A Break, for Now

Hi folks,

I've had a feeling growing inside of me for quite a while, and I think it's reached the point where it's grown large enough so that I can no longer ignore it: I'm tired of maintaining this blag, and taking the time during my travels to find a computer, sit down, gather my thoughts, and fiddle with technologies. It's been a great joy to get some of my thoughts and experiences down in words for others to share, but what should be a fun and light-hearted endeavour is coming to feel like more and more of a chore for me. I think this struggle is reflected in my writing, both in quantity and quality, and in earnest, I'd rather just not write than do it so half-heartedly. Thanks for tagging along with me thus far, and I'm sure there will be more stories shared here at some point (like when I'm finished with this trip, and am back in front of my own computer with time to spare). Until then, I'm signing off for a spell.

(A brief update: I made it to San Francisco yesterday, after a pleasant, scenic, and sunny-but-not-too-hot few days down Highway 1. I'm staying here with my friend Alan, who is working on a postdoc at Stanford (I previously visited him during another bike trip through Providence in 2009, where he showed me how to dissect fruit flies.) I've never been to San Francisco before (except for a brief high-school band trip that really doesn't count), so I'm planning on taking some time to explore the city before continuing on.)

Much love to all,

Scott

The Lost Coast

Number of miles: 555

It's hard to travel with vegetables. It's a sad, sad fact of the road, but, for the most part, they just don't keep in a saddlebag. As a rule, anything leafy that cannot be consumed on the spot, does not get consumed. I do my best to mitigate my lack of fresh food by gorging on greens whenever I can, but the opportunity never presents itself as much as I'd like. When I departed from Orleans, though, I left with a thoroughly rejuvenated colon, cleansed with the bounty of a growing season a good month or two ahead of what I'm accustomed to; the gardens are already raging here, in all their cruciferous splendor.

In between the produce stands, I've been pleasantly surprised to find the coast liberally dotted with breweries I've long ago come to respect. This has a tendency to impede my process some, but also provides an excellent escape from the midday heat. Lost Coast, Eel River, Mad River, Boonville, Lagunitas, North Coast, the list goes on. I can't visit them all, but I'll be damned if I can't try. Who's ever heard of a BUI, anyway?

A ways south of Eureka, I decided to split off from the 101 for a spell, to take in a stretch of rural coastline known as the Lost Coast. The California highway map I have didn't go into enough detail to actually show the route that meanders through tiny, forgotten towns, but I had heard mention of the trail, and at least knew the start and end points, and figured that was good enough. It was, to the extent that I made it out alive, but I would highly discourage any cyclist from following that route; in the end, it was the most taxing and difficult day of riding I've ever done. The road was pleasantly free of traffic, but miserably pock-marked, potholed and crumbling, and outright unpaved for many stretches. Mountain after demoralizing mountain appeared before me, making for endless climbing. These were the steepest grades I've ever seen, literally impossible to ride up in some places, my front tire lifting off the ground with every pedal stroke from being pitched back so far. (I later found out from a local that that stretch of road was the steepest paved road in the entire state.) The weather was miserably hot, and water was scarce; three towns in a row provided no services, their water all unpotable. I stopped frequently to eat, rehydrate, cool off, and fortify myself in any way I could think, before continuing on, only to stop five minutes later, thoroughly exhausted and discouraged. My inadequate map told me nothing of where I was going, or how much further there was to go. I walked and pushed my bike up a lot of gravel, it constantly sliding out from under my grip. At the end of the day, I gave up more than thirty miles short of where I expected to be, unable to muster the psychological or physical strength to go on. I slept in a wooded cemetery that night, along with every mosquito in Humboldt County.

I kept trying to find silver linings in my misery, but all I could come up with were ways in which things could've been worse, like getting flat tires (knock on madrone), which is hardly a silver lining at all; things could always be worse. Lost Coast, as far as I'm concerned, you can stay lost; your scenery is weak by comparison, and in the end, just not worth the trouble. While I was riding along the water, I stopped for a spell to explore what certainly would've been tide pools in Oregon or Washington, but here were strangely devoid of life; all I could find was some seaweed, a few pelicans in the distance, and some strange giant barnacle/jellyfish-like thing, but may have just been half of an old papaya, I couldn't tell.

Animal or vegetable?

