservation efforts dreamed up in Seattle and Olympia just harm locals’ ability to work the land and make a living. I believe her. These are not wealthy communities I’m passing through.
It was interesting to hear the other side’s thoughts about outdoor tourism and conservation. Tourism is an industry and when lawmakers prioritize this, other industries and local economies can suffer.
I met Dan in Quinault. It was my destination for the day and I’d just ridden about 53 miles. I was salivating at a grocery window that read PIZZA when someone called from down the road, “Another biker!”
He beckoned me over, grinning ear to ear. I could tell immediately he’d been on the road for a long time. A scraggly beard, a gauntness in his cheekbones that told me his body fat content was probably down to .001%. And a beautiful bike with top-of-the-line gear. I could not guess that he’d been on the road for 18,000 miles over three years. And he’d almost died as recently as November. “Are you squeamish?” He asked me, already handing me the phone. Photos of him in the hospital bed, his knees abraided away. And then in the helicopter, his legs tied together for his dislocated hip. He’d been in Arizona and found out later that a car had hit him full-on at about 70 miles per hour, launching him a hundred feet into a ditch. I found out later that Dan had been suicidal for years and started his bike trip as a way to save his own own life; as time went on he discovered his story resonated with so many people and he offically began riding to raise awareness about suicide and prevention strateigies. This means that in Arizona he was towing a trailer — attatched to his bike — bearing his awareness messages. The woman who hit him worked for human services on the Navajo Nation, and when she barreled into him it was likely the trailer that protected him and savaed his life.
His story is obviously poetic: The ride that saved his life — and by his account, the lives of others — almost took his life as well.
Dan is healing still but riding strong. The world rallied and donated him thousands of dollars for new gear in the fall. He is a persistently positive individual whose attitude is infectious; when we pulled out of town the next day, locals literally waved and shouted their goodbyes to him. But I do worry about him. He’s 32 now and a survivor of so much but I wonder what he will do when he stops riding or if he can stop riding. He doesn’t plan to. Dan, best of luck to you. If I can carry just a modicum of your purpose and congeniality on my own trip, I’ll have no trouble whatsoever.
I met Denise and John at South Beach at perhaps my lowest portion of the trip so far, when I was running around like a decapitated chicken trying to rinse my food of DEET lotion and keep my items from blowing away in the salty breeze or become carried off by chickens. They pulled up in their car and immediately began helping me. The baby wipes they gave me were what saved much of my food.
They’re in their 60s and about the same age as my parents. We laughed about this and the fact that I’m the same age as their son.
They’re the camphosts at South Beach and run a salon of sorts from an impressive camper bus parked on the bluff overlooking the ocean. In the morning I trudged over to their bus in search of coffee — they’d told me they had coffee for me the night before if I wanted it, and I’d woken up absolutely exhausted. I did not expect them to invite me into their bus for the entire morning, where they fed me chia seed oatmeal and as much coffee as I wanted and then another round of air-fried potatoes. I sat there with them for about two hours and we talked about life.
John is an artist with pieces in various galleries. He’s a painter mostly of what he says has been called abstract expressionism and a deep thinker. Denise is a retired Catholic school teacher, so we got along well. Both of them hold court from their bus and have made a slew of eccentric whale-watchers: a psychiatrist who invited John to a rabbinical conference, a submarine captain, Argentinian bike tourists.
Musings
Everyone has an opinion about Portland, and it’s not good. When people ask me where I’m from I say there first. And then they launch into it: the homelessness, the crime, the riots, it’s too expensive. People just unload. I’ve had this conversation perhaps eight times in two-and-a -half days. Most people I’ve talked to would prefer homeless people just be somehow driven from city limits. Some of them have lived there and left because of the state of things. I covered homelessness somewhat in Colorado so, if the conversation goes long enough, I’ll chime in and talk about smaller-scale solutions — temporary or otherwise — I’m aware of, like sanctioned campsites and building conversions. However the problem is personified in a man from the midwest who is older and wealthier. He said he’d prefer that homeless people left Portland but also that the city should be doing more homeless programming. His perspective is a broader one: property owners do want solutions in many cases but they don’t want solutions near them. They’re NIMBYs. They’ll complain about visible homelessness, and when there’s a proposal in their neighborhood for a halfway house or second chance center or an affordable housing complex, they’re vehemently opposed, frothing at the mouth in city council hearings. I’ve personally written about this phenomenon many times and I’m frustrated to see it again in conversations, of all places, on Olympic.
I saw the world’s largest spruce tree three days ago. It’s over a thousand years old and steps from an RV park.
People everywhere I encounter are very excited that I’m biking cross-country. They’re very generous. Lea, a friend of mine, told me that she thinks she needs another tour to restore her faith in humanity. Color my faith restored so far, especially after meeting Dan and Denise and John.
I’ve been reading a lot of Cormac McCarthy. I’ve done my best not to let his voice bleed into my writing but it’s infectious. There may be a morsel of him here and there. However, I’m reading his first book now, The Orchard Keeper, which he wrote almost entirely in the style of Faulkner. That makes he feel better — that even McCarthy, who is a god, started out sounding like his literary hero.
Word of the week: Epiphytes are plants that grow on other plants.
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