Olympic Peninsula Circumnavigation

"GCOR is a circumnavigation of the Olympic mountain range primarily using the gravel roads of the Olympic National Forest, DNR and state forests land. It is 440 miles of beautiful, remote and varied forest land. They’re not easy miles either! There are 7 major climbs over 2000′; 40,000′ of elevation total." - GCOR race page.

My friend Elisa and I had blocked out 9 days at the end of July for a longer bikepacking trip TBD. It would be her longest bikepacking trip ever and in her own words, she hadn't been riding much and so wanted to make sure we didn't have too much climbing each day. So of course, she sent me the GCOR route as a potential trip idea. While I initially had been eyeballing another bikepacking trip on Vancouver Island, I was intrigued by the idea of exploring the Olympic peninsula since it was new to me. I accepted the challenge to figure out a less gnarly version of GCOR, and this is what we ended up with. 

We loved everything that was NOT on the 101, so if I had to do this again with more time, I'd probably add back in a few of the gravel road sections that didn't involve gratuitous climbing. I'd also prolly try not to do it in a heatwave again, too. But that all said, we had an amazing time and I'd do it all again!

Dispersed camping in the rainforest.

Remote gravel roads for days.

Uh, this is the turnoff!?

Lake Crescent afternoon dip post-ice cream bars from the lodge.

Hiker-biker campsites are the best!

Sequim Bay at sunset.

Morning views from the tent.

Proof we had 30 minutes of clouds.

We love random farm stands so much!

Roads less travelled.

Forks fame.

Car free joy!

More car free joy!

So many hand pies!

A few tips for bike tourists:

• We parked our car for a small fee at the Dow Creek RV Resort... it's not something they typically do, but it made for a perfect starting point as we stayed the first night there after a long drive to prep and we also enjoyed showers at the end!
• Washington State Parks have hiker/biker sites (even if not immediately apparent on the website) and in our experience, they were never full. A ranger told us that there is an official policy that they cannot turn away someone arriving on foot or bicycle.
• Other than the initial part of the route from the Dow Creek RV Resort to Spider Lake to Lake Quinault, there are plentiful resupply spots. The Shell station in Forks (which houses Ron's Food Mart) has a suprisingly good selection of single serving foods that are easy to grab and go for a bikepacking trip. But the real winners were the North Shore Grocery near Lake Quinault (owned by an Asian family with a surprisingly good selection of random Asian goodies) and the store in Quilcene (a gem with homemade tamales, fresh baked goods, a dozen types of hand pies, and everything in between).
• You cannot depend on small cafes on this route to be reliably open... with staffing issues and other potential pitfalls, it's good to have a back up plan!
• Farm stands also dot this route, especially along the west and north part of the route.
• The Olympic Discovery Trail is an amazing car-free experience!

Idaho State of Mind

I've got a special love affair with Idaho. Yes, you heard me right. Idaho. Home of the Sawtooths, the White Clouds, and the most soakable hot springs of anywhere in the U.S (about 130 soakable out of 340). I fell in love with Idaho when the Adventure Cycling Association debuted the Idaho Hot Springs Route eight years ago as its first dirt road and mountain bike route... and I had been itching to get back there ever since. So when I found three of my favorite people who were willing to go, I couldn't turn the opportunity down!

There's not much to say that hasn't been said before, so I'll just say "Daaaaang, Idaho, you good lookin'!"

Empty dirt roads and so many rivers. 

Trail magic in the form of a cold beer at the last summit of a blazing hot day.

Featherville has changed since the last time I was there... the kindly gentleman who lovingly made me pizza before retired and the community has gotten more polarized.

Late summer rain makes for some glowing green camping spots.

Shitty views.

Mule ears for days and endless views of the Sawtooths.

Our own private hot springs just a short distance from camp.

Escape from the hot asphalt onto glorious doubletrack. 

Are we the photoshoot for an outdoors magazine?

Singletrack to one of many summits.

Fuck yea, Idaho!

Private hot springs bath.