I'm in Garberville now, visiting another friend of mine from Seattle, who is down here working on a farm for the summer. I've been lending a hand where I can, planting, watering, and mulching the day away until it's too dark to work. We went swimming in the Eel River yesterday, during the heat of the afternoon. It was an unbelievably refreshing reward to wash off the compounding layers of sweat, sunscreen and dirt, but I slipped on a wet patch of moss and cracked my tailbone right on a jagged rock sticking out of the sand, an unpleasant popping sound made on impact. I don't think I broke anything, but a day later, it's still pretty damned tender, and very painful to sit down. I have yet to try climbing on my bike to see what riding is like, but I'm really hoping it doesn't interfere with the rest of my trip.

On a final note, and as a brief aside, happy Fathers Day to all the dads out there, and thanks for everything you've done to raise your children as best you can. Keep it up.

Sleeping in Trees

Number of miles: 377

One of the unfortunate consequences of moving immediately prior to starting a bike trip is that my belongings are all inaccessible, or at least in a state of severe disarray; I often have trouble locating what I need to bring along with me, or just outright forget to pack something. In this case, I ended up leaving Eugene without soap or towel; no major consequence for me, per se, but I pity the person who finds themself in close proximity to me for the next few weeks, between my infrequent bathing. Far more significant, though, was my neglect in packing a sun shirt, which protects me from the relentless evil rays of the afternoon, and, as a bonus, protects me at dusk from mosquitoes, with too tight a weave for them to penetrate. Compounding this problem was the bottle of sunscreen that I set off with, it having expired about three years ago. Now, most everything comes with expiration dates these days, and some matter, and some really don't. Turns out they matter for sunscreen. I lucked out during the first few days biking, with overcast weather, or cool enough temperatures to warrant long sleeves, but on my fifth day I got royally torched on my arms, shoulders, and tops of my legs, making everything, even sleep, a painful and difficult task. (Everybody do yourself a favour: watch this, and act accordingly.)

But I get ahead of myself. The ride from Eugene to the coast was splendiferous; I followed the Smith River, a well-maintained, but utterly forgotten scenic backroad through the Coastal Range. The Smith River lazily carves its way through towering cliff faces covered with sword, bracken, and delicate maidenhair ferns, past waterfalls and moss-carpeted cascades, on its way out to sea. The forests were rife with wildflowers, with wild irises, foxgloves, and giant cauliflower heads of hogweed bursting from every surface. It was an excellent time and place for foraging: fiddleheads, miners lettuce, oxalis, and salmonberries were in abundance, with thimbleberries not far behind. Even crawdads could be found in great numbers, if I were ever brave/desperate enough (I'm not). In the forty-mile stretch along the Smith River to Reedsport, I was passed by four cars.

Sunset at the Oregon Coast.

The coastal route of southern Oregon was largely forgettable until Gold Beach, where the highway starts following along cliffs overlooking the ocean. The powerful coastal winds were at my back for much of the day, and pushed me down to the state border with relative ease. I was hoping that the border between Oregon and California was a latitudinally arbitrary measure of statehood, but in fact, the landscape changed within minutes of crossing, the public beaches of Oregon giving way to miles of nothing but heavily-farmed agricultural fields. It stayed this way until just north of Crescent City, with small stands of forest giving a glimpse of what lay ahead.

Roosevelt elk grazing in Redwood Creek valley.

Redwoods! After spending a day biking through, walking in, and sleeping in, the redwood forests, I am convinced that no amount of prose, measurements, statistics or comparisons will do justice to describe the humbling experience and grandeur of standing in the middle of a redwood grove. They are truly a marvel of nature, simultaneously difficult to comprehend but easy to accept. And, um, big. Really big. (I read a sign about a particular tree, appropriately named "Big Tree", that told a story of an early settler in the area who wanted to cut it down so he could make a dance floor out of the stump.) To illustrate: I got caught in the middle of a long, steep ascent out of the Redwood Creek valley late in the evening, with both sundown and rain imminent. I stopped and wandered into a stand of redwoods, and found a tree, hollowed out by fire but still very much alive, with ample room for my bicycle and rolled out sleeping bag. I slept dry and peaceful that night, nestled snugly inside of a tree, insulated on three sides by four-foot-thick walls, the fourth opening to a sloping hillside of forest shrouded in mist.

Redwoods embraced in fog.

I awoke the next morning with the fog still clinging tightly and thickly to the mountainside, obscuring visibility to just a few metres, with many miles of a winding, 20% grade climb still before me. The mist dewed up in my sorry excuse for a beard as I strained and sweated my way above the clouds, and up many more miles of desolate, sunny dirt roads, to finally descend into the next valley over. I quickly left behind the lush and damp old growth for a drier and much hotter, but equally beautiful, climate: the Klamath River watershed (cue the aforementioned sunburn).

Morning mountain dew.

