More Route Reseach...

A friend of mine recently pointed me to a book:

Mountain Bike America: Washington by Amy Poffenbarger

The book is a fabulous, detailing over 60 rides across the states. One of them is the John Wayne Pioneer Trail! (Pages 298-327)

Amy separated the ride into 7 days riding from North Bend to the Idaho border (west to east) covering 312 miles.

Here are some important items I gleaned from the reading-

• Riding from North Bend to the Columbia River (in Central WA) is part of Iron Horse State Park and pretty well maintained.
• No real places to stay east of Lind. Need to contact DNR about possible camping sites
• You must register for a free permit as you enter the US Army Yakima Training Center .
• Riding from the Columbia River to Idaho on the John Wayne Pioneer Trail requires a permit obtained through the Washington State Department of Natural Resources, which takes several weeks and must be done ahead of time.
• Some sections of the trail are not passable either due to tunnel closures (not mentioned in the book), private land access issues (Smyrna to Warden), or damaged/derelict bridges (Just before Lind and Marengo to Ralston).
• Day 5 of our trip will be the toughest as we climb up 2000' from the Columbia River to skirt the Boylston Mountains. 

Ruminations on the Eastern Section

This weekend I visited with family in Eastern Washington. During this trip I came to the following conclusions-

1. The route should be East to West, starting at the Idaho border and ending at the Washington Coast. 
2. Finding and carrying water is going to be a problem as we attempt to stay hydrated in the more arid parts of the state.
3. The timeframe for the full ride will probably need to be late Spring or early Fall. Summer can be oppressively hot in Eastern WA.
4. My Cyclocross tires (700x32) may not be wide enough for the terrain. Will need to do some test rides in the Eastern section to verify. 

During the return trip to the Seattle area we drove up near where the John Wayne Pioneer Trail crosses the Columbia River. I found the railroad trestle but didn't realize that the trestle was actually the trail until we were well past it. We will have to do this route again next month and look at the trail crossing.

Genesis

In the summer of 2011 I went bike camping with my son (9 years old at the time). We talked about the history and route of the old Milwaukee Road railway that went from Seattle to Chicago. Much of the rail lines east of Montana are still in use but the lines in Washington, Idaho, and Montana were abandoned. In Washington state the line was acquired by the state with more than one-third of the line becoming Iron Horse State Park.

My son asked if it was possible to ride across the entire state of Washington from the coast to the Idaho border. After some research we found that the line does in fact go all the way to the Idaho border but not contiguously and not all of it is improved (i.e. flat and graded). Then he clarified his statement, asking if there was a way to ride across the Olympic Peninsula as well, not just from the Puget Sound? Initially I said no but then one day I found a link to the Olympic Discovery Trail, an old rail line that went from La Push, WA (right on the WA coast) all the way across the north side of the Olympics to Port Townsend.

That's when the pieces started falling into place: it now seemed like a ride across Washington, primarily on old rail-trails, was actually possible!

That was the genesis of this project to Ride Across Washington. It may take several years of planning but in the end we plan to organize a ride across the entire state. This website will be used to track our progress and disseminate information.