Day Seven - North Cascades

Tuesday August 16th
I am probably the only camper in all of North Cascades National Park right now that is sitting at the picnic table in their campsite typing on a laptop. I wasn't able to pick up wood for a fire tonight so I need to keep myself entertained somehow.

The campsite is beautiful; it's kind of tucked into alcove beneath a canopy of trees. The only problem is that the campsite doesn't provide bear boxes for food storage. I have a couple of apples and some bananas that I have wrapped in several layers of plastic and stored in my leather saddlebags for the night. We'll see if my saddlebags are still in tact tomorrow morning.

Today was my first day of riding on this trip that the weather was really nice. It wasn't too bad on Monday as I was leaving Glacier but it was still a little bit chilly. Today it was actually warm enough that I could ride without a jacket. Well, at least until I got back up into the mountains.

I got a late start riding this morning. I was out late last night and didn't even get up until 8 in the morning. That's the problem with staying in a hotel room; the sun has a tough time finding it's way into the room to wake me up in the morning. I never have that problem in a tent. As soon as the sun is out, I'm awake.

Yesterday was kind of a day of indulgence anyway. So, I didn't beat myself up too bad about sleeping in. To make sure that I got an even later start to the day I decided to do some extra laundry this morning before leaving. I washed most everything yesterday except for my shorts and one of my white t-shirts that I wore while washing all of my other clothes. I figured that it would be nice to leave Coeur D'Alene with all of my clothes clean so I went ahead and washed the shorts as well as the clothes that I wore last night.

While the clothes were in the dryer I headed out to breakfast. Like I said, my time in Coeur D'Alene was all about indulgence. I went online and found that there was a Perkins in the area. God I miss Perkins. Their eggs benedict and Mammoth Muffins are the best.

By the time that I got back to the hotel, got my clothes out of the dryer and got everything packed up it was nearly eleven o'clock. I don't think that I have ever before left that late for a day of riding. I only had about 350 miles to ride to North Cascades but I was riding on roads that I had never been on before. The ride seemed to take longer than I expected. There were a lot of winding mountain roads that I needed to continually slow down for. Oh, and there was that 45 minute “scenic drive” down a dirt and gravel road.

The ride between Coeur D'Alene and Kettle Falls was unspectacular. Not that it was ugly, it was just nothing special. I have been struck with the impression when riding through Northern Idaho that it would be really beautiful if it weren't for all the evidence of heavy logging that has occurred in the area. Even in the areas that are starting to grow back it is still evident that something is not quite right as you drive by.

Most of the ride between Kettle Falls and Tonasket was in National Forest and was pretty nice as was the scenic ride into North Cascades National Park. The stretch of Hwy 20 between those two spots though was almost as if I was riding in a different state. For about 80 miles I switched from riding through densely forested mountains to dry and desolate hills painted with sparse sagebrush. It actually reminded me of riding through some spots in Utah and Southern Idaho.