The Final Three Checkpoints

The three checkpoints we have left are some of the closest to home.  Only one checkpoint out of the entire nineteen was closer.  We have Grays River, WA and Nehalem and Hood River, OR left.  We did a lunch run to the beach on a Wednesday and got the Grays River and Nehalem ones.  No big deal and an easy ride.  That leaves just Hood River, a town in the Columbia River Gorge about two hours east of us.  But this one is a bigger story.  I had written that we wouldn't take another long ride, but again we changed plans.

This story starts with the bike being repaired at Cycle-Specialties in Portland for $1300.  It was cheaper than I feared and they did a good job.  We took the lunch run after that but we decided we needed a longer trip to check everything out.  So instead of just going to Hood River for lunch we decided to take a week and go to some places we had not ridden in twenty years.  It turned out to be a trip of river running.

We started by following the Columbia River upstream through the Columbia River Gorge.  We have been through here many times and it always seems to be into a strong headwind.  Today we have a tailwind!  At times it seems as if the air is still because the wind is blowing so hard from behind.  This is one for the record books.  Normally we are headed into the wind.

The check point is at the Western Antique Aeroplane and  Automobile Museum (WAAAM).  A very interesting museum near the airport (of course) with lots of motorcycles too.  We now have ALL the checkpoints!

After looking at all the displays and enjoying talking to the very knowledgeable volunteers that were available to answer questions we headed on east.

After a night at an Oregon state park right on the river we started along the freeway for a few more miles to LA Grande where we turned east and followed the Grande Ronde and Wallowa Rivers into the Wallowa Mountains on a two-lane road. 

After lunch at the Terminal Gravity Brewpub we followed state route 3 north along a ridge paralleling the Snake River to Lewiston, ID.  Between the picture above and this one Highway 3 climbs to over 4,000 feet and then drops one half mile into the canyon of the Grande Ronde River from which it immediately climbs back up that half mile doing it in a series of switchbacks and curves that makes it one of the best riding roads in the area.

From Lewiston, ID we headed up the Clearwater River on Highway 12 to a campground for the night. 

The next morning we switched to the Lochsa River, still on Highway 12 toward Lolo Pass.  This highway is famous for this sign to the right.  "Winding Road 99 Miles" is one of those BTDT's (Been There, Done That) that motorcyclists like to claim.  We had been over this pass about twenty years ago on our '81 GoldWing.  I felt it was time to do it again and see if the sign was still there. 

The sign means what it says, the road to the pass follows the winding river bottom.  The ridge on the north side of the river was the old Indian trail that Lewis and Clark followed on their way west in the very early 1800's.  This is a very scenic and somewhat slow road all the way to Lolo Pass at a little over 5,000 ft.  We took a break at the top and headed down the other side into Montana.  At the junction we turned north and had lunch in Missoula, MT at the Iron Horse Pub where they had a warning sign between the parking area and the front door.

It says "Beware, Drunken People Crossing".

It may well have been a pub, but on two wheels it is best to keep one's wits about themselves.  I did have a huge, and very good, BLT (bacon, lettuce, tomato) sandwich there.  Dinner that night was very light because we were both still full from lunch.

From Missoula we followed state highway 200 northwest along a broad valley and the Clark Fork River.  There is a large basin north of Missoula where the Flathead Lake is that during the last ice age was filled with water creating a huge lake known as Lake Missoula.  This area drains down the Clark Fork River.  (Remember this for later.)

The Clark Fork River leads to Lake Pend Oreille, pronounced Ponderay, in the Idaho Panhandle.  We tried four different campgrounds around the town of Sandpoint without finding an empty site.  In the fourth a couple that were already in a site offered us part of theirs.  We gladly accepted.  There were there with their Jeep and the tent trailer that they pull behind his bike.  They ride a pair of Yamaha's.

By this time the day had been very long and we were getting tired.  We were already hot and not finding a campsite was tiring.  We appreciated the gesture very much.  (We have shared many campsites over the years, particularly in Europe where the sites are often not laid out with definitive boundaries like in the USA.)

