Cascade Semi-Loop

Elizabeth emailed me from her work sometime in May 2010 to say that she had followed a dozen motorcyclists to Sechelt and was of the opinion that we should purchase a bike. A couple of emails later, I discovered that she was serious. This could be our third motorcycle during our time together.

On the road in the Cascades

Our first foray into motorcycling was a 400cc Honda Hawk. I don't remember the year, but I bought it sometime around the mid eighties. A couple of years later, the Hawk was traded in for a 750cc Honda Sabre which was an awesome bike. We both loved it and did numerous 'excursions' on it with Phil, Graham, Matthew, and others, although nothing longer than a single over-nighter. The summer of 1991 I prepped the bike for the usual season of riding, with a significant difference that year being that Jeriah was born in May. I took the bike out on the Pat Bay Highway and discovered that it wasn't nearly as much fun knowing that I had a wee one at home that could be orphaned if Elizabeth and I took a bad tumble. I eventually sold the Sabre to Elizabeth's dad.

Somewhere between purchasing the Hawk and selling the Sabre, I did fall in love with the new BMW K75. I remember that this was in 1986 or 1987 as it was the first year that they came with ABS brakes. Saturdays were often spent in the motorcycle dealership contemplating possible optional extras in the event that I was ever to take the plunge into buying a brand new beemer. I seem to recall that the price tag was in the region of $7500, but I never got as far as calculating the final price, including taxes, hidden fees, and those optional extras.

Now with both Jeriah and Michaela in their teens (19 and 17, respectively) owning a motorcycle seemed an ok thing to do. I guess the theory was that two older teenagers could safely be orphaned if things went awry while out on the bike(?). We discovered a couple of key things when we started looking at our options for purchasing a motorcycle. 1: If we bought a 1985 or earlier, the bike could be considered a 'classic' as far as ICBC was concerned and insurance would drop from around $1200/year to less than $300/year; and 2: a reasonable BMW could be had for our unofficial budget amount of "around $2500". 

After a couple of false alarms, we finally located our 1985 K100 BMW in Leavenworth, WA. We drove down during the July long weekend (July 1 for us Canadians, July 4 for our southern neighbours) and took it for a spin. For a 25 year old bike, it sure seemed in excellent shape, with about 46,000 mikes on the odometer. We settled on a price of $2300 and I drove it to a storage facility in Blaine, WA with Elizabeth following. The bike needed to remain in storage for three working days to allow for the import/export paperwork to be completed. We returned to Blaine the following Friday and brought her home. The only two mishaps were the disintegration of the rear brake reservoir in the ferry line up as we waited to return to the Sunshine Coast; the second was the clutch cable giving out right outside of our garage. Considering the 200-plus miles that I had ridden since purchasing it, the location for the failure was fortuitous to say the least. I couldn't imagine being stranded on the I5 with a newly purchased motorcycle.

While we were in Leavenworth, we picked up a pamphlet promoting the Cascade Loop. We decided that this would be our first 'touring' trip on the beemer.

We left Gibsons, BC on August 3, 2010 via the 1030 am ferry from Langdale. The original plan was to catch the 830 am and get a reasonable start on the day; best laid plans were abandoned as I lay awake at 130am, envisioning getting Elizabeth up in time to pack and load the bags on the beemer in time to make the ferry. OK, so I wasn't that keen either, so I reset the alarm to a more reasonable hour. On the way out of Vancouver, I picked up the Washington Destination Highways book (A Motorcycle Enthusiast's Guide to the Best 346 Roads in Washington); as I had decided that I ranked amongst Motorcycle Enthusiasts, the book was a must have for our trip. Also, in response to a concern about the condition of my rear brakes (the disc appeared to be 'bluing' from heat buildup plus, despite repeating bleedings, the rear brake was somewhat spongy - both issues I attributed to a faulty master cylinder) I wanted to pick up a new master cylinder before hitting the road in ernest. I located a used one en-route out of Vancouver and picked it up for $90. I decided to get a bit of mileage under our belts before installing the part. We eventually cleared Vancouver around 2pm.

