My confidence restored, I was now finally able to set my sights on the most immediate goal of keeping a promise and getting Zilla to Idaho. Sure, there was still a lot of riding left to do, but my faith in my abilities was back and the ride was becoming fun again! I’d be lying if said I didn’t still think about Captain constantly and cry every single day, but it felt like the hardest part of grieving was behind me and it was just now starting to be ok to focus on something other than the pain. In short, I was healing.

We found ourselves heading towards the community of Rosalia, known mostly for Steptoe Battlefield, made famous by the Battle of Pine Creek. The trail between Malden and Rosalia was in fairly good shape and the scenery made for some wonderful riding. The landscape was a mix of farms in the distance, Pine Creek and some subsequent wetlands, light to moderate forest, and a good mix of hills and rocky escarpments that provided ample homes for the smaller woodland creatures we saw, namely chipmunks and marmots.

The trail was slowly climbing in elevation too, but at the rail grade level, it was most imperceptible. As had been the norm, we were alone on the trail and had plenty of opportunity for Zilla to get out and explore at his own pace. It was really a great ride! Our first challenge of the day came in the form of a railroad trestle. For whatever reason, the rocks on the trestle crossing over Pine Creek seemed to be larger and more jagged than anything else we encountered the entire day and for a few minutes, it felt like we were back on the soul-crushing stretch just east of the Columbia Plateau Trail. Though as luck would have it, the trestle was maybe 100 yards long, so it just served as a reminder of how hard the Great American Rail Trail can be.

(click photos to learn more)

A little while later, we found ourselves going through a large metallic tunnel and marveled at how such thin metal could be used to hold up the ground and the weight of vehicles as they drove overhead. It was the largest culvert I think I’ve ever encountered with the bike. Once on the other side, the trail began to slowly point south towards Rosalia. Shortly before getting to town, we passed a warning sign for those traveling the opposite direction and stating that the next place to get water along the trail was 66 miles away in Ritzville. I found this a little concerning as I’d been following the trail as it’s mapped and it doesn’t go to Ritzville unless you make a sizeable detour. Realistically, the next water along the trail was more like 100 miles away in the town of Lind. I then wondered why I hadn’t seen a warning sign like this coming from the other direction. No matter, water had never been an issue for us as I always make sure to overcarry rather than risk running out.

As we got closer to town, the trail started getting tough. Rosalia sits in the heart of the Palouse and so is very hilly. When the railroad ran through this area, it skirted around the town across a number of trestles, a half dozen or more, that kept the train from having to go up and down steep ravines. Unfortunately, all but one of them had been removed in this area leading to some extremely steep inclines and declines that were too dangerous to try and ride and yet so steep that Zilla’s trailer kept trying to jackknife and wrap around me and the bike. As if this wasn’t enough, most of these inclines and declines had gates to negotiate while trying to either keep the bike and trailer from rolling down the hill or from smashing into the gate, preventing it from being able to be opened. It was definitely requiring a level of dexterity I barely possessed so was quite an ordeal.

After the last of the gates, Zilla and I saw a woman walking her dog in the distance. She was the first person we’d seen on an actual trail portion of the Great American Rail Trail since the Columbia Bridge and her dog was the first dog on a trail portion since The Four Amigos. Since we were both on the trail and both had dogs, we stopped to chat for a few minutes. Her dog was a sweet little rat terrier named Emmie and she and Zilla seemed to get along fairly well so I let him out of the trailer so they could play together for a few minutes. It turned out, Emmie was less than a year old and was already living up to her breed as she had recently caught her first rat. So nice work, Emmie! We then said our goodbyes and Zilla and I headed past Rosalia towards Tekoa, the last town we’d see in Washington before Idaho!