On the following day we stopped following the rivers and cut due west towards the Columbia River (the same one that flows through the Gorge we travelled our first day out).  At this point the river is dammed by Grand Coulee Dam creating Lake Roosevelt.  We are going to cross it on the ferry at Inchelium, entering the Colville Indian Reservation.  This is not a big or popular ferry but it is run by the State of Washington and is free.  It connects two very minor roads and towns that can see each other but would take a 60 mile detour otherwise.

After a very pleasant river cruise on the ferry (8.5 mph) we crossed the middle of the reservation on more minor roads that had lots of twists and turns to the huge Grand Coulee Dam.  There we turned south along an old river route.

In the center of Washington State is a large basin.  This basin formed when the lava flows from 10-15 million years ago piled up in layer after layer over 200,000 square miles and 6,000 feet deep.  The picture below shows some of the layers in the side of the coulee.

The Columbia River flows south out of Canada and then west along the north side of the basin for about a hundred miles.  When it reaches the north/south running Cascade Mountain Range it turns south for about 200 miles and then west again into the Columbia River Gorge, passing through the Cascade Mountains on its journey to the Pacific Ocean.  Grand Coulee Dam is in the middle of the westerly flowing part at the top of the basin. 

From the dam an old river bed runs south that rejoins the Columbia River about 150 miles to the south.  This riverbed was created during the last ice age about 15,000 years ago when an ice dam blocked the westward flow of the Columbia.  Also during this time the Clark Fork was blocked creating Lake Missoula.  Several times over a couple of thousand years Lake Missoula would break through its ice dam and a wall of water several hundred feet high would run down it and all the way to the Columbia creating a huge flood of water that turned south at this ice dam and created a new channel.  When all the ice melted the Columbia River returned to its original channel leaving a series of lakes along the bypass channel.  Our road mostly followed the edge of the lakes in the bottom of the bypass riverbed.

At one place there is an old waterfall.  When the river took this route the waterfall was the largest ever on earth.  Dry Falls, as it is now known, is 300 feet high and 3.5 miles wide.  When Lake Missoula let go, as it did several times over the years, the water over the falls was estimated to be 400 feet deep for as much as a week.  The falls have moved 21 miles upstream from the starting point through the erosion of the cliff face.

That night we spent in a State Park campground where I-90 crosses the Columbia River.  That was a mistake.  The wind was calm until evening, then it began to blow.  I staked out all the guy lines on the tent.  At 2:30 in the morning I was out, in my underwear, trying to add more guy lines, holding the flashlight in my mouth and trying to tie more lines and pound in more stakes while Kathy leaned against the inside of the tent to hold it against the wind.  We did survive but bent a couple tent poles a bit.

From here we continue our river running by avoiding the freeway and taking Canyon Road from Ellensburg to Yakima.  This is downstream along the Yakima River.  At Yakima we turn west on Highway 12 (another part of the same highway we took over Lolo Pass) and follow the Naches River upstream.

Our destination is now Mt. Rainier.  We are done with the river running for the rest of the trip.  Our route took us over Chinook Pass, just opened about 2 weeks ago.  People are still skiing up here at the end of July.

The weather was gorgeous with blue sky and fluffy white clouds.  We rode the very curvy and switchback filled road to the Paradise Lodge and took a break.  (One of the advantages of getting older is that one can get a Senior Card that lets the owner and three others into National Parks, etc. for free.  This made what would have been a $15 entrance fee, just to ride this road, free.)

Here is a screen shot of the GPS while on the Paradise Road.

Upon leaving Mt. Rainier Park we followed Highway 12 to I-5 and then south to home.  We have covered just over 1400 miles and got one checkpoint.  But it is the last checkpoint and this is the first time we have gotten all of them.

It has been an exciting 2011 Grand Tour.  The Mexican Breakdown, the cold tour through eastern Oregon in April, the two one-day poker runs, the lunch run to the beach and finally the river running at the end of July.  This is it for this story.  Return to the home page.