Bike tour with Lucy from Seattle to Portland via Yakima, in late September 2021.
We planned this trip last year (2020), but there was too much smoke so we went to the Olympic Peninsula instead. Big thanks to Mika and Mako who did all the route planning, including GPX tracks, which you can find on wiki.mako.cc.
Conceptually, there were three geographic segments, each about 110 miles:
- Seattle to Ellensberg, over Snoqualmie Pass on the "Palouse to Cascades" gravel rail-trail (formerly Iron Horse trail)
- Ellensberg to Maryhill, on the dry eastern side of the Cascades, through Yakima canyon and over Satus pass
- Maryhill to Portland, along the Columbia River Gorge
Then a train ride back from Portland to Seattle. We did the trip in 6 days of biking, camping the first 4 nights, then staying at Carson Hot Springs, and with friends the last night in Portland.
The diversity of climate, geography, and habitation made this a really interesting trip. Dry and (relatively) hot on the east side, raining in Portland, foggy through Snoqualmie pass. Highlights were long tunnel at Hyak, the gorgeous winding descent in to Maryhill, beer and pizza in Carson, the climb to Satus pass, Yakima canyon, trail-side BBQ in Cle Elum, and pastries at a Greek monastary just after Satus pass.
Photos are a mix of phone and camera, with skewed clocks, which unforuntately results in things being a bit out of order.
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