The day began with totally clear blue skies, temps around fifty and a small city to navigate our way out of. I set my Garmin to navigate us to Mabton, WA a tiny town on the edge of the Yakima Indian Reservations. In Mabton we stopped for a couple of minutes while I adjusted our route to Bickelton WA, then to Goldendale, WA via the Goldendale Highway and Mabton-Bickelton Rd.
See how easy it is? Well, it really is with Butler Maps.
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| Yakima to Mabton to Goldendale |
The ride out of Yakima was straight, fast and boring. We zipped through the low end housing of Yakima, a vast area of densely planted fruit trees pruned and tied into odd formations (V shaped and cylindrical arrays) and then dove headlong onto the Yakima Indian Reservations, with its predictably poor housing, rapper emulating dead-enders and hungry looking dogs.
Nothing to see here folks.
In Mabton, WA we stopped for a few minutes, long enough for me to talk to a local high school football player on crutches/motorcycle enthusiast/18 wheeler driver about the route we planned to take. He approved but warned me about an area with hills and curves. I assured him that it would be OK. As we pulled out of Mabton the road rapidly climbed past the last of the orchards and some great smelling grapes. After climbing for ten minutes we looked back at the valley we'd just ridden through, then crested the hill and rode into the Horse Heaven Hills.
The road to Goldendale was well surfaced and led us in and out of canyons and over ridge tops through the open range (and the cattle in the road that comes with this) and high desert. Somewhere outside of Goldendale we got our first surprise look at Mt. Hood and it was awesome. We'll see it up close tomorrow. Hood stands out more that Rainier and can be seen from a greater distance because the terrain surrounding Mt. Hood is far flatter than the area around Rainier.
Around noon we arrived in Goldendale, a real enough town with real characters living there (we met a couple) and a bar/grill that took me back to some of dives I frequented in upstate NY, back in the days when I could abuse myself endlessly.
A guy out on the street in front of the bar, who I suspect owned the place, asked us where we were from and chatted for a minute. He followed us inside and disappeared. Minutes later he appeared at our table, pointing out that he'd played "Georgia on My Mind" on the juke. The patrons of the bar were nice to us, coming by our table to say hello and wish us well.
We left Goldendale and set the Garmin on Wahkiacus, WA and the Klikitat River, known for its fly fishing for trout, steelhead and salmon. We passed lots of folks on the river, both in drift boats and wading. The Klikitat, in addition to being fun to say (go ahead), is a beautiful river. The flows were healthy and the river channel creates great movement and diversity in the river. There was tremendous structure for holding fish and deep pools for migrating steelhead and salmon to rest. In spite of its appearance I was told that the runs, that should be in full swing right now, were smaller than normal.
Just past Pitt we came on a Washington state trooper stopping all traffic. He told us the it would be about a 15 minute delay and turned around, heading back to his completely unmarked SUV.
I asked, "Whats causing the delay?".
"They're filming a Chevy truck TV commercial. It's one of the top roads in America." Well, sir, I thought to myself, I can debate the last part of what you said, but we'll wait patiently just the same.
Twenty minutes later, we were moving again, past the film crew, the Chevy trucks and their massive RV. KC would have been OK had it been a Ford commercial, but he had no kind words for this bunch. I'll admit I didn't either.
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| WTF? |
Minutes later, after finishing our ride on Hwy 142, a very fine motorcycling road without a doubt, we pulled onto Hwy 14 that runs along the north side the Columbia River Gorge all the way to Portland.
Change of scenery, big time. In fact, change of a lot of things.
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| Columbia River Gorge |
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| The Gorge |
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| Columbia River |
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| Columbia River Gorge |
We pointed our bikes west, into a wind that was blowing an easy 30MPH right up the gorge, which acts as a massive wind tunnel. Hard to imagine Lewis and Clark paddling or sailing their craft through here. The wind would blow a baseball hat off your head and I don't give a damn how snug you had it.
The Columbia River nears its final destination near Astoria, OR about 150 miles west of here. But at this point the river is massive, discharging upwards of 150,000 cubic feet of water per second. The wind, coming out of the west, makes it appear the flow is going upstream. The surface is steadily whipped into white caps and shadows which are set against the deep blue of the river. Its quite a scene.
In White Salmon we turned left and rode across the Hood River Bridge, a toll bridge.
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| Hood River Bridge |
My GS and I sashayed across the grated metal surface and then wound through a "GPS maze" in Hood River, finally pulling into the newest Hampton Inn in the world. Quite nice actually. Sorry KC. Hood River is located on the southern side of the columbia River at its confluence with, no surprise here, the Hood River.
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| Kiteboarding capital of the world |
After we got settled into our rooms KC and I walked down to the Columbia River to watch the kiteboarders. It was an absolutely exhilarating experience to watch these people (men and women) sail across the river, pulled by their kites in the gale force winds howling through the gorge.
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| Learn to Kiteboard here people |
Around 9:00PM I ventured down to the hotel's salt water hot tub and soaked away the knotted up shoulder and neck muscles that seemed to be building...just not used to spending long hours on the bike, I guess.
I'm back at my room finishing this blog and thinking about how fortunate I am to be doing this. The riding has been epic in every sense. Great roads, perfect weather, gorgeous and varied scenery, bikes are flawless, maps and GPS's working well, and KC and I are gettin' along just fine.
There... I just jinxed the whole damn thing.
Way to go Bob.
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Postscript.
While eating breakfast this morning I enjoyed the view of the river park and the wind blowing through the Gorge, like it does every morning. A string of Canada geese, from 300 yards away, lifted off from the river's edge. Through the crosswind, they flew in an organized formation straight at me, apparently unaffected by the wind. As if guided by a laser beam they continued straight over the hotel and on to where ever they'll land and spend the day feeding and socializing in the flock.
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