Sarah’s 2022 XWA Plus Extra
In July of 2022, my friend Evan (who Irena and I first met on the Divide last year) and I rode the Cross Washington Mountain Bike Route (XWA). We tried to find an uncomplicated way to get to the start of the route in La Push but ultimately thought: why not just ride there from Seattle? Then we figured why stop at the end of the route?
We started on Mercer Island and rode to La Push, did the XWA route eastbound, crossed over the Washington border, rode through Idaho, and continued on to Missoula which was where I stopped. Evan would continue on for another week through the Tetons to Swan Valley where he was able to get a ride back to his home in Utah.
There is ample intel about the XWA route so I won’t go into too much of that here. Instead, I want to focus on stories and experiences. Stories from these trips are the special sauce of bikepacking. Before that though, I would like to give a long slow clap to Troy Hopwood for using the utmost creativity, exhaustive amounts of scouting I’m sure, and probably a pinch of evil genius (e.g. 12% inclines) to stitch together this route. Most notably, he managed to assemble a network of tiny stretches of dirt in the greater Seattle area to connect Edmonds to Carnation with just a smidgeon of pavement. It caught us a little off guard at how that part of the route beat us up but it was a small price to pay to avoid cars. Troy, you are a wizard. You make our sport better and I appreciate you.
Also, if anyone has ridden this route but taken the Colockum Alternate due to snow or weather, I highly recommend returning to check out the high route through the Teanaway. It was my favorite part of the ride. The long steep climbs aren’t for the faint of heart but the expansive views of the Cascades make the effort well worth it.
So now storytime! Here’s a collection of tales, thoughts, and tidbits from our trip.
On day 1 we rode from Mercer Island to Mukilteo and took the ferry over to Whidbey Island. While eating lunch on Whidbey at a table outside Pickles Deli in a small strip mall, a 12-pack sized tortoise chugged up the sidewalk toward us. Bewildered, we watched as he marched by, seeming to be on a mission. Locals told us he belongs to the pet store a few spots down and he does laps along the sidewalk as he pleases. That day however he got frisky and snuck past his normal boundaries. A gal from the pet shop hustled past us, scooped him up like a toddler, and lugged him back to the shop - his belly out, arms and legs paddling in angry protest.
You know how some people are train fanatics? Evan is a ferry fanatic. He was wiggling with excitement when we boarded ferries and I think it’s hilarious and it made for some funny pictures (which you’ll see below).
After riding across Whidbey, we took another ferry over to Port Townsend, where we stayed at Camp Worden State Park. Any state park in Washington State is required to always make a hiker/biker tent spot available if they have tent sites for car campers. It’s such a great law! In fact Evan is trying to get something similar passed in Utah.
Riding from Port Townsend to Crescent Lake on day 2 was rainy so we were wet and starting to get cold when we pulled into our bicycle tent spots at the Log Cabin Resort that evening. We revived our extremities in hot showers and watched the gorgeous sunset. But that wasn’t the best part. That came when we discovered the huge laundry room. Bikepacking shifts your mindset so that the most banal daily conveniences normally taken for granted can send you into a state of delirious joy. We were so excited to find this laundry room because it 1) was indoors, which meant no bugs and no rain 2) was toasty warm 3) had dryers which we put our rain-soaked clothes into without washing first and laughed at what a dirtbag move it was but we didn’t care because yay dry clothes 4) had a huge wide countertop that we could use to cook our dinner and yard sale all our shit everywhere since no one else was around, thus not having to balance our camp stoves on a rotting picnic table or rocks or dirt and worry about spilling and stirring 5) had several outlets for charging our devices 6) had light. We were giddy with our good fortune and cracking up to the point of watering eyes that such mundane things made us so stupid happy.
When we got to La Push on day 3, we (mostly I) wanted to dip our rear wheels in the ocean as a ceremonial kickoff to the official Cross-Washington Mountain Bike Route. We found a couple of middle-aged Lebowski-esque surfer dudes hanging by the shore and I asked if they could take our picture. They enthusiastically obliged and when I gave my phone to one of them, he pretended to run away with it like a thief and then laughed heartily at his own hilarious prank. We situated ourselves and our bikes at the shoreline and the other dude took a few photos before the prankster thief tossed him some grief about putting in lame photography efforts and took the phone away from him. Prankster thief started snapping photos with dramatic flair, repositioning himself for what he thought would get the best shots - crouching and standing and walking toward us and sideways and backwards while clicking the button and also continuing to grouse his buddy for subpar photo artistry. We ended up with 35 photos and a bunch of good laughs from these two friendly goofballs. They were a fun way to kickoff the official XWA route.