The planned route was to head east to Penticton for a couple of days, then turn south across the border and return home via Highway 20 (DHWA1: Rated the best road in Washington by Destination Highways). We gassed up just outside of Hope and discussed options for where to spend the night. Elizabeth was in favour of staying in Harrison Hotsprings, while I preferred getting a little more mileage behind us and pushing on to Princeton. We decided that we would head to Princeton, despite Elizabeth's contention that she could smell rain in the air. Twenty minutes later, we were past Hope and stuck several cars back on Highway 3 in the rain, behind what we could only assume was some sort of vehicle fire. I shut the engine off and we looked at each other to determine if our plans needed to be revised. A timely flash in the clouds, and an accompanying rumble of thunder helped us to decide. We did a U-turn and headed back to Hope for the night.

We located a motel, a laundromat to dry our soaking jeans, and a pub within walking distance with decent food, beer, and a pool table. After losing two games to one to Elizabeth (I scratched on the eight-ball twice) we retired to our digs for the night.

August 4 - The next morning was beautiful and sunny. We got a latish start on the day, leaving the motel room around 10am. This was to prove to be the theme for this trip. The ride up through Manning Park to Princeton (DH44) is always a favorite of mine; long sweeping curves, mountain scenery, and rivers. The pavement is in good condition right through to Princeton. We stopped for a late breakfast of tea and toast in Princeton before moving on to DH78 which would take us in to Hedley, then on to Keremeos. Just outside of Keremeos is Green Mountain Road, a 21 mile  side road that gets you off Highway 3A and through a pretty area of farms and forests. We rolled in to Penticton at around 5pm and found a motel on the shores of Skaha Lake. Elizabeth was getting saddle sore and was not able to fully enjoy the last half of Green Mountain Road. I have to say that I was glad to roll in for the evening as well.

As the master cylinder still was a concern, I decided the best place to replace it would be the parking lot of the Canadian Tire just in case I needed some generic part or tool. I rode into town the next day, leaving Elizabeth on the beach, and parked the bike in one of the isolated spots of shade in the Canadian Tire parking lot. Switching the part over was relatively pain free and I completed it in about 45 minutes. As expected, I didn't need any parts (which would have been a different story had I tried changing it in some place with no easy access to parts or additional tools).

Floating the canal in Penticton

We stayed two days in Penticton with the highlight being the traditional canal ride, which consists of floating down a canal on inflatables between Lake Okanagan and Skaha Lake armed with nothing except a six-pack. The trip takes about 2-1/2 hours if the wind and current are heading in the right direction. We recuperated by lying on the beach. We also had a fairly intense thunder storm on the second night which we enjoyed from the covered patio of Salty's. Eventually we had to come to terms with the fact that the rain was showing no signs of letting up and we made the ten-minute wet and wild trip back to the motel at around 11pm.

August 6 - We moseyed out of Penticton in the direction of Osoyoos by around noon, having just made the breakfast cut-off of 11 am at one of the local restaurants. The day before we had tried breakfast at White Spot. Breakfast is probably the most critical of meals to get right. Aside from the supposed nutritional 'most important meal of the day', humans are much more particular about their morning meal than either of the other two daily meals. My breakfast is full-on boiling Orange Pekoe tea (leave the Earl Grey alone) with brown sugar, and must be accompanied by toast with peanut butter and jam. In this, White Spot was a total failure, with tepid tea, cold toast and, despite repeated requests for more, only enough peanut butter for one slice of toast. Do I sound bitter? This is the real reason why breakfast is the most important meal of the day - not for nutritional reasons, but you had better get it right, otherwise it can put a pall on an otherwise beautiful day. Rather than allowing it to put a damper on the day, I satisfied myself by leaving no tip.

The new-to-me master cylinder made all the difference in braking, making the idea of making some tight corners a little more comfortable. Up to this point, I had been taking it really gently around corners as there was no way that I wanted to resort to a sudden use of the front brakes or an ineffectual rear brake during mid-corner.

