Deforestation
Party Barn - Near Thorp, Washington
It was great to have truly completed the entire Olympic Discovery Trail and to have gotten rid of the two asterisks on our ride. I had now officially fulfilled my promise to Captain Fantastic to try and ride the entire trail with her before she succumbed to her ever present cancers. Now that Dogzilla had joined her in the cancer club, thankfully with a much less life threatening form, I wanted to redouble my efforts to make their lives as fun as possible for as long as I could. I tried to stay realistic in my goals though and didn’t even consider doing the entire 4,000 miles of the Great American Rail with them both, I didn’t even set my sights on the much more realistic entire Palouse to Cascades Trail. Instead, I stayed focused on the simpler goal of getting Captain to the Columbia River, some 55 miles away (110 round trip) as her health was in a constant state of flux and continually trending downward. She’d be seemingly great for a few weeks, but then about every 3rd to 4th week, she would have a cluster of seizures that would set her back significantly, sometimes being partially blind or deaf for a week or maybe losing her balance for several days. In the end, her senses would come back, but always slightly less acute than before.
(click photos to enlarge and see descriptions)
To help facilitate the promise to get Captain to the Columbia, I took some time off work and we set off to pick up where we’d lost the missing piece near Cle Elum, Washington. It would be the last hurrah for the forests of Washington as we were now on the cusp of arable desert lands. The woods we were going through were so dry that it was easy to imagine a forest fire ripping through the area. The trail was super dry and dusty as well. I didn’t realize it at the time, but this meant that the once abundant shade we had been accustomed to would soon give way to unrelenting sun and heat, two things that neither the dogs nor I are a fan of.
While the trees were disappearing, my love for the trail was growing. We had entered into Yakima Canyon and the views were stunning. The trail followed along the river in between moderately sized hills with varying degrees of vegetation. There were many rocky outcrops where hawks surveyed the landscape and swallows had built their nests. We were also treated to our first evidence of the Columbia Plateau: large basalt deposits. The Columbia Plateau included Washington, Oregon, and Idaho and is considered to be one of youngest and best preserved flood basalt provinces on the planet. The basalt cliffs stretched high into the sky, causing me to crane my neck to look up at them. There were even a couple of tunnels for us to explore as well.
One of the tunnels was the notorious Tunnel 47. Up until a year or two ago, the tunnel was so dangerous that anyone who wanted to go through it had to stop and sign a waiver before going in. Thankfully, the had been rectified and our ride through did not involving dodging any falling rocks. Considering that the tunnel is several miles from the nearest road, I’m not sure how this was ever enforced, but the farcical thought of someone stationed on either side of the tunnel, 24/7, making sure no one entered without their permit made me laugh.
Speaking of disrepair, as anticipated, the trail became noticeably worse throughout this section the further east we went. Luckily, I had done my homework ahead of time and had chosen to switch out my skinnier, smoother road tires for wider, beefier, off-road tires to help compensate. It was a good call on my part as there were lots of tennis ball size or larger rocks on the trail throughout the day that could have easily punctured my more fragile road tires.
As the day wore on, the clouds began to burn off, and with the trees having all but vanished at this point, finding shade was hard to do. The temperatures were getting up into the 80’s as well which is not a great combination with pounding sun, lots of physical exertion, and a black dog. I began to strategically plan our stops which was pretty easy; any time we found shade, we stopped. The strategy worked pretty well until the last mile or two as we had exited the northern portion of Yakima Canyon and the protective cliffsides had given way to flat, open valley. Compounding the issue, the trail began running north to south so there was no shade to be found whatsoever and we were riding directly into the sun.
I was pretty tired at this point and sweating profusely. Though exhausted, I was still on an emotional high from just how spectacular of a day it had been. Besides, when we made it back to the car, I knew we were only a 30 minute drive from that incredible BBQ joint we had found in Cle Elum, and if good food isn’t motivation after a long, hard ride, I don’t know what is! It had been a spectacular day for sure.
