July 24-27: Yellowstone, Tetons and Yellowstone again

Man, this summer is whipping by. 

I love Yellowstone. It’s my first time here and I’m virtually foaming at the mouth watching the weird geysers bubble, seeing how the steaming springs split the light into all the colors of the rainbow. I assume most readers have been here, so I’ll spare you all from flowery descriptions of Depression Spring and Anemone Geyser or the subtle gurglings of sulphuric Paint Pots. However, I’ll bet that most of you readers haven’t traveled Yellowstone entirely by bike. And let me tell you, it’s a different animal. It’s surreal. It’s occasionally very sketchy. Mostly it’s so thrilling my heart seems at risk of shorting out.  

The “bison jams” back up the highways literally for miles and, here, you gingerly pass car after RV after trailer after car until you’re at the front of the weird parade. And there they are, the bison, flopped listlessly in the sun, kicking up clouds of dust with lazy flicks of their tails to ward off the swarms of penny-sized horseflies. They seem not to notice that a crowd has gathered, communally filming the phenomenon with iPhones. Unnervingly near them, in a creek, a group of children shrieks and throws water. A young girl in a purple shirt creeps closer and closer to one of the beasts who watches now with a lazy eye and, at the proper distance, she announces that she’s gonna cartwheel with the bison in the background. She prepares herself and vaults. Her grinning mother snaps the shot. Nosily, I lean over and see it; it turned out great. The bison don’t move. 

The stretch south, from Old Faithful to the southern park border, sucks. There is no shoulder and little scenery compared to the rest of the park. The highway is chock-full of oversized vehicles who can barely steer between the lines, and you crawl over the Continental Divide not once but three times. I wouldn’t do this stretch again unless I was offered a sizable grip of cash, half up front, half upon completion. I’m sure, if you happened to be driving 191 south on July 25  near 3 p.m., you would’ve hated encountering us on the road almost as much as we hated encountering you. 

I don’t have much to write about Teton National Park. It was too hazy for us to really enjoy the mountains and I didn’t go south past Colter Bay. We could see much of the range early in the morning — just enough to make me swear, on my life, that I will backpack the Teton Crest Trail before I croak. 

I said adieu to my dad yesterday morning. We sat on a bench in the hazy morning at the Colter Bay campground grocery store. I sat there looking at a map and he produced two coffees. “You’re not going to believe what these cost,” he said. “Guess.” Turned out two black coffees are valued at more than $6.50 in Grand Teton National Park. Before our bench the parking lot was a zoo of moms and dads rushing in the store for morning wares, reluctantly tailed by wandering toddlers. Motorcyclists pulled up and listlessly took off their helmets. And several more folks sat cross-legged at various benches on listening to conference calls or hashing out emails, squeezing in some work before a day of exploration. The place was buzzing. 

If you were twenty-five feet tall, or perhaps standing on enormous stilts in this parking lot, you could peer over the roof of the grocery store and glimpse the sheer needles of the Tetons jutting above the expanse of Jackson Lake. An outrageously beautiful place. There we drank our coffees and decided that it was an apt place for our shared journey to end. He would soon hit 500 miles near Jenny Lake en route south, to his last Warm Showers stayover in Jackson. I would hitchhike north back into Yellowstone and head east from there. 

“A respectable number,” he said of the mileage. Indeed — the number is largely made up of his full circle from Jackson through the Teton Valley to West Yellowstone and then through Yellowstone National Park and Grand Teton National Park back to Jackson. But the figure, 500, is ultimately an undercount. It doesn’t account for the objectively torturous mountain pass of deep gravel east of Hamilton, Montana or the interminable double track stretching through the wilderness southeast of Island Park, Idaho, in grizzly territory, where we encountered a mountain lion. It doesn’t account for the 150 miles we rode in thick smoke, demoralized, with masks on, or the sweltering afternoon we braved Yellowstone traffic and climbed the Continental Divide twice. And he crossed 500 miles having started without his sea legs. In my view those 500 miles truly account for 1000. 

We hugged and hugged some more and then I watched him pedal out of the parking lot. 

I hung around and talked to people for awhile. Near 10 a.m. I bought a slice of coffee cake and then stood on the highway for an hour trying to get a ride north, back to Yellowstone, where I will continue east en route to the Black Hills of South Dakota. I was quickly offered two rides in the wrong direction and then nothing at all. After an hour I decided that the spot was too far from Yellowstone, so I rode 20 miles to the south park border. On the way, I enjoyed a brief, steep descent until a bee somehow caught me at 30 miles per hour and stung me in the leg. I pulled out the stinger and did not stop. At the Yellowstone south entrance I stood with my thumb out no more than 15 feet from the national park entrance sign where, at a given moment, a dozen ecstatic people from India or China bunched in for a photo. After 45 minutes someone picked me up and took me to Old Faithful. I ate a surprisingly well-priced cheeseburger from the grab-and-go and then played tourist for a while, hitting the Grand Prismatic Spring at the bottom boardwalk and watching bison doze. Then I turned into the backcountry at an undisclosed location where I discovered a hot spring bubbling into a cool river. I was briefly alone before I shared the spring with a down-to-earth, middle-aged couple and no one else. We laid at the confluence of the boiling stream and the cool one and floated, watching the frantic mating rituals of hundreds of crimson dragon flies. When the sunset painted the sky we finally left and, to our fascination, the man pulled a three-inch-long leech from his leg. It writhed, black and ribbed, on dry land. I had my new friends check my back for any parasites. He slapped my shoulder and sent me on my way. There were none. 

Before he left, my dad thanked me for “letting him do this.” The thing is, I never saw this portion of my trip, our journey together, in those terms. It is true that I would have ridden faster without him. But speed is a useless metric. And the bigger picture here is that bike touring would not be a part of my life unless he rode across the continent in 1983, alone, with a goofy mustache and short-shorts. Because of his legacy, and my mom’s, I never grew up not knowing that something like this was possible; it was always possible, and it was always waiting for when I was ready. This, like everything in life, I owe to my parents. 

Cycling 

Yellowstone is awesome. If you’re doing the TransAm and you don’t stop to enjoy the park, you’re an idiot. I can’t stress this enough. I’ve been to my fair share of national parks and this one is the mothership.

Cycling itself here is a major tradeoff. 

Pros: passing bison jams and avoiding parking, which is absurd. Where everyone else booked their campsite a year ago, the two sites I stayed at — Madison and Grant Village — have colossal hiker-biker sites for ten bucks. And people are very stoked for you, as always, but I’ve found this especially true here. A group of drunk women in a bison jam passed me a beer one evening when I found myself pacing their car. We had a whole conversation. 

Cons: Occasionally feeling like I’m cheating death. Shoulders are slim-to-nonexistent in the southern and northern areas of the park. It’s an adrenaline rush at best and terrifying at worse. 

Another pro: When the fear of death is in you, you bike really fast. 

The shoulder is excellent from the west entrance to Old Faithful. After that to the southern border there is none, and it’s awful. Ride really early in the morning — I mean, really early — or hitchhike. I especially recommend hitchhiking because there are apparently one million cars at each trailhead and that way you don’t have to attempt rushing through the park without enjoying its odd geysers, hot springs, wildlife watching and general grandeur. 

I’ll update the shoulder report for the rest of the park while I make my around. 

