Downhill dandelions 🇺🇸 🇨🇦

When I started this trip and wanted to keep family and friends apprised of what I was up to, I came to find that I’d underestimated how much work this little website would be. There’s just so much going on in a day that I often can’t bring myself to work on this thing when I’m in my tent at night. Cycle all day, eat, and then sleep. This post is nearly two months worth of travelling and I’m going to try to keep it short and to the point. I restarted my trip from Portland, Oregon in the USA on the 9th of May. I arrived in the city a few days earlier and stayed with Klaas and Michelle where my bike had been stored this past winter. I attended a really interesting community dinner that Michelle organized, caught up with Lisa who was my host back in November when I first arrived in Portland, and prepared the things I’d need to hit the road again.

Cycling in the spring turned out to be a lot more pleasant than in the rainy and snowy autumn. It took me a bit of route finding to leave the gridded city but eventually I made my way to the Columbia river and followed it upstream and out of town. I’d hug the river until crossing it on the Bridge of the Gods at Cascade Locks. On my first night I camped with a guy named Josh who was carrying a cooler full of hot dogs. A good day.

I tried a couple of shortcuts thinking that a road closure really only applied to cars but this time it was truly closed. The route along the river is pretty touristy but there’s some cool stuff to see like Multnomah Falls and the Bonneville dam, which has a big fish hatchery with lots of trout and sturgeon. It was cool to see some infrastructure up close and chat with people also out and about. This time when people ask me where I’m cycling from I feel like there’s a bit of an asterisk required on account of my winter break. I’m not too concerned with it though because this spring weather is definitely better than cycling through the snow and rain.

Eventually I crossed the rather boldly named Bridge of the Gods, and entered Washington state. A guy honked at me to hurry up, which kind of set the tone for this last section of the lower 48 states. The road narrowed in Washington and the drivers were rushed and frustrated. At the town of White Salmon I was happy to turn away from the WA-14 road. There were plenty of people out in the street for the annual “wine walk.” Jullie and Rob came up to me and asked if I needed a place to sleep. They’d seen plenty of Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) thru-hikers and I fit the description but was too early in the season. I slept in the hammock in their backyard with a great view of Mount Hood to the south.

Riding northwards from White Salmon was a lot quieter and more relaxed than the busier east/west road I’d been riding. The section from BZ corner through Glenwood to Goldendale was absolutely amazing. I was super excited to be back on the bike as I rode a nice downhill section to a nice campsite by the river. The following morning I met two rafting guides who gave me some recommendations for the ride to Yakima, namely the St. John’s Greek Orthodox bakery on the side of the road. I stopped in and had a chat with one of the nuns, ordered some gyros and spankoptica and went on my merry way. Orthodox monastery wasn’t on my Washington state bingo card. I rode on a bit further, up and over a pass, and onto the Yakima Native American reservation. I found a campsite among the sage brush, which has a really nice, almost soapy smell. In the night I could hear the hooves of horses clacking around in the dry river bed next to my tent.

The next day I rode through the town of Toppenish. On my trip I’ve ridden through some countries that suffer from poverty but I hadn’t yet seen this level of despondency. Maybe it was just the hour or two that I spent riding through the town, but I saw very few people out on the streets of what looked like an old, touristy western theme town. The few people I did see were struggling in a small city park by the railroad tracks. I quickly continued on toward Yakima.

While in the Pacific Northwest (PNW) someone recommended that I try teriyaki chicken. I went to a place in Yakima, placed an order, and waited outside. The owner, also named Steve, came out to bring me my food and asked about the bike. He was excited about the trip and gave me a jar of his chili oil, it’s like a homemade version of the popular Lao Gon Ma chili oil. We chatted for a while, he took some pictures, and I rode on. It was so much food that I had the rest for dinner a few hours later.

I’ve found billboards to be an interesting societal barometer on my trip and overlooking Steve’s teriyaki restaurant was probably the saddest one I’ve seen. In Spanish, the billboard read, “Do you need a work permit? I want the next miracle to be yours!” and then fine print went on to state that the use of the word “miracle” doesn’t imply any guarantees and that the lawyer Alexandra can’t actually perform miracles. I packed up my food and rode out of town. I went a bit further that day and camped at a campground in the Yakima river canyon.

