Following our somewhat restful weekend in Ellensburg we hit the road again on a leisurely Tuesday, aiming to reach Mt. Rainier National Park by following the Washington Backroad Discovery Route. Would we get blocked by the snow, trees and floods again?
The answer to that came in yet another unexpected fashion. The first segments of the BDR we rode were quite rocky, but we were realistic enough to lower the tire pressure such that it wasn’t too difficult to cover them. Regardless, it was rocky and bumpy enough that as I rode some distance behind Alex I noticed a suspiciously familiar package on the side of the road. A bag containing one of our spare tubes shook itself free from his bike. I stopped to pick it up, and noticed that part of my luggage, a can of chain lube that I strapped to the outside of my bags (to avoid making a mess inside in case it leaked) was missing. The stretch I was on was a steep rocky hill, and I just passed a Jeep slowly making its way up the same hill. I considered looking for it, but since I had no idea how far away it was I decided to just grab the spare tube and carry on.
The trail went up and down along a ridge, and my front fairing was rattling pretty hard as I bounced on the rocks. At some point the road got smoother but my fairing was still rattling a lot. I stopped to check and instead of a missing screw that I suspected, an entire bracket holding it snapped. The heavy fairing containing all my lights now only had 3 points of contact. We pondered our situation and decided that although it seemed ok for now, extended riding on rough terrain could snap more parts, and put the entire fairing at risk. We decided to finish this section of the trail, but stick to the paved roads from there.
Our other persistent enemy has been Tuesdays. It seems a lot of diners like to pick it as their day off. Circling around the expanses of Washington farmlands, we had to backtrack a few times before we found a settlement with an open eating establishment. All the items on the menu came with an imposing 2 lbs serving of fries. At this point it could only be one of two things – an absolute winner or a spectacular disaster. Overdone and soggy, it was the latter.
On the bright side, we had a chance to look for a replacement bracket for my bike. The OEM dealers had this piece priced at $80 (it was tiny). They also said it would have to be shipped from Japan with an ETA of 3 months. Alex managed to find it on eBay for $18 shipped, arriving in as little as 3 days. I suppose we could hike around Rainier while it’s on the way.
With heavy stomachs we got back on our steeds and continued on. Soon enough the unmistakeable white silhouette of Mt. Rainier came into view. That is a lot of snow, I thought. Yes, that is a lot of snow, Alex agreed out loud.
Mt. Rainier has an elevation of over 14,000 ft, and a prominence of over 13,000 ft. One really cannot mix it up with anything else in the vicinity. I wondered what we could possibly do here that will not get us stuck in snow, but getting stuck in snow might just be the thing to do.
As we approached the park boundary, we considered our camping options. The private campgrounds did not look attractive (they rarely do), the free and empty national forest sites were nowhere to be found, so that left the national park campgrounds. We thought we’d pitch a tent in the nearest one – Ohanapecosh – and ride to the top and back in the golden light.
There were plenty of open campsites but the instructions at the ranger station were explicit: register first before taking a spot. We waited a little for the ranger and when he came, turned out all the spots were marked as unavailable in his records. Also, he said they just opened yesterday and he was new and feared doing something wrong by just letting us pick a spot and stay there. Online reservations were unavailable day of. After much back and forth, we got back on our bikes and continued on to the top of the mountain, feeling we’d have better luck on the other side.
Traversing Stevens Canyon Rd – the main artery on the southern slopes of the mountain – we were greeted with a dusty gravel road instead of clean pavement. There was extensive construction for several miles, which included tall orange cones placed in the middle of the road to prevent vehicles from passing each other. With regular traffic traveling at 15 mph, it was not easy to get past them, but not impossible on motorcycles. We met a guy on a sport bike traveling in the opposite direction who waved us down and stopped in the middle of an empty stretch. How much more of this left? – he asked. About 8 miles, we replied. The dejected look on his face mixed with a faint attempt to smile. Always stay positive!
As we climbed, the dense forest gave way to views of valleys, snow covered lakes, waterfalls, and of course, the mountain. In Cougar Rock Campground we were able to find a cozy spot among the trees. We made tea, ate chocolate, and pretended to enjoy the serene experience of not having any cell signal.