Encounters

Plenty to write here but, alas, I’m sitting down to write some postcards. TBA

July 19-23, Escape to Jackson WY and Teton Valley

After such a dismal series of days its’s refreshing to report good news. At my dad’s suggestion we found our way onto a small, regional bus that whisked us south to Jackson and out of the smoke. I can’t express in words how wonderful it felt to pedal on the bike path from Jackson to Teton Village Tuesday evening, winding through the meadows under blue sky while the sun cut shafts through the ridgeline to the west, gawking as the Tetons appeared, impossible huge and jagged. I’ve never seen mountains like these. What a blessing it was to actually be able to see them under clear skies. I hadn’t seen blue sky in about two weeks. 

Morale soared. From a room at the Teton Village hostel that night we crafted a route on a whim. We would ride three days north — toward the area we’d fled — to West Yellowstone, MT by way of Idaho’s Teton Valley. Then we would loop back down through Yellowstone National Park and Grand Teton National Park to Jackson, where my dad will ultimately jet out. Then I would hitch or take a shuttle back up north to Yellowstone Lake, where I begin heading east toward South Dakota.  As of writing we’ve completed half of that loop. We’re winding down in West Yellowstone after a long day of gravel riding. 

Our route from Teton Village through Idaho to W. Yellowstone was crafted on Google Maps with a steady hand from the bartender at the Spur, a bar in Teton Village, as well as Zach at Fitzgeralds bike shop in Victor. Both offered indispensable input about routes off of the main highway — which is a death trap around Island Park and Yellowstone — that vary from pavement and smooth gravel to our favorite genre of path: sandy wash filled with boulders. We completed this section with no mechanical issues. I’ll detail the route below. 

This section was the real deal. Good, long days of riding. Sweeping views of the Tetons from the backside. Encounters with hilarious, engaging, kind and resourceful people. Gorgeous camping. And a once-in-a-lifetime, unnerving brush with the most elusive of creatures — the mountain lion. 

Cycling report 

The ACA apparently maps a route through the Teton Valley as a TransAm variant. I haven’t studied it, as I don’t have that map. However: if that route puts you on Highway 20, don’t ride it between Ashton and Island Park. I crossed the 2,000 mile threshold on my tour today and this road stands out as perhaps the most dangerous I’ve ridden — and that was only for a few miles. We opted instead for Highway 32 to Ashton and then a variation of the Mesa Falls Scenic Byway, the rough Yellowstone Branch Trail and anonymous forest roads. I call it the “Google Map special” because, when you’re in this area network of forest roads and trail, oftentimes you can just trace your way out of there by staring at your blue dot on the app and tracking the various roads to an exit. 

In this region, when you’re in the woods, you have to take measures to prevent interactions with grizzlies. Ride with bells on your bike. Yell or sing often. Grizzlies don’t want to see you. It’s when you sneak up on them that’s dangerous. We saw the mountain lion about two miles north of Bear Gulch on the Yellowstone Branch Trail.  

If you’re going to south to north as we were, the route is obvious at first. Ride the paved, separated bike path from Teton Valley to Wilson and continue to the peak of Teton Pass. Join the main highway and ride into Victor. Thanks to Zach’s wisdom, we were able to continue on a paved bike path to Driggs. Highway 20 isn’t too bad here on the southern end of the Valley. Take it to Tetonia or cut west early to Cache. Camping around Tetonia is nonexistent, to my knowledge, so we popped into the Teton Peaks Resort. Jordan just bought the place and the vibe is awesome here. We camped next to the gazebo in plush grass for $20. The swath of turf has a perfect view of sunset on the Tetons. There’s a grill, horse shoes and frisbee golf. 

From here the options are spicy. Traffic increases violently but a robust network of rough rails-to-trails path and country roads provide a safer, but slower option that would be best enjoyed with mountain bike tires or gravel setups. 

It should be noted here that we’re rocking Schwalbe Marathon tires; mine are 26X1.75 and my dad’s are 28X1.5. We appreciate a good, gnarly gravel ride, but we’re rocking panniers that rattle to kingdom come. Obviously, we don’t have any suspension. At Tetonia we took a look at the Ashton-Tetonia trail, rode it to the junction with 20, and decided it was way too rough. Highway 32 offered a better option. The shoulder is slim but traffic was light or moderate. From Ashton we took the Mesa Falls Scenic Byway to Warm River Campground. Folks were warning us about the MFSB, including Zach, who is an expert. In my opinion it wasn’t that bad, but we opted instead for the Yellowstone Branch Trail. 

It’s slow going in here for the first seven miles to Bear Gulch. In retrospect, however, those were the best conditions on the whole 50-mile Branch trail. It’s an ATV track and those guys come flying around corners. Don’t ride with headphones on, and ride it as much or as little as you want. The forest roads after Island Park offer excellent, smooth gravel detours to shave off many a mile. The last 13 miles are rough but offer some pristine views of a grassy river valley. Enjoy that. 

All in all we did: 50+ miles from Teton Village to Tetonia; 70+ miles from Tetonia to the Island Park Dam, which has free, good dispersed camping on the reservoir; and then 25 hard miles to W. Yellowstone. 

Encounters 

We trudged into the Safeway in Dillon, MT Tuesday at 6 a.m. to buy coffee. The smoke was thick, same as it had been for ten days. Inside we stood in line at the little Starbucks kiosk behind a troupe of wildland firefighters. Hotshots, actually, all groggy and bearded. In the bathroom I asked one of them where they were shipping out to and he told me some fire I’d never heard of. There are so many. 

The bus pulled into the Safeway parking lot, as promised, near 6:45. It was actually a large Mercedes van towing the trailer they’d also promised for our bikes and gear. The outside, in flowery script, read “SALT LAKE EXPRESS.” Inside the cab was surprisingly clean and warm, and the two other people on the bus didn’t speak much, which I appreciated, as it was early in the morning. One was a chicano kid from Texas who said he was headed for Jackson for a long and well-paying construction project. He was eager to see the mountains. I was excited for him. Jason, our bus driver, had two chihuahuas tucked into a blanket on the passenger seat. One glared at me for much of the ride. Mid-ride, Jason abruptly pulled the van over on a scenic overlook of a broad, grassy wash. Ecstatic, he pointed out four moose down there. 

We had a long layover in Idaho Falls, ID. I ran several errands. The air was markedly cleaner. But our good mood was short-lived. 

The second van arrived in the afternoon heat at the Sinclair gas station. There she was, towering next to us, waiting to step on the bus. Tall, six-foot-one perhaps, clad in a sickly aura of stale cigarette smoke, a black Champion tee covered in animal hair, stained sweatpants and pink flip-flops. The first time I heard her cough it sounded like her esophagus was in danger of leaping from her mouth, a geyser of biohazardous detritus. 

The bus was the same size — another Mercedes van. We sat in the middle row; she sat in the back aisle, not two feet from the back of my neck. For two hours we endured this woman’s relentless hacking. Wet, foul. I imagine you would approximate the din if you attempted to strangle a goose. No one else spoke on the bus. We rode in complete wordlessness and enjoyed the rare moments of silence between her expulsions. Once I heard her spit into a napkin behind me and I shuddered. Toward the end of her fits she would involuntarily moan and I could hear her swallow the sludge. 

I turned my music up and up and up and saw my dad was as well. Nothing would drown it out. Outside the scene became idyllic. The van tracked the Snake River into the Rockies and indigo storm clouds gathered and battered the road in a cleansing downpour. 

At some point in the ride I looked to my right. There it was. Her foot propped up on the seat next to me. I won’t describe the foot. All you have to know is that it brushed the side of my water bottle as it lay bouncing on the seat. I snatched the bottle and fantasized about yelling at her but decided against it to preserve the uneasy peace in the van.