It was cooking hot but was manageable once we got moving. Everything was about timing: everything stowed away and bike ready to roll before putting on our jackets and helmets. Nice ride down to Osoyoos with a bit of a wait at road works just outside of town. We sat and sweated in the line up with as much gear off as we could. Once clear of construction, we stopped for gas and water. Elizabeth wasn't feeling well after the short stint in the blazing sun with too many clothes on so we had to recover in the shade for a bit. We left Osoyoos and headed east towards Rock Creek on Highway #3 (DHBC24). Breaking one of our rules about always wearing our protective jackets (road rash isn't pretty, even at 20 mph) we stowed our jackets in front of us for a while to prevent heat exhaustion.

The DH24 was an awesome road. Resonable speeds of 60mph were legal, which meant that we could nudge our speed a little over that mark without too much risk of an interruption from Smokey. The road itself permitted speeds far in excess of the posted limit, but for the most part I stayed within reasonable distance of 60. For one thing, we were fully loaded, and second of all, I wanted Elizabeth to be comfortable and confident with our safety. Besides that (third of all), my desire for high speed, high adrenaline seemed to have diminished since my earlier years, and I was more content to take in the scenery and the general experience of riding with the top down. We climbed a fair elevation out of Osoyoos, with some spectacular views of the valley and lake below us. One unfortunate aspect of riding a bike is that I seemed less likely to pull over for photo ops, perhaps due in part that we were wrapped up in the experience of having the asphalt wind out under our wheels through the long sweeping curves of the highway. I tried to get Elizabeth motivated in shooting some photos from the back of the bike, but she lost interest after three shots.

We carried on through Rock Creek and stopped in Greenwood for coffee as our friend Doug had raved about the cinnamon buns in a little coffee shop in the town. Greenwood was a funky little place that looked a little like a movie set for a western film. We located the Copper Eagle Cappuccino and Bakery but I chose the butter tart to go with my cappuccino instead of the cinnamon bun option. We took a brief tour around town and then headed back east to the turnoff for the US border near Midway.

Elizabeth at a ghost town just south of the border

The border crossing was a far cry from the Blaine crossing with one-hour-plus waits that we were used to. The road was a dinky little two-lane country road leading to one customs booth. While in a very pretty location, I can imagine that this little outpost was where they put their rookie customs officials or the ones that had screwed up on the job and needed to be demoted to some out of the way place where they could do minimal damage. We were the only vehicle at the border, but by the time we left 5 minutes later the waiting line-up had swelled dramatically to two vehicles.

The roads that we travelled wound through farmland and fields (parts of DH11). Once we got past Brodie, the site of an old ghost town, the pavement gradually deteriorated with signage warning motorcyclist to proceed with caution. Navigating the pavement in the condition that it was became somewhat tiring on the shoulders from concentrating on the road ahead. I tried to get Elizabeth to take photos but she was too engrossed in the scenery to be much of a dedicated photographer. Regardless, the ride was beautiful and the beemer performed admirably.

The road improved dramatically once we hit route 20 (DH62 til you hit Tonasket), which was to become our main road that we would be on until we made it over the Cascades. We determined that we would find some accommodation for that night in Tonasket at the crossroad of 97 and 20. When we arrived, the accommodations looked a little less than inviting, so we fuelled up and pushed on south to Omak, just another dot on the map as far as we were concerned, but the gas station attendant assured us that there was a Best Western, Elizabeth's hotel of choice.

We rolled into Omak shortly before dinner, after numerous bikers had already arrived from points beyond. We were just  one German bike amongst a whole mess of Harleys (buy American!). We found that Harley riders were usually more friendly once they were no longer moving. Kind of an odd culture - Harleys wave to Harleys only. Japanese, European and other bikes were happy to tip a wave to each other, regardless of heritage.

