State 3 of 50  

 

 

    Washington

 

Capital: Olympia

Population: 6,468,000 (ranked 13th of 50 states)

Area: 184,800 kmē (ranked 18th of 50 states)

 

 

 

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Ride Report

This state: 970 kms     Journey to date: 3,513 kms

Scroll down below the route map for this state's ride report and photos

 

 

Ride Report

Washington has taken 2 days to cross and I'm about to enter Idaho at the panhandle in the north en route to Montana, namely the exciting Going To The Sun Highway in Glacier National Park. More about that in the Montana page. Keith & Pat Evans of Surrey, Vancouver, escorted me out of Vancouver and all the way to Osoyoos which was back into Canada.

But to backtrack. The bike was collected without problem from the freight company in Vancouver. Nothing damaged but it looked like it was inspected as half the bolts holding the cardboard cover to the crate frame were missing. Bike fired up first time.

The first 50 or so kms were a bizarre ride. The road, physically in Canada, tracked the US/Canada border in an arrow straight line with a shallow grassy ditch a metre to my right. That ditch was the border. Then another metre the other side of the ditch was another road, on the US side. You could have jumped or ridden across the ditch and thus crossed in to the US. There are apparently cameras along the road at intervals but it is a contrast to the border controls you see between the US and Mexico. Went through the border post at a town called Sumas. Canadian customs stamped out the carnet and on the US side the guard simply looked at the NZ plate, scratched his head, called a colleague to see what he punches in the computer and gave up, wishing me a nice day and welcome to the US of A.

The ride from this border to the North Cascades National Park was a wet one. Had an elk burger & chips at a small town before the park entrance. If you look at the photos below you'll see the scenery for which this state is famous. Switchbacks and passes through towering craggy peaks and lakes. The rain came and went but it didn't matter. I mucked up the fuel calculation as I was thinking in kms yet the GPS which monitors the fuel odometer is miles. Thus the fuel light was blinking all the way down the other side of the Cascades highway until unleaded relief in Mazama. At this point it got hot, very hot.

Had a bottle of water in Winthrop and it was a hot fast ride through to Tonasket and back into Canada at the border post at Osoyoos. Stayed the night care of wonderful hospitality from friends of Keith & Pat, Bob & Iris Stubbs. US beat China in the Olympics basketball.

Then came the best part of the day and that was the ride up a switchback road out of Osoyoos which was the start of the stunning Anarchist Mountain all the way through to the border post at Midway. Even though this was in British Columbia I'm including it in the Washington page.

The border post was a small one and thus the guard has a lot of time to kill. The RV in front of us got turned back as they had a dog on board and no paperwork, so they couldn't get back to the US. For my part I had to produce rego papers, carnet, show him my cholesterol pills to evidence no drug smuggling and generally got asked a lot of questions. In the end he posed for a photo and chatted about Alaska where his daughter lives. As to the question of was I carrying any offensive weapons we discussed my socks and he reluctantly agreed to let them in without paperwork.

From Midway the ride was fast and warm down to Republic, then over the Sherman Pass Scenic Byway into Kettle Falls. The Vancouverans headed back to Osoyoos & I rode out down the Columbia River on some back roads through Springdale, Loon Lake & finally to Medical Lake for the overnight stop.