Every trip has a day where all the things just seem to go wrong. That was day 4 for us when we rode from Forks to Port Angeles. Evan’s really nice sunglasses were stolen after we ate lunch at the Log Cabin Resort. A couple of navigation snafus coming out of the Lake Crescent area resulted in not only a bunch of unnecessary extra climbing up a very steep gravel road but also Evan fearing for little while that I’d been hurt or worse. Another navigational wrench toward the end of the day made us lose precious beer-procurement time. Thankfully though, Evan’s legs are almost as strong as his love of a camp beer so he sprinted several miles to reach a store within minutes of closing. We enjoyed those beers while Evan washed his socks with dish detergent in the RV park’s kitchen sink and we laughed about it, leaving the bad juju of Mishap Day behind us.
Port Angeles seemed to have a big problem with drugs. We saw tweakers everywhere we went. They loitered around zombie-like, looking at your bikes but pretending not to but being totally obvious anyway. We couldn’t wait to get back in the woods. Keep a close eye on your rig in Port Angeles. Sorry, Port Angeles.
Having made it through the much-tougher-than-expected greater Seattle metro area, we were excited to both be meeting up with friends on day 8. Evan met up with an old Navy friend Brian and we spent that night with my friends Deb and Dave in Snoqualmie. It was really gratifying for both of us to be able to catch up with friends that we hadn’t seen in a while. A friend of Dave’s who I’d never met before, a teacher at a high school 26 miles away, was there having beers with us that evening. Randomly through the course of conversation, we discovered that my cousin’s son Andrew is not only one of his students, but his favorite student. We took a drunk selfie and sent it to Andrew, which totally blew his mind.
We got to Roslyn on day 10, where we’d planned ahead that we would spend a rest day since Irena lives there and we wanted to have a fun day with her. She had been watching our dots and was waiting out in front of her house with big hugs and cold Dru Bru ciders when we pulled up. Having bikepacked together a lot, she knew exactly what would be the perfect reception. We rolled our bikes into her backyard where she had a beautiful spread of sliced watermelon, artichoke dip with crusty bread, and chips and salsa. Our empty cider cans were swiftly replaced with new fresh cold ones and we sat around laughing and catching up and sharing stories from our trip. Later, she prepared an incredible salmon dinner which made for an evening that was beyond lovely and heart-filling. We spent the next day doing laundry and bike maintenance and enjoying more cider and more of Irena’s delicious home-cooked food and laying around a lot and it was luxurious and fun and restorative and the best thing ever.
The next day, Irena rode with us through the Teanaway Community Forest to the Ken Wilcox Horse Camp. This was our biggest day of climbing on the trip (8,400 feet in 45 miles) and it was breathtakingly beautiful but wow it was tough. I gave Irena a tearful and gratitude-filled hug goodbye the next morning as she rode back toward Roslyn and we turned our wheels toward Wenatchee.
The terrain from the horse camp to Wenatchee went like this: beautiful rollers in the high country, then a fast fun descent with creek crossings, then a steep, very hot and sandy climb, then more descending. Normally this would be an enjoyable day of riding. But when we rolled into Wenatchee at 2pm, hot and tired and thirsty, neither of us had our head in the game. We decided a sit-down meal would do us good and discussed over burgers what our plan after lunch should be. We knew there was a long, steep, exposed climb on the way out of Wenatchee and it was a scorching hot day with a dry gusty wind. We had only ridden 39 miles so far that day. We both felt like we should continue riding after lunch but it was clear that neither of us had the gumption. After waffling back and forth for the whole meal, we finally decided to just stay in Wenatchee that night, knowing there was a state park where we’d have a guaranteed camping spot.
This isn’t a riveting story but I wanted to share it because it’s emblematic of the highs and lows on bikepacking trips. Sometimes the lows are just the normal ebbs and flows of a day spent biking (for instance, I almost always feel like crap between 2 and 4pm). But sometimes it’s your body trying to tell you something. Sometimes it’s worth pushing through and sometimes not. Only you can assess and decide. I try to listen to my body when it speaks to me through low mental states that persist or a prolonged lack of will or spirit - and I try to do so without being self-critical (which can be difficult).
We camped that night on a tiny mosquito-infested grass island in the middle of a parking lot which was one of two hiker-biker spots offered to us at Wenatchee Confluence State Park. We’d said goodnight and were chatting through tent walls when we realized we were both still hungry. We hemmed and hawed about wanting to have a snack but not wanting to get up to brush teeth again. In mischievous “I will if you will” style, we both decided to be dentally reckless and eat a burrito in bed and *not* re-brush our teeth, feeling so pleased with ourselves for being such rebels.