As luck would have it, my debilitating blistering coincided with my arrival in the tiny little town of Orleans (population 600), to visit my friend, Stormy, for a couple of days. (Recuperation is far easier with an abundance of reliable shade, aloe, a soft bed, and some goddamned functional sunscreen.) I first met Stormy in Pittsburgh two summers ago, during the G20 protests in Pittsburgh. An activist and media specialist, she works here in tandem with the local Karuk tribe on issues such as resource management, dam removal, and native harvesting rights.

It is easy to see here, more than other places I've been, that water is the fundamental life source of the region. All life is centered around the magnificent confluence of rivers in these mountains; the hills are a dry, prickly, forbidding place, but every gully, fold or valley is burgeoning with creeks or tributaries or outright raging rapids. In the afternoons of summer, everybody's work stops early, and folks spend the rest of their day at the river. It has fed and sustained populations here for millennia, and the forest itself seems to flow down the mountains along the same gradients, orienting itself in the direction of the water. Its importance is even reflected in language: the Karuk word for "good-tasting", I'm told, more literally translates as "pretty close to salmon". I was hoping to get out in a raft or kayak while I was here, but the rivers are all dangerous torrents of snowmelt right now. Another time.

The confluence of the Klamath River and Bluff Creek.

The weather has thus far been incredibly accommodating; the days have been mild on the coast, the nights pleasant, and I've only needed to roll out my tarp once. (I love sleeping without a tent, but it's funny how many times I've woken up in the middle of the night with a squirrel or chipmunk crawling on my head. Seriously. It's a thing.) It's much hotter inland, though still quite bearable. I set off again in the morning, though, back toward the coast, where cooler temperatures prevail, at least for now.

The Great Jefferson Adventure

Hey folks, summer is here (read: it's not raining every day anymore), and you know what that means! It's time to wipe the winter deposits of road grime and grease off the bike and hit the road for adventures unknown.

In keeping with vagabondic tradition (the fourth year in a row, now), I've officially moved out of my house, shunted all my crap into my parents' house (thanks, Mom and Pops), and have readied myself for a summer's worth of bumming around. Regretfully, the summer is shaping up to have much less opportunity for bike trips than I would like, but that bitter pill is sugar-coated with the very reason it's true: at some point this summer, I will be moving back up to Seattle, in time to start graduate school at University of Washington this fall. It will be a dramatic departure from my current lifestyle that can satisfy capricious whims such as, say, hopping on a bike for a month, without repercussion; I'm very excited to be returning to Seattle, though, and even more excited about starting my program. The new direction that my life will soon take is a welcome one, whatever the consequences.

But in the meantime, onward! I have just under a month between now and when I need to be back in Eugene for the Oregon Country Fair, and I'm going to do my best to utilize it. I'll be making my way west to the coast, down to the nether regions of Our Great Republic, and into the great State of Jefferson. I've heard nothing but wonderful things about Jefferson, but have seen almost none of it in my adulthood. Likewise, I've never biked any of the coast south of Florence. Redwoods and gold country and foreign coastlines and mountains await me, in all their unknown splendor. I can't wait, nor need I.

Please join me here, once again, as I bumble my way forward.

Glacier National Park, to the bitter end

Aside from the physical process of riding a bike, of moving through this world and the world moving around you in response, the endless opportunity for discovery, solitude, companionship, self-discovery, challenge, and pretty much everything that happened between the start and the finish of this trip, the purpose was to visit my sister, Amy, in Glacier Park before she finished her summer-long indentured servitude. For the mere pittance of a dank and cramped room to stay and an equally meager wage, she has spent the last four months giving her soul to the thankless world of food service, all for the ever-present but ever-elusive promise of adventure that beckons just outside the door of the almost nonexistent town of St Mary, Montana. As fortune would have it, however, I stood to benefit directly from her sacrifices, by way of a free place to sleep, shower, and shit, and even the possibility of pilfered kitchen goods, to boot. Now I like to think that I am gracious and polite in my acceptance of hospitality, and am sensitive enough to never wear out my welcome, but this, this was different. This is my sister. This is family. There are no welcomes to wear out, so, far from stepping on eggshells, I took the opportunity to stomp around the place with muddy cleats.

By a meticulous amount of laborious planning on both sides, the day after my arrival was auspiciously marked by the return of Shannan, coming in to Glacier by train. By that time, she had managed a couple of weeks of rest and recovery for her knees, and though she wasn't able to continue biking past Victoria, there was little reason for her to miss the grandeur that northwestern Montana has to offer.

