1st S24O o' 14

Maddie and I went to Riverside State Park last night for a quick overnighter. Maddie has done this overnighter before on a bike. This was Maddie's first bona fide S24O completely under her own power. She totally rocked it. No big whoop.

And: being a cyclist using the "Bike Only" sites was a breeze.

Maddie: age 3. Preparing for her first S24O.

The first time Maddie did this trip she was three years old (8 years ago -- almost to the day) and she was a passenger on the Xtracycle. That was the dreaded trip where we got turned away at the gates of RSP because they were "full." It was an epically miserable night: we were camped off in the woods a couple miles north down the trail; Maddie had diarrhea, there was no bathroom near by. And then it got freakishly cold that night; we woke up to frost on the inside of the tent. The ride home the next morning at about 6 AM was a friggin death march. As a result -- I wrote a letter to the RSP ranger folk and they created some bike/hike-in sites.

Maddie: Age 4 -- on her first S24O at Riverside State Park

The next year, we went to RSP on the tandem. The bike sites were still not fully baked into the whole program. The guy at the gate didn't know what we were talking about, but we weren't turned away since there were open spots in the car section.

About 2 years ago, Pat, Eric, Eberly, and I went to RSP for an overnighter. We paid at the auto-teller thing at the gate. The next morning, a ranger sort of gave us a bit of the run around -- having not heard of the bike/hike site thing. Pat had a damn rational story to tell and some receipts, so she sort of bought it and left us alone.

People were rafting. It looked amazingly fun.
Maddie wasn't so sure about that.

So -- when Hank went to RSP a couple weeks ago and sailed through the whole process, I was hopeful. And indeed, it appears that the Bike Only/Hike-In site thing is real and bona fide and baked into the program. Yesterday, when Maddie and I pulled up on our bikes and asked for the bike only site, the kid in the window as all over it... like having Bike Only sites was as natural as the river flowing through the Bowl and Pitcher. Word.

We got there pretty early in S24O terms. It was about 3PM when we finished setting up the tent and eating a cup of noodles. Normally, S24O's are a bit longer of a ride and a bit later to camp -- sort of optimized for eating, beer drinking, and then going to bed. But with Maddie, we'll need to figure out a different protocol.

We hiked around a bit. Maddie found a tennis ball and we played catch for a while. Maddie climbed stuff. I had my Kindle, so I read that for a bit while Maddie amused herself by smashing up plant leaves into a fragrant mixture. We decided that we should bring playing cards next time. And maybe we should each have a book.

Bottom of Doomsday.
She grinded up... standing up... the whole way up.

RSP is a perfect distance - about 10 miles with a few hills. Maddie is ready for a longer haul, but I'm not sure where we should go. I guess we'll try CDA on the Centennial Trail, though that ride is a soul-sucking bore. But Maddie may not think so. There's also the Trail of the CDA's. We could do that. Or better: the San Juan's.

As for bike stuff: I need to put a double on Maddie's bike. If we're going to do longer hauls with a load, she needs a bail out spin gear. She stands on every hill right now and it's frying out her thigh muscles. This works ok for short stuff, but it doesn't scale for bigger days.

More hill climbing.

Beth. Dig that bike.

On our way back into town we ran into Beth on the trail. Crazy. She joined us for breakfast at David's place. He has a ridiculously good Bibimbap on the breakfast menu right now. There is a small handful of restaurants in Spokane that I love with all my heart -- for various reasons -- David's is totally on that tiny list. He is so intentional about everything he does there, and has been for years before opening this place -- the guy knows great food, thinks and reads a ton about a variety of food, beverage, design, building, gardening, technology, cycling, etc. subjects, and figures out how to integrate and filter it all out into a super unique and highly valuable dining experience.

Shirt says: Eat Local  -- Central Food. Image is an osprey picking off a marmot.
Brilliant.
That's Stine's work.

We're lucky David is here doing his thing. The more "mature" Spokane dining crown seems to cultivate a fairly conventional and narrow set of acceptable menu/pricing/dining experiences. In my opinion, you can see this Spokane-normalized experience replicated across a disappointingly large number of local restaurants. David's restaurant defies many of those expectations in a refreshing way in both dining practices and with his menu. He's quietly doing things his own damn way and he's rad for that.

1st S240'er o'11

 Jon, Justin, and I had a quickie last night. We left Rocket Market at 6 pm and we were home by 9 am. We've not yet achieved the S12O, but we're getting closer and this may be the year we make it happen.

We went south of town to a not-strictly legal spot. But we decided that in the spirit of the destination, it was legal. Justin got his Rawland muddy, which caused him some mild discomfort. He was big about it though. Keeping his comments to a minimum while mostly twitching and gritting his teeth silently as we slogged through the muddy bits.

The destination is a good one and has promise if we can find just the right spot -- with a view but out of view. We're still in search of the holy grail: a spot close in to town with a great view and easy dirt access.

We missed Pat: I wished I had more food. Jon wanted more beer, and I think Justin mentioned something about dessert. Or maybe that was me too. In any case, Pat would've had all that and more in his bottomless panniers. But alas, Pat was in Walla Walla where he may or may not have been celebrating what was or was not his 50th birthday. We forgot to toast that event, though it was something I meant to do as we set off earlier in the day. Dang it.