A few tips for bike tourists:

• Everything you need to know, the Adventure Cycling Association has put together and it's well worth the money to buy their paper and digital maps. I imported the digital map into RidewithGPS and then made a route that fit the time we had. The actual GPX tracks are not posted here because I promised ACA I wouldn't, so you get this zoomed out screenshot.
• Our route started in Lowman, went southeast towards Featherville, east to Ketchum, and north to Stanley, and then back to Lowman. We had about 6.5 days of riding and created a counterclockwise loop on southern section of the official route. This would allow us to get the most remote and challenging riding out of the way early, and allow us to enjoy Ketchum and all its amenities to its fullest. We tried to average about 45 miles a day and stick to the golden ratio of climbing (no more than 1000 feet of climbing per 10 miles).
• The whole NW of the U.S. experienced an abnormally rainy early summer, which made for amazing dirt road conditions. We got extremely lucky with cool clouds, sunny skies, and no rain. This route has wildly fluctuating temperatures due to the elevation. In a late summer year like this one, there was still snow on some of the route near the Galena summit, and so its best to check in at the Galena Lodge about conditions and whether or not the route is clear.
• While as a queer woman of color, I had heard that Featherville had changed since I last passed through there from other trip reports... it was one of my favorite stops back in 2015, where the kindly owner regaled us with stories and lovingly made me one of the best pizzas of my life. This time around, there were new owners, and I felt uncomfortable, though not unsafe (it helped I was traveling with 3 cis white folks).
• Go to the pupusa train car in Ketchum for amazing Salvadoran food. If anything, it felt amazing to bathe in a pocket of brown people.
• We loved the Galena Lodge... from the breakfast at the lodge to the bike shop, they were so welcoming! They also have really great intel on good dispersed camping near tourist hot spots like Red Fish Lake with views, and nearby access to water.
• The Bonneville campground and hot springs may have a "campground full" sign up, but for people arriving by bike, just know that there are some amazing walk-in campsites that rarely fill up. We were told that the camp host puts that sign up to keep the riffraff out... he welcomed us in on a busy weekend day.

Bikepacking Overnight: Klamath Cascade-Siskiyou Loop

For the most part, bikepacking helps me reconnect to the little moments in life that bring joy, the kindness and humanity of people in far flung corners of time and space, and a healthy level of discomfort. Some routes I ride are highly curated from resources I trust or are the product of someone else's well written trip report. And some, like this trip, I completely made up, did the best I could with my research, and hoped for the best. 

Planning only takes you so far, and even the trips that look like they will be the best on paper can be thwarted by bad intel, someone getting sick, bike mechanicals, or in our case... shitty local residents putting up "private property" and "no trespassing" signs on public roads and then being threatening about it. This is where getting good at having a healthy level of discomfort and the tools to problem solve come in handy!

Our original beautiful route from the Klamath area, up into the Cascade-Siskiyou, and finish through Copco Lake.

What we ended up actually doing...

Bill and I have got to be pros at rolling with whatever a bikepacking trip throws at us... especially Bill because he has been on exactly three bikepacking trips and all three had some kind of thing to overcome. This trip was particularly bittersweet for me because it was supposed to be an epic couples bikepacking trip with Aparna+Jamie, Elisa+Chris, Ani+Jordan (standing in for Mark), and Bill+me. But the weather kept us on our toes and we kept trying desperately to find somewhere in Oregon it would not be raining. 

One by one, folks decided not to go due to timing, family emergencies, weather, and everything in between. Bill and I decided to try to do an overnighter over the two days that looked the least shitty. I redesigned this route half a dozen times, as it was originally supposed to be a 3 day/2 night trip... and eventually turned into an overnighter. And even with all that, we had a blast, managed to find one of the most beautiful campsites, found a newfound appreciation for each other, and also bagged a high peak on two wheels.

We barely took any pictures the first day due to the rain, hail, cold, and shitty residents along Copco Road. So here's when we got to camp.

Morning vibes in the tent.

Morning sun makes Bill happy... especially almost getting hypothermia the day before.