And Oh! The Grandeur! Glacier National Park stands as the proud centerpiece of a protected wilderness area sprawling more than 16,000 square miles, collectively known as the Crown of the Continent. Glaciers carve the landscape into knife-edged peaks and scoured valleys, leaving behind a pristine wilderness teeming with impressive megafauna; virtually all species of life which were found when European settlers first passed through the area can still be found today. It is no great exaggeration to say that Glacier Park currently holds the distinction of my favourite place I've ever been (I've visited the park numerous times, living in Missoula as a child, visiting family in my adolescence, and returning as an adult). Though I'd hiked around a respectable amount before, this trip marked my first opportunity to get off the more beaten paths and backpack into the more remote back country which makes up the vast majority of the park, and is only accessible by foot. (Shannan and I had mailed our backpacks ahead to ourselves.)

Glaciers, sheer cliff faces, scree piles, billion-year-old rock formations, stromatolites and fossils, passes, peaks, valleys, forests, tundra, lakes, rivers, all were ripe for exploration.

Wild Goose Island on St Mary Lake.

Elizabeth Lake Valley.

Unfortunately, Glacier only has two seasons: winter, and something that a little less resembles winter. We were timing our visit with the end of the tourist season, arriving at the end of Labour Day weekend; though this drastically decreased the number of people in the park, it had us constantly gambling with the weather, and there were many, many days where we got rained, hailed, or snowed out. Though we came prepared to spend a solid week or two backpacking, we ended up spending the majority of our time going out on long day hikes, and returning back to Amy's place for the night to dry out. The weather was kind enough to let us get a good three-day hike in, but other than that, it proved to be mostly little fits and bursts into the park, rather than the luxurious forays we had envisioned.

Backpacking over Ptarmigan Pass.

No matter the situation, no matter the weather, no matter the duration, we were constantly inundated with the sensational wildlife that surely everyone hopes to glimpse at least once. Mama and baby grizzly bears fed on berries in startlingly close (but safe!) bushes nearby, black bears crossed our paths in search of food, herds of bighorn sheep surrounded our car to lick it clean of salt, and families of moose tromped along the hiking trails just a stone's throw ahead of us. The most sensational sighting of this trip happened not in Glacier, surprisingly, but in the Rattlesnake Wilderness Area just outside of Missoula (we drove down and spent a few days in Missoula for Amy's birthday), where we startled a full-grown mountain lion that was nosing around the banks of a creek. Though they are comparatively common to many other animals I've seen in the wild, sightings of them are intensely scarce due to their secretive and crepuscular demeanour; generally, if you see one, it's only because you're in trouble, i.e., being stalked. It astonishes me, even now as I write this, that such a large animal can be so ubiquitous and simultaneously so well-hidden.

Bighorn sheep ewes out for the "hunt".

I expected to help cover my food expenses while I was there by lending a hand in Amy's restaurant, but they proved to be more than sufficiently staffed. Baulking at the idea of paying for two persons' worth of restaurant fare for every meal for such a long period of time, we ended up working out a system with my sister and much of the rest of the wait staff, whereby they would collect the remains of whatever didn't get eaten by the customers, and this arrangement largely sufficed for the two weeks we were there. Though occasional meals would come up with nothing, more often than not an entire burrito or salmon fillet or salad would make its way onto our plates.

Fishing for a meal in St Mary Lake.

As snow ushered me into the park, so did it usher me out. On our last full day there, the skies let loose the first real snow of the coming winter, and a good eight inches covered Logan Pass, the very pass we needed to cross in order to get to the train station to go home. The plows worked assiduously, though, and we made it through in time to cash in on our tickets home. Though we didn't know this in advance, we ended up scheduling our train the day before the pass closed for the rest of the season, so we barely got out by the skin of our teeth.

Logan Pass, before the storm.

True to form, we made it home, peacefully and predictably. I'm currently up in Seattle for a few days right now, picking up Shannan's bike and visiting some friends, but I'll be back in Eugene to stay soon enough. I'm looking forward to staying put for a while now, bedding down for the winter, and weathering the inevitable 5-month-long storm with a tempest of winter soups and roasted vegetables.

I have a few more things to write about my experiences in Canada, which I hope to do in the next week or so, so feel free to drop back in on me here once in a while. Until then, happy autumn!

Just Like That

The last few days have been rather uneventful ones, post-Ferdinand. I spent that morning replacing my torn tire and blown-out tube from the skid, and sewing up my saddle bag and jacket, and just generally regaining my composure. By the time I was all back together again, I had lost much of the day, and I was already running behind schedule in my goal of making it to Glacier before my sister's upcoming birthday. I decided to hitch a ride to make up for lost time, and to dull the growing monotony of the seemingly endless mountains and valleys. I was carried down the highway by a lovely recently-retired couple from Vancouver Island, who fed me homemade cookies, and laded me with a bag full of produce and salmon sandwiches before parting ways again.

