The Gap
Beverly Bridge over the Columbia River - Sentinel Gap, Washington
Having successfully crossed the Yakima Training Center should have been cause for celebration, but we now had a big problem, one that was approximately 2 miles long. The bridge across the Columbia River at Beverly was still way behind schedule as a result of a fatal accident during the refurbishing process. This left us with 3 options: 1) ride 39 miles out of the way to cross the Columbia River at the nearest bridge in Vantage, WA on an extremely busy interstate highway with 75 mph speed limits and no shoulder whatsoever, putting us in extreme danger 2) ride 108 miles out of the way to the 2nd closest bridge near Mattawa, WA which was slightly shorter, with slightly lower speed limits, but still no shoulder, putting us in very high danger or 3) skip over to the other side of the Beverly Bridge and come back later when construction was done allowing us to cross on a 100% pedestrian bridge, putting us in no danger, but leaving a 2 mile gap in our continuous line across the map. The choice was simple, I would never put the dogs in unnecessary danger, so we would just have to skip ahead and cross the Columbia River at a later date; my promise to Captain would have to be put on hold. The gap had been created.
Ironically, we started our next ride on the east side of a different gap, the Sentinel Gap of the Columbia. The Sentinel Gap is a gap in the Saddle Mountains where the Columbia River was able to erode away the mountains as they were forming, thus maintaining its course while creating a large gap in the range itself. Geology at work! In modern times, the gap itself was crossed using the Beverly Train Bridge however, today there was construction fencing closing the bridge itself off to pedestrians. Incredibly, the fence was open and we easily could have gotten on the bridge to cross the river, solving our problem. This was just a pipe dream though as there were several construction workers actively working on the bridge and a large piece of machinery covered the entire width of the bridge, effectively blocking us from any spur of the moment attempt at sneaking across to close the gap. It looked like the entire bridge deck had been replaced but almost none of the protective railing had been placed on either side to keep users from falling the ≈75 feet down to the river below like the unfortunate construction worker had done.
(click photos to enlarge and see descriptions)
We gave one last, longing look at the Beverly Bridge and turned to continue east on the Palouse to Cascades Trail, knowing that we’d have to come back once the bridge had opened. The trail was pretty beat up in this section as the construction traffic had torn up the path leaving it strewn with rocks and soft, deep earth make for a hard start to the ride. Not to be outdone, just a short distance later, Mother Nature played her trump card and had blown sand from the nearby Beverly Sand Dunes across the trail as well. She was just flexing and showing what she was capable of but not truly trying to impede our progress as the sand only lasted a few seconds and quickly returned to the old railbed. I was thankful for her mercy.
From here, the trail continued in an arrow straight line, east from the Columbia, along the bottom of the Lower Crab Creek valley and paralleling a nearby road that was a mixture of pavement and gravel. Though this section of trail is both closer to a town and to a road than the Yakima Training Center had been, the area gives the sensation that you are so remote that you might as well be on an alien planet as you are practically being hugged by the enormous, empty mountainsides and hillsides surrounding the valley. It was a pretty cool feeling.
The terrain also felt like a movie set for an old John Wayne western and it was easy to let my mind drift a bit and imagine old stagecoaches using the trail and outlaws hiding out up in the mountains. That’s one of my favorite things about long distance bicycle travel, instead of being focused on a digital world with endless beeps, dings, and multiple browser tabs to surf, you are forced to be “bored” with the here and now and just be present in the moment, letting your mind go wild and be creative instead of being subjected to mindless content from people you’d never speak to in person. This is the way life should be, not one spent in front of a screen. “Progress” is a peculiar thing.
After about 5 miles or so, we came to a sign indicating that the trail ahead was closed as a 2019 fire had destroyed a bridge crossing over Lower Crab Creek. Normally, I would be disappointed by having to use a road instead of the official trail, but secretly I was happy to get off the dirt for a bit and onto some nice smooth pavement. The closed stretch was notorious for being covered with goathead thorns that were known for destroying bike tires and with 4 tires just waiting to be destroyed, I was more than a little excited to miss this wonderful opportunity!
As we rejoined the road, it was obvious that our good luck was short lived. The road wasn’t paved as expected, but even worse, there were construction signs out stating that road grading was in progress meaning that all the dirt and gravel we were going to encounter had just been put down and would be super soft and deep. Instead of making the day easier and our progress faster, we were slowed to a crawl at barely 3 mph on a flat road as the tires sank into the thick gravel. It was so slow that at one point, we saw a truck parked in the distance on the side of the road about 1/2 mile ahead. As we got to the truck, there was a woman standing next to it drinking coffee who said, “Oh, you’re on a bike with a trailer. With how slow you were going, I thought you were maybe on a horse. I had enough time to eat a bowl of a cereal and then make a cup of coffee from when I first saw you until now”. I felt bad for ruining her fantasy by not being a strapping young cowboy on horseback but instead just a middle aged guy on a slow bike. After talking for a few minutes, the dogs and I slowly plodded east, leaving her to the rest of her coffee and unfulfilled dreams.
Other than the woman enjoying her morning coffee, we did not see any other vehicles on the road for nearly 2 hours. That was perfect as the freshly laid gravel was particularly dusty and passing cars would have blanketed us in a fine layer of dirt. When we finished with the detour and rejoined the “trail”, it was even worse than the bad road had been. There were numerous plants growing up from the trail, unchecked, causing me to have to slowly weave back and forth to try and avoid them. In hindsight, I should have just plowed through them as they were impossible to avoid. Plus, with the dirt and sand being so deep I was soaked with sweat.
As we neared the end of our ride on the eastern end of the “town” of Smyrna (more a collection of about 10 homes/farms than a town), I looked down to discover around 20 thorns; not Thorn like the maker of my bike, but as in the kind that make your tires go flat and cause you to have a bad day. These weren’t just any kind of thorns though, they were the dreaded “goatheads”. I had never seen one in person before, so I’d had no clue that the plants that had overtaken the trail that I was hitting were members of the caltrops family and could easily cause a number of punctures. I gingerly removed them as best I could and incredibly, none of them had gone deep enough to cause a flat. I credit this to a few things: 1) My awesome Schwalbe Marathon Mondial tires that are designed to be puncture resistant 2) My awesome RhinoDillos tire liners that are designed to provide an extra layer of protection for tire tubes and 3) a lot of luck!
The rest of the ride was uneventful save Captain eating a bag of treats. Not just the treats, but the bag itself! An unfortunate side effect of her seizures is that she can have uncontrollable hunger which causes her to eat anything she can put in her mouth. Thankfully, she didn’t have any seizures during the trip, but I was on high alert just in case.
Never get between a ravenous dog and her bag of treats.