Crazy morning tortilla cheesy eggy thing makes LeeAnn happy, especially when it doesn't stick to the pan.

Cat's ears with sleepy morning visitors also makes LeeAnn happy.

My lawyer brain going into full swing as we figured out that the road being blocked is PUBLIC and getting all the information to make a report to the Oregon State Police.

Buuut, without those assholes, we never would have made the jaunt up to this lookout with 360 views of the Cascade-Siskiyou. On bikes. Ouchie climbing legs.

Bombing down.

Oh look, it's the Klamath River.

Also, there are ticks. Check yourselves. We think this one visited my helmet overnight and then embedded behind my ear while riding.

 A few tips for cycle tourists:

• Google Maps, RWGPS, and may other mapping tools will allow you to map through areas officially designated as federally managed Wilderness Areas. It is important to note that bicycles are not allowed in them, even though Google Maps will actually try to create routes for both cars and bikes through them on what may have been old forest roads. We discovered this the fun way when looking for an alternate route and ended up going in circles and then back the way we came.

Oregon Stampede Redux (aka Aparna's 46th Stampede)

Aparna asked for a bikepacking trip for her 46th birthday, so I gathered some of our favorite people -- Ani, Elisa, and Nicole -- and that's what we gave her. We scoped out a whole bunch of 3 day-2 night routes but the weather basically told us that staying in lower elevations in the rain shadow of the Cascades would be our best bet for a weekend bikepacking trip. And so even though I had just done the Oregon Stampede with Bill, I offered it up as an option because sometimes a route is so good, it feels like your lucky day when you get to ride it again... even if it is just a month later! Plus, I was itching to camp in the amazing dispersed site that Bill and I saw in the wildlife refuge and everyone was sold. 

There isn't much to say here that wasn't said last time, other than if you are lucky, you can time it like we did and accidentally overlap with the Gorge Gravel Grinder and a special women's gravel camp so that as you bike through and around Dufur, you get to see a gajillion rad women and femmes on gravel bikes and they will cheer you on with so much gusto, you feel like it's your birthday. Oh wait, it really was Aparna's birthday!

A cool old abandoned church right outside Grass Valley made for a great "getting started" photo.

Bike joy.

There are no pictures of beautiful descent into this canyon because it hailed on us. It hurt. That is all. 

Ani goes shopping for a book... a surprisingly robust and progressive selection!

The beginning of so much climbing through the wildlife refuge.

Sunny skies and the perfect campsite. It was a mansion of a campsite perfect for 5 tents and 5 bikes.

The grand Columbia River.

The campground had firewood and ice so we chilled our happy hour drinks.

We nabbed the second to last campsite available... they were super nice and let us spill over a bit.

"You're the best... no you're the best!" Us after a few drinks in... and then when we ran out of booze, we invited the van lifers next door over and hinted successfully that we were out of booze.

Blue skies, snow capped mountains, and this crew.

The Friend school with the birthday gal... left our mark.

The long road and open skies back to the car.

A few tips for cycle tourists:

• While Bill and I parked our car successfully in the Grass Valley city park, it is a tiny parking lot. Since we were going to have 3 cars, we called the market in Grass Valley and asked for permission to park there since it has a large lot, and they were fine with it. Just asked us to park at the back and leave notes at our car.
• Speaking of which, the market in Grass Valley has a surprisingly robust selection of snacks, food, and most of all beer, wine, and liquor. The selection of booze there was superior to the store in Dufur (which was decently stocked). 
• The map for this version shows the sweet designated campsite that is right along the river. Nearly all of the other designated campsites are dry camping, so if you are biking this clockwise and that site is full, you will want to filter water there to carry with you. If you bike this counterclockwise, you may want to bring in extra water.
• We saw a LOT of hunters in the wildlife refuge. They were all very nice to us, but we felt unsettled being five women, and three of us being women of color. They tend to come in from the north side of the refuge, so we didn't realize how many hunters there were camped out until we biked out. So if you bike this counterclockwise, you will pass by nearly all the campsites before you get to the one along the river.