Splitty

We had a fairly luxurious room at the Best Western, for around the $100 mark and hunted out a place to eat. Directions to a good pub led us to a dim hole in the wall. We peeked in the door and opted for another location. After cruising around Omak a bit trying to find a nice pub we finally parked the bike back at the hotel and walked next door to the pub-style restaurant. The food was good but we noted after our cruise around town that the idea of a comfortable pub seemed to be a bit of a Canadian idea (although we were only comparing BC to Washington, in reality).

We went for a bit of a swim in the indoor pool and then retired for the night. Breakfast was included in the price of the hotel and wasn't too bad. Breakfast and a hotel seemed to be more of an American thing, but usually a good deal.

August 7 - We had decided to ride back north a few kilometres to ride the Omak-Riverside Eastside Road (DH69 TE-A) which intersected route 20/97. At the intersection we stopped to take some photos of a classic splitty perched on the hill. The ride wasn't too bad, but nothing to write home to mother about. We passed through Omak again and headed south to Okanogan WA where we turned north east to Salmon Creek Road. There were a few false starts as we tried to find the road but after about ten minutes we were on route. A nice windy road, good pavement and no traffic to speak of. The road joined up with Old Hwy 97 and carried on south for another 30 km to hook up with 97 again (we left route 20 at Okanogan).  Just before the connection back to 97 we stopped on the side of the road to take some photos of the Satellite Earth Station near the little town of Monse. This array of satellite dishes looked like something out of Carl Sagan's Contact .

Monse Satellite Earth Station

At Pateros we swung north again onto route 153, heading to Twisp. We rode along Methow River and once we passed Methow itself, the road came into its own, with lots of nice sweeping turns. There was something about this road for me, although not the most challenging. I feel that sometimes I am in the groove and me and the bike are in tune with each other. Other times, the curves are rough and I don't anticipate the road near as much. Perhaps if I rode this road again, it wouldn't be as much of an impact.

Just before Carlton, we crossed over the river as we turned off onto the Twisp-Carlton Road, a nice stretch of asphalt with very little traffic. We pulled into Twisp and decided to push on a little further to Winthrop, via DH39 TE-B (Eastside Winthrop-Twisp Road). The loop from Okanogan to Pateros and onto Twisp covered around 100 km whereas a direct route west via 20 from Okanogan was around 46 km. Fortunately, Elizabeth didn't pay much attention to direction, so she didn't always notice that there was a shorter route. She was usually good for a few hours riding with breaks in-between. Most times I would have been able to ride for longer; the male conquering nature possibly a contributing factor.

We came into Winthrop in the late afternoon. We came around a corner and rode straight into this western-style town with some event on, considering the amount of traffic parked along the road, at least half appearing to be motorcycles. We stopped at the first hotel we saw to discover that apparently August was a busy month in Winthrop, with apparently the main industry being tourism. Accommodation looked like it was going to be a challenge, as the hotel we were investigating was full, as well as a number of others that we called from the hotel lobby. The woman behind the counter was a huge help and we eventually settled for a room outside of Winthrop at a place called Mazama. However, just before we left, one of the folks from a motel we called earlier phoned the hotel to let them know that they had a cancellation. We cancelled our room at Mazama in turn, and rode to our motel just across the bridge.

Winthrop motorcycle parking

The town was nothing short of funky and appeared to be a main destination for bikers of all sorts and/or a handy stop along what is rated as (one of) the top motorcycle road in Washington. DHWA1 is route 20 between Winthrop and Rockport, 150 kms to the west, and was one of the main reasons that I mapped our planned trip through this area. We would head out the next morning to try out the ride, but in the meantime, determined to explore the town a bit, starting with the museum, and ending up with Elizabeth cruising the stores. The time in between these two events would be filled with Elizabeth cruising the stores.

The museum was a pioneer type affair with rusty ploughshares, black and white photos, and vintage clothing. What set this museum apart, though, was that the majority of the items were labeled with who they came from, or whose wedding a dress was worn to and the like. The farm equipment was identified with the settlement that used it and the black and white photos actually identified the faded subjects. Many of the names were shared by the current residents of Winthrop. It seemed to make the displays a little more relevant. The museum would be a highlight of the trip for Elizabeth.