“Are we ever going to stop for a bathroom break?” she announced in her swollen, bullfrog voice, no more than 15 minutes from Jackson. The driver, who looked like Bill Gates, soon announced we would indeed stop. Everyone else grumbled. He pulled into a gas station and we wandered out like refugees in the rain. The woman hurried under the roof of the travel center and lit a cigarette. Everyone watched her with shared loathing. 

***

The double-track trail was rough. ATVs and dirt bikes had scoured deep troughs of sand in each of the tracks, which stretched through alternating scenes of arid forest or open range where the cattle blocked the road and eyed us dumbly. Sometimes my dad and I could ride side-to-side in the tracks but more often one of us was far ahead of the other, each concentrating on navigating the endless terrain of sand pits and boulders. Each in our own little world. The weather was perfect and we were far from any paved road. 

Silently, no more than fifty feet in front of me, the mountain lion jumped across the entire track. Broad, muscular. It paused momentarily and glanced at me and slunk into the woods, out of sight. My heart threatened to pop like a balloon. I stopped immediately and pulled my bear spray from its holster on my handlebars. 

I couldn’t see it. I didn’t know exactly where it was but I knew it was somewhere in front of me near the track. 

I began shouting to my dad. I kept my eyes where the lion likely was. 

“Get off your bike.” 

He couldn’t hear me. 

“Get off your bike. There’s a mountain lion right here.” 

He rolled to a stop in the sand and slowly stepped over the frame. He stooped and produced his bear spray. 

“Ring your bell, start yelling.”

We bellowed, finding strength in our voices. The little ding of the bike bell reverberated far into the woods. Only after we clamored for ten seconds did I glimpse the lion’s hips as it sauntered away. It slipped past the trees in the sparse undergrowth and out of sight. A beast. 

I knew we needed to stay vigilant. Mountain lions enjoy stalking prey. It was out of the question to pedal away from there quickly as I knew as well that mountain lions savor a chase. We continued our bellowing. We made threats to the mountain lion. We walked our bikes slowly, watching our six, for a mile.

“You don’t want none of this,” I shouted into the woods, waving my bear spray. “I will spray the absolute fuck out of you.” 

My heart rate resembled that of a healthy person after some time. I kept watching the road behind me — not an easy task in the trough. 

When the fear wore off I felt blessed that the mountain lion showed itself to me and let us pass. 

July 15-18: A fire tour of southwestern Montana

Well, that escalated quickly. 

The fire season ignited around us and for the last four days we rode through some of the worst air quality on the continent. Until yesterday evening I had not seen blue sky for over a week, and the growing smoke stole any possibility of starlight from us just hours later.  

This entire stretch would have been mind-blowing had we been able to truly enjoy it. Instead we have merely been able to make out the towering grey peaks and their glaciers and the impossibly broad, grassy plains threaded with rivers. What I’ve seen so far is more of a shadow of the natural wonder of this place, a representation of it. 

I’ll spare you from reading a point-by-point account of which fires we skirted near which town. The sustained challenge is that the smoke outlook is pretty hopeless at this point. Everything will reliably only become worse. We’ve been toying with the idea of renting a car or finding a shuttle, but given our remote location in a hotel room in Dillon, Montana, that’s a challenge. We’re planning to reassess our situation in the morning. The air quality is allegedly better at Yellowstone, and we’re three days from there.

The air quality has rarely touched officially “hazardous” levels on the federal monitor. When the smoke was at its worst we decided to hitchhike and were immediately picked up. This was yesterday. Eric jumped out of his white Ford 150, situated us in the bed of his truck and handed us ice-cold beers. We’re keeping a very close eye on the fires via InciWeb when we have service and by word-of-mouth when we don’t. 

Of course, the bigger picture is bleak. It’s difficult not to question the future of the West and grieve for these heartbreakingly beautiful spaces, these gems, that burn year after year. We’re all grieving each summer. I’ve talked to a menagerie of Forest Service managers, rangers and firefighters about this reality. No one has the answer other than concerted climate action and forest stewardship. I myself am becoming very interested in wildland firefighting after spending time with several folks during the work.  It’s becoming more difficult to sit around and complain about the fires every summer. 

There have been many fine moments to this otherwise depressing and grueling series of days — I’ll chronicle some transcendent moments below. Yet this is a low point in the trip. 

It’s difficult to admit this in writing. I’m feeling most bummed for my dad, who flew from a separate continent with the promise of riding 500 miles across pristine terrain and national parks. Instead we’re riding with masks on and, when we crest a hill, we look into the valleys choked with smoke and shake our heads. We’ve come to an understanding. I’m accepting that he’s still happy to be here and I’m staying strong. I’m blessed to have him here with me. His attitude has carried us so far through some major challenges. And he’s really kicking ass on the bike through tough terrain.  

I’ll write briefly below about the ACA’s Skalkaho Pass reroute skirting Wisdom and the 20,000-acre Trail Creek Fire. Then I have some great stories from the last four days. 

Cycling 

The ACA is simply the best travel resource out there. They offered two routes around Wisdom and Highway 43, which is closed intermittently at the time of writing due to the Trail Creek Fire. The fire managers said today this fire will probably burn all summer. 

If you’re new to the West or the northern Rockies, make sure you bring either a bear canister or a dry bag and some paracord to hang your food. It’s a chore to hang your grub but it’s less of a chore than having a grizzly bear tear your face off. A grizzly just killed a bike tourist in a small town near Helena.  She hadn’t stored her food away from her tent. 

Hamilton, MT is a cool town and even in the smoke we could tell that the Bitterroot Valley is mind-blowing. There’s great cafes and restaurants in the small downtown. The Revalli County Museum has a solid mix of natural history and Nez Perce-era war history. We took a nap during the afternoon in Kiwanis Park. It’s a top-tier park of plush grass that bounds the Bitterroot River and a vast wilderness beyond. Our camping options were limited — the ACA recommends the county fairgrounds, which totally suck — so we stealth-camped in the parched river-bed. I figured correctly that hell would freeze over before a flash flood swept down the river in this hellish climate. No one bothered us. 

We opted for the Skalkaho Pass detour to Anaconda. For the first 15 miles the road is just perfect: no traffic, a babbling brook. After a gate the yellow line disappeared. And, as promised, the road soon became gravel. If you appreciate gravel riding you’ll enjoy this. If you don’t, you’ll be miserable. It’s a long climb and a long descent on a very rough road. We rode to Flint Creek Campground that night. The camp-host told us that, separately, a bull moose and a mama moose and her calf frequent the area. We didn’t see ‘em. 

The next day we rode to Anaconda. If I harbored any expectations about this town, Anaconda would have far exceeded them. The town, like Hamilton, is within the territorial domain of 19th-century copper king Marcus Daly, and his investments are still impressive. Anaconda was built to accommodate the copper smelting mine that looms, huge and menacing, from a prominence outside town. This town also has a hostel, but we didn’t stay here. If you pass through, hit Donivan’s for a meal and oggle at the copper ceiling and sink into a crimson-leather booth. The food is great. The library and county courthouse are architectural wonders. 

We hitchhiked to Divide Campground on Highway 43 after encountering unnavigable smoke on Highway 569. It’s a gorgeous camp. From there, it’s an easy 40 miles to Dillon — if the wind isn’t destroying you. 

All in all, this region is beyond beautiful in good conditions. One driver honked at us but dozens others waved or cheered us on. 

Blatherings 

It hasn’t all sucked. 

My dad and I frequented Iron Horse Bar & Grill in Missoula. When we left one night, two women watched us unlock our bikes. They cat-called us. “Damn,” one shouted. “It’s a good day to be a bike seat.”