GoLite Shangri-La shelter. Word. This is a review deal. More on that later, but I think this is the one. It's a shelter/shell and you have the option of tying in the floor/bug part. It's light. It wants trekking poles, but has loops for tying off to something higher. I dig it.

 I'm becoming a regular GoLite shill. The quilt is a winner too.

In stark contrast to my multi-hundred dollar sleeping solution,  Jon has the super minimalist high-value DIY set up. That's the window shrink-plastic stuff that apparently is all the rage on the ultra-light backpacking forums (~$5). I use it for my ground cover. Not pictured: the military surplus super Goretex bivy ($50) with room to sit cross-legged.

The bike there is an old Trek (400?) that Glen brazed 650b canti-posts onto. He may have added a bit more clearance in the back too.

Justin's set up: a bag with a tarp. Old school and mega points for non-fussery.

Note that Justin was finished with dinner and starting his second beer by the time Jon and I were finished fussing around with our shelters.

Final shot. It got to mid-30's last night with a tiny early-morning sprinkle of rain. Thanks to the Buffalo Trace and the TenFidy we all survived.

1st S24O o' 11

May 20th is pretty late in the year to take the 1st overnighter. In 2010, I went in April. I think in 2009, the first was actually May 25th, but I may have taken one earlier and not noted it on the blog. 2008 was a banner year, Brent and I got out there in early March. It was a long haul, and it snowed a bit. 2007 was May.

Anyway. Jon, Jordy, Pat, Rachel, Justin, and I went a super quick  overnighter last night. We left Rocket Market on 43rd at about 6:45, rode a few miles south, camped, hung, ate, slept, and were at Hogan's having breakfast by 8:15 this morning. Not bad.

Puffy light stuff (down quilt, pad, bivvy) in the back.
 All the rest (clothes, food, beer) in the front.
Like an inverse mullet.

Rachel. Pat, yo.

Jon: happy camper.

Jordy.

Rachel

Day-glow Justin and Pat. Justin's hat was attracting bugs like a light.
Seriously.
But here, they're pondering why they didn't each pack a Ten Fidy.
Why?

Camping season cometh

Taylor: living the dream. Yes those are 25mm tires.

It's still well under freezing every night. And the high rarely gets over 40F during the day, but it's never too soon to start obsessing about the pending camping season!

This year, my goal is to start in March. Maybe even early March.

My go-to no-brainer default quick over night spot has always been Badger Lake. But after the last trip there, where we were kicked out, I'm thinking about going legit. I love Badger because it's easy, close, flat, has a swim option, is hard for car people to get to, and requires zero planning. So any new default S24O destination will have to meet the same criteria.

I had coffee with Patrick, of Scoop fame, this morning and he noted the fact that DNR has a lot of land around here and camping is mostly legal on DNR land.

The dotted lines are non-motorized access only.
Score-a-rooni!

The first place to explore will be the Fish Trap and Hog Canyon areas. These are about as close as Badger; you ride to Cheney, then instead of heading SE out of town, you head SW. Looking at the Fish Trap map (pdf), which covers Fish Trap and Hog Canyon -- there appears to be lots of space to explore that are accessed by non-motorized paths. Sweet!

Ride report: Davis Lake loop, Colville Nat'l Forest

As promised, here's the story.

All the pictures in this post were taken by Patrick, of Scoop fame, with his fancy new camera.

Our goal was to get out into the Colville Nat'l Forest and explore on Friday day and then stay at my family's place on the Kettle River. The family place on the Kettle River is in the epicenter of tons of great riding within the Nat'l Forest and Nat'l Recreation areas -- so it's silly that I don't base camp more often there to explore the neighborhood.


After spending a bit of time attempting to map out routes in both the Couer d'Alene and Colville National Forests, we've figured some stuff out. I'm using the royal "we" here: loosely: Pat, Alex, me.

One pain in the arse about riding in National Forests is that generally you are following old logging roads, which were not optimized to provide connectivity in a predictable and gridlike fashion. Add to that the fact that there's just not a single good authoritative online map for most of these areas. The best I've found is the OpenStreetMap data set.

Anyway, here's the route we took. The OSM dataset had the "jeep trail" connection that we needed between two well-known Forest Service roads. Transferring the OSM route to a Garmin-happy gpx file is done with a funny and hack-feeling, but quick and painless process from Elsewhere.org. OSM + Elsewhere.org = good stuff for this kind of riding/exploring.


Wow. That's some preamble. We've not even gotten to the ride yet. Get a cup of coffee or tankard of ale or whatever it takes. Here we go.

We left Spokane at about 9am. We got to the Kettle Family Property at about 11 am. We wasted no time in hopping on our bikes and being on our way.

A word on the bikes. All bikes were rigid. Patrick's is a sweet-ass mid-90's Scott mountain bike with Prestige tubing and Suntour XC Pro bits. Just a great bike. He runs an Epic frame pack to haul his water bladder and other stuff.