One of many, many passes.

My last night on the road had me climbing into the Rockies, ever closer to the continental divide, the mountainous seam that separates and distinguishes the Pacific and Atlantic watersheds. Wind brewed threateningly, and the smell of rain was on the air. I found a bucolic, abandoned old barn to spend the night in, tucking myself in to a perfect bed of hay, and watched as the clouds continued moving on, revealing the blazing night stars behind them. I slept peacefully and soundly, warm and content, and even more so when I awoke at 5am, liminally aware of the downpour that had belatedly begun outside, accentuating my dry and serene state.

As the downpour continued on through the morning, I met my sister on the road, and got a ride across the border and down to her temporary home of Saint Mary, just outside the park itself. By this time, the rain had turned into a heavy snowstorm, and, antithetical as it may be to the notion of bike travel, I was endlessly grateful for the comfort and amenities that the car offered. I settled in to the pie that has been promised me all summer long, a fresh salad larger than my cranial capacity (insert self-deprecating remark here), and my first shower in almost two weeks of sweat, dirt and sunscreen. It's good to be here, and despite the forecast of continuing rain, I am perfectly content to relax in a dry place for the next few days in good company, and enjoy the simple pleasures.

I may've earned myself some downtime, but, to be sure, this trip is far from over. Stay tuned...

Bowling for Ungulates

My morning began with a light drizzle awakening me from my slumber, instead of the typical first rays of dawn. Fortunately, the clouds were generous enough to hold off on the downpour until I was able to get my gear all packed up and weatherized for the day. Prepared for the morning showers, I climbed onto my bike and started back toward the road, a single-lane, minimally-traveled back country offshoot of Highway 3, nestled in the foothills of the Kootenay Mountains. As the highway wound through a narrow valley bed, virtually every road off it was a climb into the mountains, and this one proved to be no exception. Having done the climbing the previous night in order to find a camp site, I enjoyed the prospect of a quick downhill jaunt back down to the highway, to be back on my merry way.

I quickly built up speed as I descended to the valley floor in the pouring rain. As I made my way around one of the tight bends, though, I suddenly came across a monstrous bull moose who was standing directly across the roadway, legs ever so slightly splayed, peeing in the middle of the road and looking quite content to do so. Much like having a wall appear in front of you as you hurtle down the highway at 40 kph, this was no trivial matter. I quickly jammed on my brakes and tried to swerve around it at the same time, a predictably poor combination, all the more so on wet roads. My rear tire skidded out from under me, and down I went, still careening directly toward the moose, who seemed in no particular hurry to move. It was about at this point that it started looking like the end to me.

It was also at this point, however, that time started moving in slow-motion, as it is fabled to do in dire enough circumstances. I remember sliding under the moose and looking up at it, and, in the same way that that kid from Free Willy must've surely thought during the climactic slo-mo jumping scene, "Oh god, this whale is going to crush me," I thought, "Oh god, this thing is going to come down on me." But as I continued skidding, through the damp mat of hanging hair and through the stream of pee (yes, I was peed on by a moose, okay?), I began to think differently. Indeed, I continued my slide, bike and all, right between those four gangly legs, and on down the road, coming to a stop a few metres past him. (I suppose the combination of the smooth asphalt, the rain and my rain gear turned the whole road into something of a slip'n'slide.)

I quickly scrambled to my feet and wheeled around, yelling, "What the HELL?", and "Have you no sense of self-preservation?" (well, given the circumstances, probably something considerably less eloquent and more profane). The bull turned and glared at me, still peeing, and I quickly realized my place, which was, quite simply, to be scared out of my wits. I hastily hobbled to what I perceived to be a safer distance, and surveyed the damage. Though my gear took some hits (torn saddle bag, ripped bar tape, etc.), I seemed to come out relatively unscathed, save for a sore shoulder, a slightly wrenched back, and an oncoming bout of nausea from the adrenaline.

I looked back up the road at the moose, who had by now sauntered off to the trees. I looked at my iPod, which I had only just put on to an episode of This American Life, and only a small fraction of time had passed. Did that really just happen?

Now, I know that I seem to have missed all four legs, but I'm going to go ahead and chalk that up as a strike anyway. And to you, Mr. Moose, I officially dub thee Ferdinand. May you enjoy a long and happy life sniffing daisies under a peaceful tree somewhere.