***  

We rode for perhaps five hours on deep ruts over Skalkaho Pass. Suddenly the road turned to pavement and the yellow line reappeared, and the forest opened into a cool, grassy valley bounded by indigo peaks. It looked like I’d always imagined it. Montana. 

The sky above us was at first pale, brown and shapeless with the smoke. We chugged up a cruel climb we had not anticipated, and when we crested, ground squirrels barked at each other, and down the valley black angus cattle dotted the irrigated fields. “That’s a big cloud,” dad shouted to me. I glanced in my rear-view mirror and saw a darkness amassing. The wind howled in our ears and we swept down the valley from the precipice. The sky boomed and lighting split the sky. We tore across the open valley, giving it everything we had. I eyed some dilapidated shacks in the fields as possible shelters if the heavens opened. 

Fifteen minutes later we cheered and rolled down the pot-holed gravel road to the campsite. The wind whipped up and we struggled to pitch our tents. It began pouring. I rejoiced. 

A man ran across the road and began helping us. My dad shouted his thanks to him and the man raised his hands. 

“I’m deaf,” he said. “I can’t hear you.” 

He crouched in the gale and helped my dad steady his tarp, already slick with rain, and hammer in his stakes. 

He walked back several more times that evening to check in on us. We stood speaking to him clearly and gesturing somewhat — neither of us know sign language. His smile was infectious. He wasn’t from around here either and camped across the road with his friend. In the morning, he walked over and offered to take our trash bag for us because there wasn’t a can at the camp. And then he took out his phone and stood typing for a moment. He passed the device to me. “My name is Barbee,” it read. “What are your names?” I began to type and he stopped me. “You can speak into it,” he said. I did and the text appeared in bold white letters. He took his phone back, read it and smiled. “I hope that someone else helps you on your journey,” he said. 

***

We earned some relief from the smoke in Anaconda. This was short-lived. About 15 miles out of town, heading south, we cycled against a headwind and the mid-afternoon heat. A sloping valley closed around us and the haze intensified. We knew the source: the Trail Creek fire was just west of us in the next mountain range over. The smoke burned our eyes and we coughed. Traveling through this, we knew, was simply beyond the pale. I shouted to my dad that I’d try to get us a ride as we crawled up the ascending mountain pass. 

The first truck I signaled pulled over. A short, barrel-chested man hopped out. He wore a long sleeve tattoo of a dripping thin blue line flag, a blue shirt that read “K-9” and suspenders. A German Shepard barked ferociously inside the cab. We learned later he’s a retired K9 cop. 

Eric is a “trail angel” for Continental Divide Trail hikers. That’s the central through-hike from Canada to Mexico through the Rockies. Trail Angels pick up hikers and hook them up with rides to towns and places to stay. I’d heard they’re generous people. Eric blew us away.  

He told us he would happily give us a ride thirty miles if we were comfortable riding in the bed of his truck; I happen to love riding in truck beds and we happily accepted. As we hauled our crap up he produced two ice-cold beers. I felt I could die a happy man. 

We watched the long-awaited Big Hole pass by at 60 miles per hour. It’s a strange natural feature: a never-ending grassland, an interminable wild space, at the very peak of the Rockies. The smoke intensified and the wind howled, and when we turned east on Highway 43 we gleaned blue sky ahead. We drank our beers and cheered, elated. 

Five minutes later, we were crestfallen. A helicopter hovered above the Big Hole River, It lowered itself deliberately to capture a bucket of water. “Look!” my dad shouted. 

To the west, the Trail Creek Fire smoldered the entire horizon. 

We passed through the smoke, grim, and I drank some whiskey. Eric later pulled into a campground underneath blue skies and we hopped out. And when we thanked him profusely, he flat-out denied any compensation. 

“Do you take donations?” I asked him.

“Absolutely not,” he said. 

***

I’ve become addicted to Starbursts. 

***

I’m collecting karmic debt at an unprecedented rate. I’m eager to pay it all back, and more, when I’m off two wheels. 

July 8-14: Oregon-Idaho border to Council, Riggins, and Kooskia; long hitchhike to Missoula

First: a genuine thank you to everyone reading at least some of this blog. It’s been a joy to write. If you’d like to see more of some subjects and less of others, let me know.

I rode for three very hot but exquisite days in Idaho. Unfortunately, this section was cut short because of wildfires. On day one the evening in Council had a hazy quality. On the second day the sky became white and depthless. By noon on the third day, I climbed the grand White Bird pass and found the vast valley beneath completely obscured in smoke. I rode with a mask on. Visibility wasn’t terrible and I still enjoyed myself. The steep ochre mountains and later the endless wheat fields bordering the Nez Perce Reservation seemed ethereal in the muted light. During this stretch I read each day’s edition of the Lewiston, Idaho Tribune and learned that the wildfire season was exploding into maturity all around me — and about a month earlier than usual. Smoke from California and southern Oregon was streaming into western Idaho. Closer to me, though still about a hundred miles away, the Snake River Complex fires were devouring canyons and brushy hillsides. In Grangeville I came within 45 miles of the growing Dixie fire. And dry lightning storms were sparking literally dozens of small fires in Idaho and Montana each night. I was in a tinderbox. 

On the fourth day I rode three miles from Kooskia on the much-anticipated Highway 12 and found that the river canyon was billowing smoke. I put my mask on and rode another mile in deepening smoke before I stopped and recognized that the canyon was probably on fire just up the road. I arranged myself strategically at the end of a long pull-off with a mask on and my bike in full view and stuck out my thumb.  There I stood for an hour while ash rained down on me. No one would pick me up. Then a new F-350 pulled over. 

This guy named Dave — bless his soul — let me throw my bike in the bed of his truck. Not five minutes down the road we saw the fire, an entire hillside across the river. Not in flames, but simply smoldering. Fire officials watched the smoke billow from various turnoffs. Within twenty minutes the air quality improved markedly. 

Here I considered hopping out to ride the rest of the canyon. But, in a rare stroke of wisdom, I silently resolved to accept Dave’s offer to drop me off in Lolo, just ten miles from Missoula.  Later, while I drank a draft Guinness at an air-conditioned bar in town, my dad and I watched the news report: more fires were popping up in the canyon near Lolo Pass, and the sheriff had issued evacuation orders. It’s possible they’ll close the road. It’s a sure fact that I would have been riding and camping in thick smoke for three days without Dave. 

As he sped along the canyon he joked that his recent acts of kindness had refilled his karma. Not five minutes later we yelped: a deer had leaped into the road just before us. Dave hollered and jerked the wheel. The deer barely dodged what would have been a horribly gory death and loped to the other side of the road. Dave deftly corrected the speeding truck. We sat in silence, sweating. 

Being barred from Highway 12 would have been a disaster. I’ve connected with my dad, Doug, and from here we will ride 450 miles together to Jackson, Wyoming. We planned this excursion more than a year ago. Because of the fires and some road work on the TransAm we’ll likely arrive there stoked but by the skin of our teeth. My dad flew in from his home in Holland and the airline almost lost his bike. 

We’ve spent a few days here hanging out, drinking beer and getting his bike ready to roll. It’s looking good. And shout out to my cousin Eliot, who drove up from Bozeman to hang with us. It’s been really nice to get away from the usual conversations around bike touring — gear, your route, where you’re from — and chill with someone I’m close with. I’m about to leave this cafe to swim in a river all day and drink beer. The air quality is better today — a blessing. 

Cycling info

This stretch is amazing, much more beautiful than I anticipated. 