We went for dinner at the same place that we had coffee earlier in the day. Coffee consisted of tea and pie. The pie easily fed two of us and somewhat spoiled my appetite for dinner. We retired to our hotel and had a swim in the small outdoor pool as well as a couple of dips in the hot tub as well.

The next morning we left Winthrop (after some additional browsing through the stores. We did a loop through some of the outskirts of town before hitting route 20 in earnest. It was overcast but dry when we rode out of the town but cooled off rapidly as we climbed through Washington Pass. There were some signs of snow still on the side of the road, which easily explained why this road is closed in the winter months. A light drizzle added to the coolness in the air. There was one hairpin turn that freaked me out a little as we climbed; the pavement was wet and the asphalt looked smooth, without any aggregate (almost like 'pure' tar). I kept slowing through the 30 kmh turn until I was steering the bike rather than leaning to make the turn. I think that was my problem - slowing too much. I had to cross over the lane and hope that no one was behind me. Funny how all of the corners that we had navigated, it was one of the slowest that made my ass clench the most.

Dave and Elizabeth at Diablo Lake viewpoint

The road was spectacular with one of the only downfalls being the number of motorhomes on the road. Probably one of the best times to do this ride would be in early September when most of the holidayers are off the road and the weather is still decent. There were some fierce crosswinds through the area of of Diablo Lake. We stopped at a couple of viewpoints along the way, the most significant overlooking Diablo Lake itself. The aqua-marine colouring of the lake is due to 'rock flour' in the water. Rock flour is caused by glaciers grinding the rocks into a fine powder. We descended from the viewpoint, and down to the power station at Newhalem where we stopped for a coke and a walk along the river.

We carried along route 20 until we hit Rockport and then we headed south for a short distance to the Concrete-Sauk Valley Road, which was a little more rural than route 20. I actually pushed it a bit too much as Elizabeth had a tired butt by this time, plus we were low on gas. The weather had turned a bit by this time as well, cooling off and drizzling a bit. Eventually (65 km later) we intersected Route 9, turned north and pulled into a gas station at Woolley, where we thought we would find directions to decent accommodation. The directions were for us to head further west to Burlington where we checked into the traditional Best Western.

The next morning was looking a little iffy but we hoped it would clear up as we (I) wanted to head up to Mount Baker. We headed north up Route 9 until we came to Mosquito Lake Road. I missed a sign as we made the turn which looked like some sort of construction sign. I didn't go back to read it and carried on. By this time it was drizzling again. We travelled about 10 or 12 km until we came to the construction. The warning sign stated 'Road Closed' which was a bit of a drag as we would have to turn and travel all the way back. Fortunately, the flaggers let us through as it seemed to be lunch time and there was no active construction for the moment. We met up with Route 542 and pulled over briefly to discuss plans. We both agreed to abandon the idea of Mount Baker as the weather didn't show much sign of easing up. By this time it was raining more than drizzling but, apart from the thunderstorm in Penticton, this was the only rain we had encountered. Another few kms and we were at the Sumas-Huntington border. I had a few kilometres of anxiety when I realized that I hadn't seen the passports since... Fortunately, my worries were unfounded and all paperwork was where I left it. The crossing was painless, but very wet. Neither of us had packed rain gear and we were drenched. We found a restaurant in the Abbotsford area where we dried out.

By the time we finished lunch, the rain had all but stopped. A few kilometres at 100km/hr on the Trans Canada and we were completely dry. We made the ferry back to Gibsons, chatting with the few motorcyclists in the lineup. I always like the ferry when I am riding the bike as you are directed past all the traffic, regardless of how long the line up is or how many ferry waits there are for the other vehicle drivers. Straight to the front of the line-up; first on and first off. We arrived back to a quiet house and a warm tub.