We were in deep sleep at 1:30 AM when an intensely loud rumbling noise jolted us both awake. My first thought was “are we near a jet runway that I didn’t notice?” I sat upright in my sleeping bag and upon smelling wet asphalt and seeing my tent walls flapping violently, I thought it was super heavy rain. So then I thought “boy am I glad I never trust the forecast and always close up my bike bags before bed.” Then I hear Evan exclaiming that there’s water in his tent and that the sprinklers are on! He is out of his tent before I fully process what’s going on and I see his shadow bounding around our grass island. I start laughing hysterically (because, seriously? This is really happening?) and yell out to him “What can I do to help?” and he yells back “Nothing! Stay inside and stay dry if your stuff isn’t already wet.” So I sit there for a few minutes watching his shadow hop around the perimeter of our island like a crazed marionette and it finally registers that he is running to each sprinkler head to rotate it away from our stuff just as it winds back around to pound us. He’s playing spinning plates from hell. I pull on my rain gear and pop out to help. We fended off the ridiculous blasts for 30 minutes before the sprinkler heads finally whimpered out and retreated underground. We both had puddles inside our tents (water was shooting up and under the flys) and our bikes and bags were soaked. I even had water inside one of my closed bags. We got a late start the next morning to allow our stuff to dry out and simultaneously grumbled and laughed about the ordeal over breakfast. A story to be filed under “bikepacking / you can’t make this shit up.”
In Eastern Washington, we had 3 days in a row where my Wahoo showed 106, 107, then 108 degrees. The winds were unrelenting, hot, and dusty. The old John Wayne Trail (now part of the Palouse to Cascades trail) out of Lind on day 15 was soul-crushing. The project team for this trail unwisely chose to surface it using chunky 2” loose cobble, which really isn’t good for any type of trail user. It was horribly punishing on both of us physically and the cattle gates were momentum wreckers that negatively impacted us mentally. We got a break from the trail on the bypass to Ritzville where we regrouped at a truck stop and tried really hard to not be grumpy miserable pukes. We pounded fluids and eventually mustered up the will to get back on our bikes.
The route took us back onto the godforsaken PTC trail so when we reached the beautiful Breeden Falls with its big overpass, we took another long break to dunk in the creek and cool off in the shade. Beyond this spot, some attractive scenery and leaving the PTC had us in better spirits by the time Evan pulled into the tiny town of Ewan at dusk. I was still a few miles back and at this point, we had ridden about 80 miles. There was no cell service so Evan sent me a message through our Garmins that he was going to try to find a spot for us to stealth camp which I was happy about. Part of this plan resulted in some good comedy however. I was cranking along up a hill thinking I’d catch up to him eventually but I never did so I just kept going, thinking he was still up ahead. It was getting dark and we were messaging back and forth to figure out where each other was but due to fatigued brains and character limits and delays on the Garmins, I climbed an extra couple of miles trying to catch Evan when all along I had passed him and didn’t know it. We eventually figured out through messaging what had happened and decided that I would backtrack down the hill to where he had found a camping spot. Our messaging transcript still cracks me up. You can read it here.
Before beginning this trip, I knew that my friend Art, a fellow bikepacker who Irena and I met on the Divide last year, was on a camping trip through Idaho with his wife Lee and would be at Heyburn State Park right around the time we’d be riding through the area. We really wanted to be able to see Art and luckily things worked out mileage-wise so that we were able to get there the evening before they left. We had said we’d meet them at the campsite but Art knew we were planning to stop in town to resupply on the way so he rode into town to surprise us at the grocery store. He, Lee, and Lee’s brother Don welcomed us generously and warmly with hugs, beers, a spot for our tents, a hearty appetite for stories from our trip, and a delicious dinner. We stayed up talking way past dark. I sat there at the table overcome by the warm fuzzies thinking about the bikepacking community and how people can meet as strangers on a trip one year and be on a bike trip together the next year or meeting up for a super fun evening sharing a meal at a campground. I marveled at the generosity and kindness with which we take care of each other in this sport. Art served us breakfast and bottomless coffee the next morning before we said our goodbyes and heartfelt thank you’s and rolled out of camp.
To get back to work on time, I had to end my ride in Missoula on day 19, where we celebrated with a big drunk dinner. The next morning we got to visit the Adventure Cycling Association offices before I hugged Evan goodbye and hit the road in my rented cargo van.
I had never done a bike trip with Evan before and I’d felt a little apprehensive about the discrepancy in our pace. We talked openly about it and planned to ride tortoise and hare style. Evan is much faster than me but likes taking sporadic breaks during the day whereas I prefer to just keep chugging. We split up often for chunks of time and then would reconvene later. This worked out great for us. Thankfully, we were in sync (as Irena and I are) when it came to the more subtle factors that could derail a good riding partnership such as level of comfort with various types of risk, reaction to stress, how we interact with other humans, decision making tactics, flexibility/rigidity around things like food choices and adherence to plans, and what we each wanted to get out of the trip. We prioritized good communication and fun over all else. It’s hard enough to ride a loaded bike up and down mountain passes and into headwinds. If it’s not fun, why do it?
1,188 miles
71,998 feet of elevation gain
19 days
1 rest day
3 states
3 ferries
1 moose
1 bear
1 negligible mechanical
a couple of minor spills
0 flats