A PSA: Idaho is known for racism. I saw one non-white person in three days. The very first person I spoke with in the state suggested to me, unprompted, that black people shouldn’t have so many children. Being a person of color would likely be more of a challenge here than in the inner northwest. A kid my age working in Riggins told me that Idahoans often test outsider whites to gauge how racist they are. They’re cowards and they couch their abhorrent beliefs in euphemistic language, so my method was to pretend like I had no idea what they were talking about and force them to come out with whatever bullshit they had to say. I had to do this twice, and both times, the person quickly changed the subject. If you’re white and not racist scum, I’d recommend steering conversations away from politics. I have more thoughts on this after spending five weeks in small towns, but that’s for another time. 

Another PSA: the West is on fire every year now. For all those east coasters out there: I’d recommend getting out of the mountain West as early in the summer as possible. Even my plan to escape the fires by late July has been proven inadequate. 

But lord, the cycling is great. You weave in and out of national forest lands in the high country and plunge deep into stunning river canyons. The seven-mile climb out of Hell’s Canyon is steep but became surprisingly forested. The town of Cambridge is pretty desolate but there are ample services. From here to New Meadows the road is narrow and much, much more busy with industrial and recreational traffic. I found out later that the gravel Weiser River Trail runs from Cambridge through Council and almost to New Meadows. I personally found the traffic wasn’t bad enough to warrant taking the slower, gravel option. I’m sure it’s beautiful and if you’re able to, this good be a great ride through what is otherwise a crowded ride through agricultural fields and about a dozen miles of a serene, forested river canyon. I stayed in Council at the RV Park hostel. It’s $25, which was painful, but the carpeted space was air-conditioned with WiFi, a kitchen and there were separate bunk rooms. 

I spent the next night in Riggins. This town was a breath of fresh air. It bounds the mighty Salmon River and the Hell’s Canyon Recreation Area. People flock from all over the world to raft here. As such the town is a thriving little strip of cafes, good restaurants, cute motels, gas stations, bars and ice cream parlors. For the first time in weeks, perhaps, I saw and talked with people in their twenties. I’m told there’s ample camping on BLM Land on Salmon River Road just south of town. Cars, campers, RVs and trucks loaded with rafts pulled in and out of the road all day. I didn’t camp there because of the extreme heat that day and opted instead to camp at the Ranger Station just across the road. It’s a really big lot and was perfect for me: the canyon wall rose vertically and bathed the lot in shade hours before the other side of the road. I camped underneath a trio of apple trees inhabited by small but territorial birds. There was a portapotty, water and a nice bench with a hell of a view. I sat there eating apples for like four hours. The station was closed so I didn’t ask permission and only set my tent up at dusk. When I laid down the little field became chock-full of California quails and deer. There were also an unbelievable number of harvestmen, which I kind of like.

I rode the next day to Kooskia. This was one of my favorite days so far in 1,400 miles of riding. From Riggins, north, you ride 30 miles through the Salmon River Canyon. Traffic was light and the shoulder was wide. I can’t put into words how beautiful this was. I stopped to have a snack before White Bird at Skookumchuck campground. There’s an unblemished white sand beach here on the Salmon. This is the best swimming hole I’ve enjoyed yet. After town, White Bird pass is so freaking epic. You leave town and begin in a rolling valley filled with markers for the 1877 Nez Perce war with the U.S. imperialist dogs. The Old Highway 95 winds back and forth for thousands of miles, and what makes this pass so stunning is the lack of foliage here. Every turn is a broad vista, more scenic than the last. After Grangeville, the ride through the countryside to Kooskia was strange and included some of the steepest hills I’ve ridden yet. The ride down Lamb Grade road into Stites is absurdly steep. Take it slow. I almost hit a cow. 

Kooskia a small, blue-collar logging town. People were really friendly with me here. The camping option in town is a free spot at the city park. The sprinklers run viciously all night so, for the love of god, camp underneath the pavilion if you stay here. I slept like shit because there was a guy pacing around and swearing who seemed potentially violent. 

The best food and drinks I’ve had: The Ace Saloon is a biker bar in Council. Everyone was smoking there, even the bartender, which I thought was hilarious. They have PBRs on draft there for $2. I drank four of them and walked across the sun-baked road to the Seven Devils Cafe. It looks awful in there but the man in the back actually made a really, really good double cheeseburger. And in Whitebird I sat at Red’s River Cafe. It’s your average Sysco diner but I loved it because it was ridiculously cheap. I had two enormous pancakes and like six cups of coffee for $3. In Kooskia I sat with the old hats at Purdy’s Farm Table. The pancakes and coffee here were of a much higher caliber but slightly more expensive. 

Encounters

I believe I’ve identified our man Nick. You may remember him from my last blog post (Baker City and central Oregon). 

I just sat down at a cafe in Missoula and opened the local paper. Holy shit. There’s a photo of him on A9 riding into town, and I recognize his gear. If this is indeed the same Nick, his full name is Nick Novotny He’s a Marine veteran riding across the country to raise money for the Wounded Warrior Project, which provides mental and physical wellness services to vets, and the family of his friend Cpl. James Currie, who died last May. It appears that Currie’s drinking led to his tragic and premature death. Nick said in the article he wants to raise money and awareness about mental health programs. 

It’s important work. If you’d like to donate to Nick’s cause, follow him on Instagram @billyocean and give money via is GoFundMe page. 

July 4-7, Mitchell OR to Oxbow Dam, Idaho-Oregon border

The heat remains extreme. The mercury is somewhere north of 95 degrees at the time of my writing this, an evening in Oxbow, Oregon. A stone’s throw across the mighty Snake River from Idaho. I’m sitting on a concrete bench in a campground that baked in the desert sun all day, and even now in the shade, the surface still feels like a cast iron pan that’s only had a few minutes out of the oven. A guy who is camping in an RV told me that, during the heat wave ten days ago, it was 128 degrees here. It’s 5:30 p.m. and the sun is dipping ever so slightly toward the western canyon rim above the site. I’ll cherish the moment my campsite becomes fully shaded. 

Every day is between 95 and 99 degrees in this rugged, epic environment of endless sagebrush, high peaks, big climbs, silent canyons and painted hills. Despite the heat, morale remains high. I’ve experienced some challenges that I’ll write about in the second subhed. 

Cycling 

This section, from Mitchell to Oxbow, was divine. I had high expectations for central and eastern Oregon mostly stemming from a sociological interest in my home state’s high plains. These are places far from the state’s urban centers I haven’t explored at all and I was curious. 

A caveat: the winds generally blew in my favor during this portion. I say generally because the wind switched often in these several hundred miles. But I never had to truly battle the wind. On July 7 I left a cafe in Richland, OR at 10 a.m. I’d just met two other cyclists, a couple in their 60s from Pennsylvania, who were headed the opposite direction. That’s west, straight into the gale. 

Tough stuff. The wind here, like much of the West, governs whether your ride is sublime, hard or straight-up miserable. I don’t care what your gender is — that shit will put hair on your chest.  

But the beauty here is simply epic. Approaching the Blue Mountains is legendary. Strawberry Mountain is huge, so ancient that its caldera has eroded away. Leaving Baker City is mind-blowing. The switchback climb out of Richland is so far my favorite of any pass I’ve ridden so far. Seeing Eagle Cap high in the Wallowas above verdant Halfway is unreal. The green, fast waters of the Snake are a glorious sight in this drought-wracked environment. 

