***
thedougsite
Ride Through
Washington State
Oct. 2011
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We had intended to get away bright and early Tuesday morning, but
Tuesday dawned dark and wet. Very wet. The BC coast was being hammered
by the remnants of those Pacific Typhoons that have been battering
Asia. So, we waited until Tuesday evening and rode in to Horseshoe Bay
to attend our CMC chapter meet & greet. That was a wet ride, the
bikes were throwing up rooster tails of water from the back wheels, and
sending out bow waves from the front wheels. After the M&G we rode
to Ryan’s place in Coquitlam, through more rain, just not quite as
heavy as earlier. Next morning was cold but mostly clear, so we loaded
up the bikes and geared up and saddled up. Ryan hit the starter on his
Sportster, but it wouldn’t turn over. Battery was almost dead. It had
been turning over slower and slower all season, and now that it was wet
and cold, it would not start. I phoned my friend from the Kootenay’s
who was going to meet us in Osoyoos and told him we would be delayed a
while.
We then pulled the battery and climbed aboard my bike and dashed out to
Langley to the Harley dealer where we picked up a new battery. As Ryan
was paying for it, I noticed they had given him the wrong one, the
terminals were reversed. We’d have been really ticked if we’d gotten
all the way back to his place through all the frustrating Port Mann
construction traffic only to find we had to go back again. Anyway, got
the right battery and went back and installed it. Bike started up in
the blink of an eye. By now it was almost 11am and we were 3 hours
behind. I phoned my friend (I’ll call him ‘Brian’ for convenience) and
let him know we were on our way. We’d be in Osoyoos by about 4 or so.
We had a nice ride out the Fraser Valley and up over the Allison Pass
through Manning Park. It was cold but not wet and that’s about as good
as it get through there. The ride from Princeton to Osoyoos is always a
treat, the deep river valley, the rolling high dry hills. Hooked up
with Brian, had a coffee and then headed south to the border crossing
at Oroville. Got the usual hard time from the US border guard who
figured we should look just like our passport pictures. No one looks
like their passport pictures. Once we cleared customs we were on our
way. We
rode south to Omak and then south east to Grand Coulee. That put on
along the Columbia River just down stream from the Grand Coulee dam.
Very interesting country with it’s columnar basalt lava deposits that
are hundreds of feet deep. The geological history of this area is
fascinating. It had been very volcanically active, with numerous
eruptions laying down layer after layer of lava. Then at the end of the
last ice age, ice dams had formed that held back glacial lakes that
flooded central BC, and much of Montana and Idaho. Then the ice dams
broke, the massive torrent of water ripped the land, tearing hundreds
of feet deep into the basalt layers. The result is the incredible
scenery we were now riding though.
Here's the Columbia River, down
stream from the Grand Coulee dam.
Ryan and I at the lookout above the
Columbia River.
We followed the river into the town of Grand Coulee and found a
nice motel. That was our first day on the road. Off to a slow start but
it turned out pretty nice. Next morning was very cold but dry, and the
bikes fired right up, just the way they should. Just south of the town
the highway follows along Bank’s Lake for about 25 miles. We pulled
over and mounted our helmet cams in order to shoot some nice scenery
video. The ride took us along the lake, hemmed in between vertical
cliffs. This is part of the ice age flood damage. Incredible scenery.
We stopped at Dry Falls, where the flood cut even deeper into the
earth’s crust, and then headed on down to Ephrata. By then it was late
morning and the temperature had warmed all the way up to hot. Its
summer there. As we worked our way south and east we rode through flat
corn country that slowly changed into high rolling wheat fields. Very
high and rolling, and dry. The farm equipment harvesting the grain, and
working the land was stirring up so much dust it looked like an
overcast. The wheat stubble fields were so bright and golden you needed
sun glasses to look at them, even under the dust overcast. We rode into
Moscow, Idaho, and then back into Washington where we pulled in to
Pullman for the night. Another great day of riding.
Next morning was again cold and clear, but by noon it was hot again.
Perfect riding conditions. We rode north up to Spokane through
wonderful, rolling dry ranchland, then east toward the Idaho border
where we dropped in on a huge Harley dealer, just for the heck of it.
At this point we departed ways, Brian headed north east and we headed
north west. Ryan and I pulled in to Colville at noon and had lunch.
After lunch we rode north through Kettle Falls, along the scenic Kettle
River and up to Laurier and the border crossing back into Canada. The
Canadian border guard was friendly and we enjoyed telling her about our
ride. A few minutes later we were riding in BC. Funny how the brain
tries to translate metric highway speeds into metric, after spending a
few days translating US speeds into metric.
We now had a dilemma, how far should we push on before calling it a
day? We rode through the dry rocky mountains and hills of southern BC
countryside to Osoyoos where we stopped for a break. Decided to push on
to Princeton where we would have to either stop, or keep going all the
way. It was now past 6pm and would be dark in an hour, but the Allison
Pass section of highway 3 would take us almost 2 hours to cross. It
would be very dark long before we reached Hope. But, the weather
forecast for the next day was bad, very wet and windy. We asked a
couple of locals what they thought and all agreed that it would be
better to run out of daylight on the pass than to ride the whole way in
heavy rain. This time of year, the rain could be very cold and perhaps
even slippery. There is a reason vehicles are supposed to carry tire
chains after the end of September, and we were on two wheels, not four.
So, we pushed on. One danger of late day and night riding is the
possibility of wildlife running out onto the road, and local wildlife
can be very big. So, with our nice loud exhaust systems announcing our
approach, we stayed as far from the shoulder of the highway as possible
and kept our eyes open. We made it without incident and dropped down
onto Highway 1 just west of Hope. Rode on to Abbotsford where we
stopped for a late dinner and to relax a bit. Then, we took the back
way to Ryan’s in Coquitlam in order to avoid the Port Mann construction
traffic, again. That stuff is getting tiring, and will go on for
another couple of years.
However, the ride was great. Always good to hook up with Brian, always
fantastic to do a ride with Ryan. It is probably our last road trip of
the
season, although we did manage to ride in the Vancouver Toy Ride the
next day, along with five thousand other motorcycles. Cool.
Didn’t take many pictures, but did take two hours of video that I’ve
edited down to nine minutes. I’ve uploaded it to our YouTube site and
here’s the link.
http://s1236.photobucket.com/albums/ff460/cmcvancouver/Banks%20Lake%20Ride/
