Taking An Idea For A Test Ride
Eastern Terminus of the Olympic Discovery Trail - Port Townsend, WA
(click photos to enlarge and see descriptions)
With Captain’s brushes with death still fresh in mind and her frequent seizures a reminder of how fragile life truly is, I knew I wanted to try and have one last grand adventure with her before the inevitable. Unfortunately, because of her physical limitations from her surgery and coma, we could no longer do some of our previous activities like long distance hiking. The dogs and I had thousands of miles of trail under our belts including long stints on both the Ice Age Trail (≈1,200 miles through Wisconsin) and the Arizona Trail (≈800 miles through Arizona), but now that Captain was averaging less than 2 miles an hour, these types of goals were no longer realistic, so I turned my sights to something that we could still enjoy together, cycling.
Several years earlier, I had picked up a dog trailer for my bicycle but had not really done much more than take the dogs around the neighborhood as a novelty; we’d never tried to tackle anything serious. Trying to make the most our circumstances, I found a local trail that, with a little luck and a lot of discipline, we could hopefully finish while she could still enjoy it, the Olympic Discovery Trail.
The Olympic Discovery Trail (ODT) runs from Port Townsend, WA to La Push, WA at a distance of approximately 130 miles. As of 2021, the trail is still being developed and incorporates a mix of gravel trails, paved trails, quiet country roads, and highways. A portion of the trail runs just a few miles from our home, so it would be the perfect adventure to have with pups. I knew I would be in for a challenge as I hadn’t ridden consistently in several years, had never ridden such a long trail before, had never pulled the trailer more than a few miles, and had never done any hills with the trailer.
Because of the trail’s length, we would have to do this trip in small segments over several weekends, picking up where we had left off the previous weekend. Plus, since it was going to be just the dogs and I, the 130 mile trail would double to 260 miles as we would have to do each ride from the car, hit a turnaround point, and then ride the same distance back. So in effect, we weren’t just committing to doing the trail once from east to west, we were also committing to a second trip from west to east. Thankfully, much of the trail follows old railroad corridors so many of the steep hills are avoided, making pulling ≈120 lbs of dog and trailer much more manageable.
Day 1 started at the Eastern Terminus of the trail in Port Townsend, WA. Here, the trail runs along Port Townsend Bay, an unofficial part of the much more famous Puget Sound, and shares a few miles with the Larry Scott Trail and with the Pacific Northwest Trail. The plan for the day was to do the ≈7 mile Larry Scott portion of the trail (so 14 for us) to see how well I could hold up. The first mile or so was great, it was flat and followed the picturesque bay, but then it turned inland through an area with a lot of litter and a small, sustained climb that would go up roughly 200 feet over 2 miles. This is a microscopic climb that many riders would barely notice, but with not being in cycling shape and with the added weight of the trailer, I was feeling it and I knew we were going to have a long day.
When I hit the turnaround near mile 7, I was spent. I hadn’t brought enough snacks to replenish the energy I was burning pulling the dogs, I hadn’t anticipated how much I was going to sweat in the 40F degree temperatures of Washington in December, and I hadn’t anticipated how out of shape I was. The return ride included 2 laughably small hills that both required about 80 feet of climbing but they were more than I could handle. I wound up stopping twice on the first hill, taking 5 minute breaks both times. On the second hill, I laid down on the ground next to the trail. I must have looked pretty bad too as a group of cyclists stopped to make sure I was ok.
Thankfully, the last couple miles were a gentle downhill to flat along the bay and we were able to finish the day without me embarrassing us any further. When we got to the car, we had only completed 14 of the easiest miles of our 260 mile journey. This was going to be a lot longer and harder than I had anticipated. I started having doubts about whether or not we would be able to finish the trail, let alone before Captain would die.