If you’re riding in the heat, the only option is to get up early. I’m typically on the bike between 5:30 and 6 a.m. I’m not a morning person and still these early hours of the day have proved blissful. The air is cool, the canyons windless. No cars are on the roads. It feels as if the road was laid just for you. 

And the towns on the route are friendly, even bike-centric if you’re on one. The TransAm is on highways that generally don’t have good shoulders, but traffic is mostly very, very light, and drivers in my experience were really respectful. Even the logging trucks gave me huge berths. 

A few obstacles: the rapid back-to-back-to-back passes over the Blue Mountains: Dixie, Tipton and Sumpter. Dixie kicked my ass. More on this below. 

For lodging, an Adventist church in Dayville doubles as a “hostel.” I personally did not have the best experience here because of the heat. They generously allow you to camp on their lawn or sleep indoors on the floor — the small sanctuary is just steps away through a door — but the heat was too oppressive inside. So I camped on the lawn. This posed a very specific problem for me because it happened to be the Fourth of July that night and it was pretty loud in town. 

From here you can camp in Prairie City or over Dixie Pass at Austin Junction. I had a great experience in Prairie City — it’s a thriving little town with many restaurants, bars and a Forest Service headquarters — and would have loved to camp there, but I still had some fight in me so I tackled Dixie and made it to Austin. I camped at the state park there, which is like a half a mile off the road. 

That state park, which I’m forgetting the name of (and I don’t have wifi while I write this), has the most impressive hiker-biker site I’ve ever seen. I should say sites, plural, because it’s like a small complex. There must be eight sites and they’re all grassy, amply shaded. In the middle between them stands a birdhouse with electric outlets in the post. Only $8. Christi, or Kristi, who runs the lone restaurant and lodge situation at Austin Junction, said she wasn’t accepting cyclists at the moment. Typically you can camp there if you chat her up, I’ve heard. 

In Baker City I stayed with Judy, a Warmshowers host. I really enjoyed it. 

Now I’m at Copperfield campground, just down river from the Oxbow Dam. Multiple people told me this site was gorgeous and I’m somewhat disappointed. It’s just a big, average RV site. However there are trees, and trees make shade, and that’s all that really matters in this situation. I can’t tell if I’m unimpressed with the campground only because I’m exhausted.

The best food I’ve eaten recently: Charlie’s subs in downtown Baker City. They appear to have a cult following in town. The cafe in Richland served up a stellar breakfast, and they also do smoothies, and they open at 7 a.m. currently six days a week. Their cups of coffee are unreasonably large. 

Body update — 1,200 miles in 

People who know me know that I’m an under-developed stick. This is the first time in my life I’ve had a bottomless appetite. Weeklong backpacking trips, of which I’ve done many, had far less influence over my diet than bike touring. On a big tour you’re throwing out calories like a pigeon lady with bread crumbs. I’ve never experienced anything like it. 

I haven’t weighed myself, but I’ve clearly lost weight already despite the ridiculous amount of food I’m eating. My wrists feel frail. 

I hesitate to write this part because my aunt Carol, when she reads this, will tell me to shape up. She’s studied sports and lifestyle nutrition at OHSU in Portland for years now, examining how athletes, firefighters and the like feed themselves and how that impacts performance. If there is an expert in nutrition, she’s it, and she’s already been texting me with affirmations to eat. Nuts in particular are good, she said. 

I felt the caloric deficiency and the heat and sleep deprivation for the first time on Dixie Pass. It’s a steep pass for seven or eight miles out of the high valley beyond Prairie City, if you’re headed east. Nothing out of the ordinary. I’ve done seven or eight serious passes at this point and I know the deal. Plenty of water, lots of sugar to get you up and over if you need it. Breaks in the shade, plenty of water. 

I barely slept the night before in Dayville and felt exhausted all day. Yet at the bottom of the pass a rush of energy coursed through me and I resolved to crest the mountain. For reference, this push landed me at like six miles per hour instead of five. It’s not like I’m sprinting up the damn thing. 

Twenty minutes and a few miles later, sweat poured from my temples. It was the early afternoon and the end of my day was just over the pass. So I pushed. With the sun high overhead the ponderosas offered no shade on the road. And suddenly I knew that if I didn’t get into shade quickly I would pass out. It wasn’t an immediate risk, but a serious one if ignored. 

I made it to a shady patch, a gravel turnout off the highway. I popped my headphones off and my breathing was ragged and I languidly opened my panniers to assemble a menagerie of snacks: pop tarts, chex mix, candy, and the dregs of a powerade I topped off with water to retain the taste. And I laid down in the dirt with my head propped against my back pannier and just ate and drank a virtual bucket of water — knowing that as much as I wanted was down the pass, if I could just get there. I laid there seven or eight feet from this lightly-trafficked highway in the gravel and watched an unmoving ponderosa for entertainment. It was surprisingly beautiful, that unassuming turnoff on Highway 7. 

I knew that it was only becoming hotter as the minutes ticked by. I had maybe two miles left of pure climbing. When I stood up the road was blinding in the glare, like fire, and I was light -headed. A mile later I threw my bike down in a measly strip of shade and laid on the hot pavement. Another mile and I began coasting down the long stretch to the restaurant at Austin Junction. I then devoured a big huckleberry shake in like three minutes. 

The interaction of extreme heat and my shrinking fat stores pushed me to double-down on food. At the suggestion of a lovely man I met in Dayville, a seasoned cyclist named Steve, I purchased a bag of protein powder. This is already really helping. I’m also forcing myself to eat literally double of whatever portion I’d typically have. And “forcing” is the wrong word choice here. If I make it for myself, or if I buy it, I have no problem eating it. 

 

It’s hard work but rewarding riding out here. I feel good, despite the hiccup on Dixie, and riding a minimum of 50 miles per day. I’m usually done by 1:30 p.m. 

Encounters 

My spirit animal during this section is Nick. I’ve never met Nick, even though twice in four days we’ve slept in the same house. Nick arrives very late, near 10:30, when I’m in a twilight between wakefulness and sleep. I first heard his hushed voice in the Mitchell hostel when one of the hosts walked him to his bunk. The three of us original occupants had long since hit the sack. 

“Thank you,” he whispered to her again and again, loudly. I heard the click of his bike as the tires rolled in the dark. 

The host sounded tired and said it was no problem, no problem. I heard Grant — another guy named Grant — shift in his sheets next to me. I was less annoyed and more interested in this person who’d arrived after nightfall.

 

“Thank you,” he whispered again. “Such a rough day. So freaking hot out there and that pass just took way longer than I expected, I ran out of water and…” 

And I fell asleep. 

In the pre-dawn morning I found he’d pulled the curtains around his bunk. I tip-toed my bike past his at 5:30. A bit of a hap-hazard pack job it seemed to me: an oversized tent and some other large bag strapped under his handlebars, no front rack, and a lot of weight on the back. I walked through the doors and into the morning and found I’d have a headwind that day, so I immediately forgot all about the guy. 

Until Judy walked me through her home in Baker City. 

“There’s another cyclist arriving tonight. I hope that’s OK with you.” 

“Totally,” I probably, and politely, said. 

“His name is Nick.” She looked at me. “Ring any bells.”

“Nope.”

We sat in the heat in her living room and talked for hours about her career in medical illustration. She’d produced a portfolio of these high-resolution, intricate photos of mosquitos and their eggs she took with the Smithsonian’s micron camera — her last job, she said, and one she had for 13 years — when her phone rang. She put it on speaker. 

The wind howled through it.  

The man was exhausted. Demoralized. Defeated. 

“These passes, man. I’m still a couple of hours out. I should get there around 10:30. If that’s too late for you to accommodate me, I understand.” 