I was on the Rawland. I have a blog post brewing about how amazingly righteous the Quasi-moto tires are on that bike. I've been running the Neo's on there for a year or so and the Quasi's are just completely hands down faster better radder and totally transform the bike. I can totally live with the turdy tubing when running those tires.



Jon was on his Kogswell city bike: running full fenders, double-crank with 8 speed. Kickstand. Front rack. Cityfied hard slick tires. I told him the Kogs would be fine for this ride, since we were on logging roads -- I wish I would've not said that and let him fix the broken wheel on his mountain bike, which has a proper triple/low gear set up and a front shock. But whatever -- he underbiked with gusto and nary a word of complaint. Good egg that Jon.

We tooled down Highway 395 for about 5 miles then pulled off on some tiny overgrown old road that ruled. Instantly I was happy and satisfied, which meant that I didn't shut up about it and I just started hammering to see what would come next. Typical.

This was a minor climb, but it had some sand that made life a bit difficult for Jon. He held up and pushed through the hard bits.

We ended up popping out Boulder pass road -- and did another 3-4 miles of paved climbing. Easy and fun and I almost no traffic.

From there we hopped onto a proper Forest Service road that climbed gently for about 5-6 miles. It was an amazingly beautiful fall perfect piece of riding. I think the temp was about 70F, many of the leaves were turning, and conversation was easy as we trotted up the hill.



We then turned onto a minor road and started a bit more steeper climb. At this point, we passed the nicest camp I think I've ever seen. Clearly a hunter's camp that was left ready to roll for the next party: log recliner complete with bailing-twine webbing, a real out-house, cooking grill (with dry wood shavings, paper, and kindling covered and ready), and other accouterments of civil camping. I tagged that one on the old GPS.

Then came the climb. So here's a fun thing: at some point in the last few weeks I turned off the tracking function on my GPS. That sucks, because I was really looking forward to coming back and viewing the elevation profile of this part:

Nothing quanitfies and bloggifies the suffering that a climb can inflict like a good old-fashion-gps-generated elevation profile. Dang it all to heck! Let me tell you it was f'ing steep! Really.

It was silly. It was about 1200 feet in about a mile. We pushed our bikes up almost the whole way. While it sucks to push your bike, it does feel good to sweat like we did.

Once we got to about 4200 feet, we rode the "Thomson Ridge" to Davis Lake. At Davis Lake, we refilled water and looked at a couple frogs. At this point it was about 3:30. I was hoping to be back down on Highway 395 by 5pm or so.


Turns out, with the exception of about a 1/2 mile climb out of the lake to the main road, the rest of the way to 395 was downhill. It was a great descent, and would make a great climb. There are nice gentle grades, fierce switchy-backy rocky bits, long fast steep sections with roll outs and gentle arcs, and stretches of rocky-technical-minor-washout-shit-road. Great stuff.

Jon had to take it easy on the Kogswell, since it was running slicks, so he was not as enthusiastic about the descent as Patrick and I were.


After the climb, we humped it back 5 miles or so to the Barstow Shit Shop and Junk Food Store and loaded up on beer and junk food. All up, we did a 35 mile loop with about 6500 feet of climbing and were pretty tired.

We sat on the lawn looking over the Kettle River, ate crappy food, drank beers, started a fire, and carried on until about 9pm -- where we slept under the stars and listened to the coyotes.

Just lovely.

Outbound

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Badger Lake run

Taylor finished about 1/2 pack of smokes while waiting for us

Maybe the last over nighter to Badger. Certainly the last with a big crew. Cops came and ousted us. But we got our swim in! So we backed out a bit into the bush and camped in the dirt.

I'm so grateful for my friends. This was 20 hours of joy. Thanks guys.

Patrick
I bunny hopped that tree. Beth had to portage.

Patrick, John, and Glen maneuver the obstacle. By the way, the sign says no trespassing. That's actually a public (albeit deprecated) road that someone has decided to block.

The peleton rounds the tight corner on Dover Road.

John and Mike.

Taylor. Light packer, but he did forget his ascot. Oh yeah, and a blanket or sleeping bag. And his pants are soaked. This photo was taken before the longest night of his life.

Wade.

Taylor did this ride on 25mm tires. No issues what so ever. Don't try this.

Obligatory post-ride group photo. I think Glen is smiling there.

1st S24O o' 10

Details at Pat's blog.

Main take-aways:

• Although the destination was a bit heavy (historically speaking), it was a pleasant place. We agreed that we'd likely not go back, but it was fun to check out a new destination.
• Geologically speaking, there are pockets of little surprises all over the Palouse. And plenty of dirt roads to go around. There's a lot of exploration to be done out there.
• Ten FIDY is the king of S24O beers. Wow. The GUBNA Imperial IPA is serious. Too serious for my liking after a ride. Silly names aside, these are good beers to have a friend pack.
• Speaking of which, it's good to have a S24O riding partner who hauls a lot of shit. My friend Pat brought: 1/2 my water, all of my beer, all of my coffee, and 1/2 my dinner. It's like having a Sherpa that can cook!