After spending a few moments talking to a pig, Zilla and I left the hamlet of Ewan and took Rock Lake Rd northeast out of town. Back in the day, the trail ran alongside Rock Lake and was heralded as one of the most beautiful stretches of trail. However, one of the local landowners chose to revoke access to his portion of the trail, effectively shutting down nearly 15 miles of trail. A part of me really wanted to trespass so that we could see this section, especially since the actual closed portion of that 15 miles was only about a mile long, but I kept in mind that I was not just riding as myself, but I was representing Pedals4Paws and it was probably not a good idea to do something blatantly illegal and give ourselves a bad reputation. Though we would miss riding by the lake renowned for it’s beauty, it would give us more of a chance to explore the Palouse instead.

What is the Palouse you ask? Great question. It’s a region that was inhabited by a native tribe, the Palus, and is best described as being the perfect and exact rendition of what your mind thinks of when it thinks of grassy hills. Now I don’t mean just any old grassy hill, I mean to the point that you have to stare at them for a while and question if whether or not what you are seeing is real or if it is a computer generated image and you are in ‘The Matrix’. This area of the country is that insanely beautiful and yet doesn’t receive much recognition outside of the local area. It is truly a hidden gem. One part of me wants to keep it secret and not share it, but at the same time, I think everyone should get a chance to see this type of simple beauty at some point in their life.

We turned off of Rock Lake Rd and it immediately became apparent that we were no longer near the rail trail as this detour would require us to climb hills. It had been a while since we’d had to do any steep climbs since trains don’t climb steep grades, but I was looking forward to the challenge. I’d be lying though if I said I wasn’t at least a little concerned to see how well I could hold up. As expected, the first gravel roaded hill we came across was a little too steep and so I had to push. I was glad I’d swallowed my pride of refusing to push long ago as I’m not out here to impress anyone and I was pretty sure I wasn’t impressive anyhow.

(click photos to enlarge and see descriptions)

As I pushed, next to me in a steep ravine, I could hear water running but I couldn’t see it because of the dense vegetation. That’s when it hit me, I was seeing small trees and bushes for the first time in what felt like forever. I mean sure, in the distance at a farmhouse or somewhere similar, I’d see a landscaped tree or two, but these were the first wild/natural trees that were surviving on their own and not because someone was watering them. It was great to know that we really were starting to leave the desert behind and entering a totally different biome! After the short climb, things leveled out and we finally were in The Palouse.

The Palouse makes a wonderful place for a slow bike ride along empty roads. Even better, a layer of clouds moved in making for some incredible lighting and shadows amongst the hillsides. A photographer’s paradise if I’ve even seen one. I frequently stopped to take some photos of my own and even just to marvel at the beauty, though once we were even stopped by a pair of small dogs that wanted me to know that they were displeased with my existence in their territory but not enough to do more than block our way briefly while barking in a non-threatening manner. Once the Terrible Twosome went back to their yard, Zilla and I carried on with our adventure.

Just a short distance down the road, I saw some movement in the grass and was very surprised to see a badger step out into the road. He wasn’t there for long though because as soon as he saw me, he turned around and disappeared either into a hole or had made use of the irrigation ditch to make his escape. Either way, it was very exciting to see him. We even stopped for a few minutes to see if he would come back, but no such luck. As we carried on, I turned around one last time to see if I could find the badger but I saw something orange in the distance that looked unfamiliar.

I watched as the orange object started to slowly get closer and then I realized what it was, another cyclist headed our way! This would be the first person we had encountered on the trail in ≈ 275 miles, so it was kind of a big deal. I started to wonder if I even remembered how to talk to another person considering I’d not had an in person conversation with a stranger other than the prostitute, Fancy, in quite some time.

I made sure to put Dogzilla back in the trailer before the man in orange arrived and when he did, I gave a loud “hello” and introduced myself and a conversation ensued. The rider’s name was Pete and though he was currently riding on the Palouse to Cascades Trail, he was just out for a long day ride from where he was staying in Spokane and was making his way back to the house. He was doing a training ride for his upcoming attempt at the entire Palouse to Cascades Trail except his ride was going to be part of an annual race from the Pacific Ocean to the Washington/Idaho border. He’d done this event previously, so he knew what to expect from the trail and was even able to give me some information about the upcoming miles to the border. We then got to talking about dogs and he mentioned that he’d fairly recently lost 2 dogs of his own, KD and Mason, and I told him about Captain. We then realized that we were riding in the same direction, so we might as well ride together for a bit instead of standing around wasting daylight, so we set off together, my first time riding with another human on this adventure.

As our conversation continued, I started to get the feeling that I’d seen Pete before as his wide-brimmed hat under his helmet is a fairly unique look. He started having the same feeling too as a guy with a huge yellow dog trailer isn’t exactly common either. Then it all clicked, we’d actually passed one another on the Beverly Bridge during the opening ceremony, though we didn’t stop to talk to each other then as I was busy being overwhelmed with the of doing the first ride without Captain. So considering that I hadn’t run into another person since the Beverly Bridge, it was pretty crazy that the first person I’d run into some 275 miles later would be basically the last person I had seen as well. What are the odds?

It soon became apparent that Pete was in much better shape than me, was carrying much less weight than me, and was in a much bigger hurry as he needed to get back to Spokane, so we parted ways with Pete racing up a hill at a much higher speed than I could hope to attain. Alone again, I took a few more photos of the Palouse hills including some of a couple deer sprinting up a ridge as Pete’s approach had spooked them. Pete began getting smaller and smaller on the horizon and the last time I saw him, he had climbed what would be the steepest hill of the day and had stopped at the top to take in the views in all directions. At that point, he was close to a mile ahead of us, an orange fly speck in the distance.

As we followed Pete’s tracks in the dirt, I started to curse the gas station I’d tried stopping at earlier in the day to get food only to find out it was closed. To make matters worse, there was nowhere else open at that time of day within 20 miles, so I’d been riding all day without anything to eat. As we reached the base of the steep hill Pete had just climbed, my stomach was grumbling and I was getting pretty tired. I knew we were close to our stopping point for the day, so I pushed on, literally, hopping off the bike to tackle that last steep hill. As I neared the top, I could see where Pete had stopped to admire the view. It was easy to pick out Pete’s footprints in the dirt where he’d gotten off his bike. Upon further inspection, I could tell that Pete had stopped for a snack break too while taking in the view. This wasn’t because I’m an expert tracker, it was because Pete was a messy eater and had dropped about a dozen pretzels. In his defense, these weren’t big pretzels, they were the small ones you find in a bag of Gardetto’s.

I then realized how much I liked Pete as I began snacking on his pretzels. Thanks, Pete!

Palouse and Pretzels

Peaceful Palouse

On the Road Again