Judy accentuated her words one at a time. “It is absolutely not a problem. There is a place for you here, whenever you arrive. I’ll get your bed ready for you.”

I woke up at 10:30 with the dog barking. From the basement windows I saw the white wash of a headlamp and two sets of feet, and two bike wheels. I fell back asleep.

In the still-dark morning, there he was. Sprawled, face-first, on a twin mattress Judy had set in the dining room. A young guy. The room was still uncomfortably hot from the previous day’s sun. 

Judy was awake to walk her dog and I stood there sipping the coffee she’d made me for a moment taking it all in. A man who’d slept too little and in his own sweat. He looked how I felt. 

It appears that he is riding in the heat of the day, unlike every other cyclist I’ve met so far on the TransAm. Perhaps he’s waking up just a bit too late and riding a bit too slowly to beat the heat. I wonder if I’ll see him again some night. 

Nick, if I ever meet you, I’m going to shake your hand. You’re gonna make it. 

*** 

I exchanged few, if any, words with Gingus. The man hurled horseshoes across the lawn to the disappointment and hilarity of the dozens of Dayville locals watching from their vantage, a small hill in the shade. I sat with them. It was the Fourth of July and so hot that I felt like I was being broiled alive as I sat and drank my beers. Too hot for the annual goat roping, they told me, because they were worried that a goat or two might perish in the heat. Devastating news. 

Gingus flailed as he tossed the horseshoes. One off the mark. Then another. Always off. He’d grimace when the second one thunked into the dirt, nowhere close to the pole. He’d slump and scratch his goatee with a guilty look. 

Maybe he was generally good at the sport, and this was an off-day. Maybe he always sucked. He was perhaps in his 50s, white and deeply tanned and deathly skinny, as if he’d flocked home for the Fourth between Caribbean sailing excursions. He guzzled Bud Lights. Couldn’t hurt at this point, I thought. 

“What the fuck was that, Gingus?!” someone heckled him. 

“Gingus, the hell is wrong with you man.”

Someone told me Dayville is a town of no less than 120 denizens. It was a tournament and I wondered how Gingus had advanced past a single game. Half the town, easily, sat on the grassy knoll, and all of them agreed Gingus was awful at horseshoes. You could see it in their faces as the game continued. 

His name isn’t actually Gingus. I don’t know what it is. They started calling him Gingus halfway through the match. They were relentless. They relished in it. 

This worried his girlfriend. I could tell they hadn’t been together long because she looked out of place in the menagerie, as I did, and the mob was not inviting. Rail thin, tanned, with dyed platinum hair, she had the look of a sundowning Motley Crew groupie. I’m sure she has many redeeming qualities but, hey, that’s what she looked like. She’d carried a chair over and sat delicately next to me, which elicited snickers from the rabble because the knoll was too steep to place a chair and she sat awkwardly, perched on the front of the seat, so as to not stain her dress on the grass. Gingus gurgled beers and watched as his opponents, a co-ed and altogether steel-eyed combo, sunk point after point. He dragged his feet as he walked over to her. 

“Gingus?” She whispered to him. Only I could hear. “What does that mean?”

“Oh. I wouldn’t worry about it,” he told her, affectionately. 

She shook her head slightly. “It sounds like a bad word.” 

“It’s no big deal,” he said. “Don’t worry.”

 

It was clear Gingus and his anonymous partner would easily lose. He began appealing for the other team to put him out of his misery.  

***

Steve told me he’s the whitest one in his family. He’s indigenous, a member of the Pine Ridge tribe from present-day South Dakota. A veteran of the 1973 Wounded Knee occupation. He also claimed he smuggled drugs for the real-life inspiration of Johnny Depp’s character in Blow. I’m not sure what to believe. We sat in the shade in Prairie City, Oregon. I was exhausted and ate an ice cream bar. I scratched his dog, Bonnie. 

When I left he put his arms on my shoulders. 

“Have you seen the spirit?”

“The spirit?”

“On the road out there.”

“I’m not a very spiritual person,” I said. “I was raised Catholic, but I’m not any more.” 

“I’m not talking about religion.” 

He said there’s a great spirit that unites us all and this land. “I hope you recognize this on your vision quest when the spirit presents itself.” He took his arms off my shoulders and shook my hand. 

“I’ll keep two eyes out,” I promised him. 

***

I’ve camped for several nights in a row now next to Terry and Morgan, a father-son combo from South Carolina. Good people. I was really tired after Dixie and took a nap in the shade at the state park. When I woke up, Terry invited me to their table and presented me with a pannier full of ice-cold Banquet Beers. We sat and got to know each other. He’s a financial advisor but well-accustomed to dragging his family across the country for road trips, rafting excursions, bike tours, backpacking, you name it. A big inspiration. 

Morgan is a smart kid. She’s tall and built and is searching for the right college to continue her interests in biology and natural science but also her sport, rowing. She’s leaning toward Oregon State. 

When you’re on the TransAm, or routes like this out West, towns are generally not close to each other. There’s usually only one reasonable option to camp that day in the 50-60 mile range. So even though they’re riding a bit slower than I am, I see them every night. 

June 29-July 3, days 28-32: Detroit Lake to Mitchell, OR on TransAm

 I’m on the road again. 

I’m changing the format of this blog. I’ll start with cycling info and move into my personal experiences. 

Cycling 

In the last three days I rode from Detroit to Mitchell, OR on the TransAm. Highway 22 is often narrow and heavily trafficked, even when I rode it mid-week. It’s also a logging corridor and busy at the moment with forest managers dealing with the colossal burn scar from the 2020 fires. Then, near Sisters, the traffic is worse. 

I rode Santiam Pass on account of the heat. Everyone else I’ve talked to has done McKenzie, which is more scenic. I would’ve done that one if it wasn’t so freaking hot. In retrospect, I should have done it anyway. Santiam is less scenic and has little or no shoulder for much of it. I camped at Blue Bay Campground. It’s $22 but I was able to talk the camphost down to $12. 

To Sisters, the road is wider. There was still a good amount of traffic when I rode this at 6-7 a.m. The route to Terrebone is excellent and was popular with local cyclists. The views of the Cascades are extraordinary. And at Terrebone, you gotta go to Smith Rock. I don’t care how far you’re riding that day or how hot it is. Shut the hell up and do it. It’s awesome. 

Good riding on country roads to Prineville. Stay with Marcel and Anne on Warmshowers. More on this below. 

After Prineville, you’re on 26 over Ochoco Pass to Mitchell. This pass is really gradual, and the downhill on the other side is really, really fun. I had a headwind coming out of Mitchell in the a.m. 

This region east of Sisters is the territory of goat heads. They’re problematic plants that spread their little burrs around like the plague. I think they’ve gotten me. I’ve had two slow leaks two days in a row. 

Prineville and Mitchell are bike meccas. People are super friendly and the local businesses rely on bicycle tourists. Be nice. Hit the bike shop in Prineville and hang out. And in Mitchell you gotta stay at Spoken Bike Hostel. It’s free but give them a good donation. This place is where I am writing from now. It’s really fun here. It’s like sitting at the water hole in the desert where all of the cyclists on the TransAm find themselves and realize that they’re not actually alone out there in the void. And the air conditioning works. There’s food in the fridge, showers, a TV, big bunk beds, couches, fresh towels, bike stands and tire lube and patches, and there’s a line in the back where you can hang your laundry in the blazing sun. 

