July 17, 2023
Day 75 - July 17 - Walla Walla, WA to Umatilla, OR
Ride In To the Danger Zone!
Ed’s Story
I’m tired and my journal entry will be short today.
We were up at 4:30 again. Had a cold breakfast. Pulled our bikes out of the storage room; pumped up the tires; loaded the bikes; and were the road by 5:20.
We left Walla Walla on old US 12. A new highway was built several years ago that paralleled this one. Our road was relatively flat. As I looked to the right to the new highway, it was going up and down over the hills.
You could feel the wind as soon as you left, although it wasn’t so bad in town. The wind picked up and grew stronger and stronger.
We stopped in Touchet, WA for orange juice and a break. The wind was already strong. We kept riding. We decided at that point we would stop every 5 miles for a rest.
A few miles after leaving Touchet, we joined the new highway 12. From there the danger began. Not only were the winds severe. There was heavy truck and car traffic. Every time a truck went by it would tend either blow us off the road, or try to suck us into it. We got to the point every time we saw a truck coming, we would stop.
At one point we thought about quitting riding and trying to thumb a ride. We opted to continue riding, as this was all part of the adventure.
We continued this way until US 730 split off from US 12. We headed south west on US 730. It was at this point we could first see the Columbia River.
Shortly thereafter we entered Oregon. Although it is our last new state, we have to re-enter Washington tomorrow for two days before coming back.
The wind sort of lessened on US 730 as we rode along the river. If it diminished it was only slightly.
When we entered Oregon, the nice paved berm in Washington state went away. We now had a narrow paved berm with packed gravel on the right side of it. Again, not conducive to safe riding.
Here are just some views along the river.
But we continued on. Twelve miles from Umatilla we came to a nice rest area where we had lunch.
When we left this area, we were no longer by the river, but were again exposed to the high winds as there was nothing to stop them.
As we approached Umatilla, we stopped at a small, grocery store. I don’t think they ever heard of vegetables, because there were none there; no fruit either.
We continued into town to the post office to pick up our brother David’s care package. From there it was to the Bridge Bistro and Brews to eat and drink beer.
We headed to the Umatilla RV park where we checked in; set up tents; took showers and snacked because we had a late lunch.
We were going to stay at a WarmShowers host in Hermiston, WA but we had a text last night that he was sick. We didn’t want to compromise ourselves the last 10 days of our journey so we opted to camp.
Tomorrow is a 52 mile day to Roosevelt, Washington. We cross the Columbia River at Umatilla and then head west.
Although it will be warmer, there will only be 3 to 4 mph winds.
Until tomorrow, happy biking!
John’s Story
As I researched and put our route together for this tour, I just knew that our hardest days would come in this area. And today proved it. Today’s ride was through hell. Ed does not adequately capture the intensity of the winds we experienced, and I don’t know if I can either.
I live in Oklahoma, where it isn’t notable when the wind blows, but when it doesn’t. In an early installment of this journal I talked about riding in winds gusting to 46 mph this winter. But that was a gentle breeze compared to some of today’s gusts.
For the first 10 miles or so today I thought, this isn’t too bad. We were tooling along at 10-12 mph. I thought if we can keep this up we could be in Umatilla by noon. That didn’t happen.
The second 10 miles the wind really started to crank up. Our speed dropped to 8-10 mph. Then 6-8 mph. Soon we merged onto US 12 and the fun began.
The angle of the wind relative to our direction of travel and it’s speed, the shape of the road cuts we passed through, the heavy truck traffic and the narrow shoulder combined to provide a hair-raising cycling experience. The wind was chaotic, changing direction for moment to moment and second to second. It was so strong at times that I had to brake to prevent myself from running off the shoulder or into the guard rail or, worse yet, into the traffic lane. I’m not a human anemometer, but I would judge there were gusts in excess of 50 mph, perhaps much in excess. We were averaging perhaps 5 mph, when we weren’t stopping for trucks or putting our feet down to keep from falling over when a particularly strong gust tried to bring us to a stop.
At our 28 mile stop for a break I was serious ready to pack it in, flag down a pickup truck and offer to pay someone to carry us to Umatilla. These thoughts were churning in my head when Ed pulled away to continue riding. I had no choice but to follow. Luckily, in two or three miles, we came to Wallula Junction, where we met the Columbia River. US 12 turned north and we turned onto US 730 to enter the Columbia River Gorge. Suddenly the wind was just a strong headwind, not a frenzied manifestation of the Devil himself. I’m glad that I didn’t have the chance to act on my thoughts of 20 minutes before.
The wind continued to be strong but not chaotic. Our speed inched back up to 7-8 mph. I’ve always heard that the winds in the gorge can be brutal, making it a world famous kite surfing Mecca, but in the gorge the wind was well behaved, perhaps because it is constrained by the gorge itself. Up top before the gorge was where it was at its worst.
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We will spend the next four days passing through the gorge. Tomorrow the wind should be light and variable. The next day we may have a slight tailwind. The third and fourth days the wind will turn into a quartering headwind, but hopefully not as strong as today. Our days are shorter until we get to our next rest day in Troutdale, just short of Portland, and that will help. Tomorrow should be in the low 90s, and then the 100 degree heat may return. We’ll see how things work out as we head west.
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It is so breezy and dry (24% humidity right now) and the dew point so low (47 at the moment) that I don’t plan to put the fly on my tent. The chance that dew will fall is tiny. I hope that makes for a better night’s sleep, since it will still be warm when we turn in. I’ll start on top of the sleeping bag tonight, though a low in the upper 50s will send me inside it at some point.
Today's ride: 58 miles (93 km)
Total: 532 miles (856 km)
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You guys are looking great!
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