I spent one night in Ellensburg with a Warmshowers host named Cassie. This valley is known for a strong westerly wind, which was exactly the direction I had intended to ride out of town. Back in Portland I had decided to come this way to avoid the strong northerly coastal winds, which meant I unfortunately had to skip the Olympic peninsula and the Vancouver area. Faced with a headwind I considered alternative routes but Cassie and Colton at the Re-Cycle bike shop in town assured me that the headwind is only bad for a few kilometers, once you turn north into the next valley it tapers off quickly. I left the next day and happily found this to be very true. The Blewett pass road was quite busy but once on the “old Blewett pass” road, it was very quiet. I found a nice place to camp by a small creek.

It had been recommended to me to visit the town of Leavenworth, Washington, which is a kitschy tourist town in the style of a Bavarian Alpine village. There’s one main street that’s made to be very walkable and resembles the central square of an old German town, but with plenty of parking spaces everywhere else. Even the McDonald’s corporation had to adhere to the town’s aesthetic. I found it a humorous little detour worth the extra kilometers. In the town of Cashmere I slammed on my brakes as I rode past what looked like a really cool shop called Colchuck Consignment. I got chatting with owners Brian and Laura. Brian was repairing some gear and I asked for some tips about how to repair my inflatable sleeping pad; the past few nights I’d woken up on the ground and I figured I had a persistent leak that I just couldn’t patch. They had just returned from a cycling trip in Romania where people had been incredibly helpful and hospitable to them. They gave me a pad from their rental stock and sent me on my way. Laura assured me she could use the material from my old sleeping pad in some other cool project. Their chance to pay it back a little, they said.

From there I descended down the rest of the valley toward Wenatchee where I stayed with Brandon and Cheryl for a few days. The entire valley was full of apple orchards and the city of Wenatchee fancies itself the “Apple capital of the World!” Brandon and his friend Nick took me out on a very cool overnighter trip into the mountains. They assured me it never rains here but we got pretty well soaked on that first afternoon. We rode mostly gravel roads into the national forest and I saw my first black bear of the trip. We passed through Leavenworth one last time on our way back to Wenatchee and I tore the bead on my rear tire after some spirited, speedy turns. The spare tire I’d been carrying since Sinaloa came in handy and we managed to ride the rest of the way home.

I took a rest day in Wenatchee, bought plenty of bulk food at the WinCo supermarket, and rebuilt my brakes front and back, which turned out to be quite necessary. I carried so much trail mix out of Wenatchee that I think my load was the heaviest it’s ever been. I got a late start out of town and continued up the Columbia river. The Rocky Reach dam had some interesting fish viewing opportunities and I managed to see some salmon passing through. I learned that most of the Pacific Northwest has an incredible amount of hydropower and that people like Brandon and Cheryl pay about $0.02/kWh! Most people in this area get their electricity from a Public Utility District (PUD), which, from my cursory understanding, is a not for profit publically owned cooperative that is owned by its customers. Imagine that! Ssshhh, sounds pretty social… Most of the people I’d meet in this area of the USA got their electricity from such a PUD. Even with such cheap electricity I saw very few electric cars; there’s just not enough “copper in the ground,” and delivery infrastructure remains a difficult bottleneck in an electrifying world. I’ve come across several roadside rest areas that offer free 20 kW charging. You also see very few solar panels on roofs because, I guess, it just isn’t very financially attractive when there’s such cheap power.

From Winthrop I had planned to go up and over using Forest Service Road 37. I stopped at a fire department in town to see if the pass was still snow covered. They told me it was “legally open,” which was good enough for me; I filled my water bottles and continued up the road camping just short of where the pavement ended. It was a quiet ride the next morning and I only ran into one guy in a pickup truck who said he’d turned around near the top. He said he was from Conconully and liked to go drinking there, he turned around because he was by himself and didn’t have anything to get his truck out if he got stuck.

It was a nice day of climbing and I only encountered a bit of snow at the top. It took me maybe an hour to posthole my way through about 500 meters of deep snow. Push the bike a bit, sink, get out, push the bike a bit, sink, repeat. Eventually I made my way to the other side of the pass and put on some warm, dry clothes for the descent. It was generally quite cloudy but with the view that I had, I could see little pockets of sunshine breaking through into the forested valley below.

After descending into the valley I noticed a lot of dirt bikes and quads and people camping in RVs. I rode through Conconully, which was also quite busy. Only after passing through town did I realize that it was the beginning of Memorial Day weekend, a massive holiday in the USA. I carried on in the dark to a quiet US Forest Service campground; all of the dirt bikes out and about gave me the heeby jeebies. The following morning I had my breakfast near another packed campground with lots of 4 wheeler people riding around. I got a kick out of the names of some of their RVs and camper vans. Names like Road Warrior, Alpha Wolf, Stryker, and my personal favorite Vengeance! When did things get so aggressive?