Encounters, Musings, Tiny Tortures 

The heat wave abated early lat week. I was cranky in Portland, and my time window was narrowing. So instead of driving out to Glacier National Park on the Fourth of July weekend — likely a shit show — my Mom and I camped for a night at Detroit Lake. It was really pleasant. In the morning she tucked a note underneath my bungie cord: DETROIT TO DETROIT. This plan gave me a 10 day stretch through the high desert at about 50 miles a day to Missoula, where I’m meeting my dad and my cousin. 

I set out the next morning, at 6, after a night of little sleep. 

The process of leaving home again was surprisingly difficult. I had road jitters all over again. The traffic seemed too close, too fast. I felt lonely. And on Highway 22 out of Detroit, the logging trucks were back. My body felt weaker, not stronger, from commiserating with my friends during the unbelievable heatwave. My knees buckled, my hands clenched. But by the end of the day I was at lovely Suttle Lake with another gnarly pass under my belt, drinking beer and swimming. I dozed off and on that afternoon in the shade at Blue Bay Campground. The kids next door sprinted around my tent playing tag, which I didn’t mind. I finally got up around 7 to cook dinner and watched, bleary-eyed, as a chipmunk scurried out of my pannier.

By 1 p.m. it was hot as hell. The forecast in central and eastern Oregon this week has been reliably hot. Temperatures in the 90s, occasionally the upper 90s. One simply cannot ride a bike in the desert in those temperatures. But this new danger element, the afternoon sun, has also introduced a level of tactics into the ride that previously wasn’t present. In the morning my alarm clock rings at 5 or 5:15 and I’m on the road, munching on a crumbly pop tart, around 6. The roads are quiet at this hour and it’s beautiful. By 11 a.m. it’s in the 80s. As of writing I haven’t been caught on the road past 2 p.m. yet. I don’t plan to. 

I rode the next morning into Sisters, and then to Terrebone and Smith Rock State Park. This stretch is blissful. The Douglas Firs become mighty Ponderosas, and then the forest ends altogether and becomes arroyos and sagebrush, junipers, the territory of rattlesnakes and bull snakes. On the desert floor the mountains are now in full view and you see the skyline of the central Cascade volcanoes: Jefferson, Mt. Washington and the Three Sisters. Far to the northwest, for a moment, Mt. Hood stood shining. And Smith Rock is an unlikely treasure, a scaled-down Zion. I hit 1,000 miles this day and immediately found that my back tires was slowly leaking air. 

I swore and pulled over in the meager shade of a juniper to pump it up. Not two miles later I checked the pressure. Leaking. I swore again and resolved to keep a good attitude during this first mechanical trial of my tour. Lucky me: a grove of cottonwoods provided ample shade in the yard of a country home. I took off my panniers and began sweating as I took the wheel off and took out my tools. What I did not see at this moment was the irrigation ditch beyond the railroad tracks that was a breeding ground for mosquitos. Of course. 

I groaned as they swarmed me. My legs seared from the bites and the delicate work of patching the tire became more difficult. The fiasco attracted the attention of six cows, who loped across their pasture to gather at the wire fence, where my bike was upturned and leaning, and chew on my handlebars and stare at me. I patched the tire and rode into Prineville’s Crooked River Brewery. It was more of a family joint and the music they played was an awful amalgam of flapper jazz and dubstep, but hey, they had Coors pints for $4. 

In Prineville I used Warm Showers for the first time and I will never forget it. 

I knocked on the door at 4:30. It was 95 degrees and I was soaked in sweat, caked in grime from working on my bike. A woman stuck her head out of the door and introduced herself as Anne. I recognized a French accent. Not what I expected in this conservative stronghold smackdab in the center of Oregon.   

It was a small ranch house, with a flower garden and a tangled mass of ivy grown up its side. In the backyard an awning mercifully shaded the porch from the sun. Three elementary-age girls splashed around, cackling, in an above-ground pool. And two more girls, middle-schoolers, sat on a porch swing. Anne sat me down and brought me some water, cherries and watermelon. She was friendly, joyful even, with grey hair in a ponytail with cropped bangs. We decided that I would pitch my tent on the grass strip in the backyard. 

For the next 16 hours I felt like the lone male member of a four-person family in Prineville, Oregon. Anne explained to me early that, even though she had not logged any bike tours herself, she has hosted many, many a cyclist for two reasons: to familiarize her children with the reality that strangers are overwhelmingly kind, and to “pay it forward” as someone who traveled widely in the past. An incredible tactic. I asked her if, among her hundreds of guests, anyone had ever stolen something. She told me that she’ll go so far as to leave the back door unlocked and let people stay there even when the family is away, and laughing, she spread her arms wide. 

“What do I have that someone would want to steal?”

Her husband, Marcel, is a veteran fire fighter who has deployed to Alaska. I learned that this is very hard work and that these patriots are underpaid. He loves it. The whole family loves it. This is their family’s main source of income, as Anne is home with the kids. This is their culture; the kids can tell you what a sherpa is, where the smokejumper crews are headquartered in the West, why backcountry firefighters rarely use chainsaws and how savagely the veterans haze the newbies. 

Yet their household is the purest expression of that cliche that money is not the same as wealth. The kids’ Legos were sprawled across the small dining room table. Musical instruments and books, and hanging plants, lined the walls. There was no TV or air conditioning. Where a TV would be in many households there was a wood-fired stove and a constellation of photos of their family and others’. To avoid making the house so hot, Anne shrewdly barbecued home-made pizzas. The oldest daughter, Lou, was more at ease with me in her own home than I was. The girls occasionally broke into French; Anne is French Canadian, and Marcel is from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, and they’ve raised a bilingual family. Lou sang to herself on the floor while crafting an intricate pinata for her sister’s tenth birthday party. She dashed into her room to show me the impressive dress she’d made from a parachute and then a small dog she’d sewn of paisley fabric. After dinner we did the dishes together — they don’t have a dishwasher —  and then Anne told me to pick up a guitar, so I did, and Lou picked up a fiddle and put a book of music in front of me. We played a few folk songs together. She’s really good. At Marcel’s behest the family had taken in a rambunctious, poorly-trained named Sherpa who is adorable but can only express affection by clamping his teeth around your arm and gnawing. He would explode through the back door without notice and gallivant through the home. 

At sundown Anne took the dog on a bike ride to burn out his energy. That left me with these three girls, who decided to jump in the pool. That pool was ten feet from where I planned to set up my tent, and it was my bed time. I looked up at the darkening sky and wondered how I’d gotten there. 

Two of the girls began frolicking in the pool, throwing water on each other, playing “don’t touch the bottom with your butt.” And the third girl, the youngest at 4 or 5, was running around the backyard giggling, stark naked. She asked her older sisters whether they could all go in the pool naked. 

“No,” they say in unison. “You have to have your bottoms on.” I’m just shaking my head, laughing, staking out my tent, and this little one crouched on the porch above me and whispered to me, “Hi,” and then abruptly pulled on her bottoms. I facepalmed. 

She asked me if I was going to sleep in the sauna, where Anne had laid out a mattress pad on a shelf for travelers. I told her no, because it would be a bit hot in there. She agreed and then asked me how long I was riding my bike for. I told her across the country, and she awed and slapped her hands to her cheeks. 

“Across the country?”

“Yeah, all summer.”

“Won’t you get a summer break?”

I thought about that for a moment. “This is my summer break.”

She thought about that for a moment. “Camping and…riding a bike all day is your summer break.”

“I guess so.” 

***

This hostel in Mitchell is also run on an ethos: “Radical Generosity.” 

If I am able to better myself during this ride, I hope I can nurture just a kernel of this magic powering Anne and the hosts here.