I stopped in the town of Tonasket and spent a few hours at the library just catching up and chilling for a bit. They had some interesting books for sale that had been on my list, the prices were good, and I debated on whether it was worth the extra weight. I bought the books. There was one more night of camping and then I took a rest day in Republic, WA with the Slagle family. I camped at some fairgrounds in Colville before turning north on highway 31 toward Metaline Falls. There I’d planned to stay with Mark and Muus who I’d coincidentally met a few days earlier out on the road as I was climbing toward Sherman Pass.

Metaline Falls was my last stop in the USA before crossing the border into Canada. The morning I left it was raining off and on and I had about 20 kilometers to go to the border. I got through quickly and asked if it was alright to wait out some rain in their covered parking spot. No problem, but move on if someone comes in for an inspection. I had my sandwich and rode the rest of the way to Salmo, where Mark and Muus had recommended the Dragonfly cafe. I had a chat with Wayne before he left to go watch hockey, I drank some coffee, ate some baked goods, got an extra cup of coffee before closing time, and rode on. Once in Nelson, I looked for a warmshowers host and found one really quickly, another guy on the street asked me if I needed a place but I was all set. So far, first day in Canada and everyone was super friendly.

Nelson is a cool little town and one of the nicest ones I’ve ridden through on my trip. It was all good except for the hills. The morning I left town was a slow one, I went for a coffee with my host Rohan, ran some errands, and eventually made my way back onto the road. The road all the way through the Slocan valley was difficult but incredibly beautiful. I was no cycling at about 50 degrees north latitude and it often reminded me of Chilean Patagonia, which is at about 50 degrees south latitude. I’m no geographer, but the resemblance was often very close. I enjoyed this southeastern corner of British Columbia very much for it’s beautiful scenery and nice little towns. I rode from Nelson, to Revelstoke, through Golden and into Yoho national park.

The national parks were going to be three connected parks, all in a row. First Yoho, then Banff, and lastly Jasper. The route is called the Icefields parkway. It was really pretty, but unfortunately the campground network is made with cars in mind and leaves cyclists either stealth camping or asking friendly RV people if they can pitch a tent on their spot; both work. The first night in the parks I camped at an established campground and had a great evening chatting with Shadow and Abryl travelling by van all the way from Saskatchewan; I’d see them a few more times in the coming days, always stopping to say hello. The next day was a big one as I got onto the parkway and then rode past several campgrounds and decided to just press on to the halfway point where I could exit the park and wild camp beyond its limits. I saw a bear amble across the road the next day as I made my way back to the park.

Riding into Jasper national park on the second day started off with a long and steep climb, which eventually gave way to some of the most colossal looking mountains I’ve ever seen. Well worth the climb. I put on some warmer layers and got ready to descend again. I camped at a park campground, which had special sites for cyclists. Finally! In the morning, as I stumbled out of the tent half awake, a bear growled at me as he was eating the dandelions in the grass field where I was camped. An interesting way to wake up! I reached for my glasses and bear spray and walked off. A German couple helped me scare the bear away with their car, I grabbed my stuff, and had my breakfast a few sites over.

Riding into Jasper you can see the signs of the big wildfires that came through there in the summer of 2024. Shrivelled pay phones, exploded gas stations, and melted street signs. Many of the campground facilities near the town are completely devoid of trees and infrastructure. I spent one night at the Whistlers campground which felt like a big field with a few shower blocks. After one night, I rode on in the direction of Prince George. Prince George is one of the last larger towns on my way north and the riding since then has been fairly fast and uneventful. There were some cool sites along the way like Mount Robson, which I first saw in the evening, I camped nearby, and then the following morning was obscured by haze caused by a forest fire way up north.

I had met Lisa on my way out of Revelstoke and she put me in touch with lots of people on my route. One of these people was Anneh from Limburg. I camped out on her property just beyond Houston. Her sister lives in Sittard; small world. I particularly enjoyed the town of Smithers and my stay there with Lothar and Deb. I took a few rest days, we went out for coffee, and I had a beer with the mayor. I rode down to the port city of Prince Rupert and went on a bit of a side trip, one that I’d had in mind for a long time. The island of Haida Gwaai is off the west coast of Canada and known for its strong and intact First Nations culture. It was an interesting place but I had lots of rain, unfortunately. My highlight there was meeting Mike on the side of the road. I was riding on a forest road when he drove by in his truck and checked what I was up to. Excited, he gave me a fresh caught salmon fillet and permission to camp in his little cabin down at Rennell Sound. After five days I took the ferry back to the mainland and then the train back to Terrace from where I’m now posting this long overdue update.