Vancouver to Portland, on 35mm

In May 2018 Lee and I cycled from Vancouver to Portland over 8 days. I had my digital camera with me, but began to find myself more frequently reaching for my 35mm Olympus point and shoot. I’m posting some of those photos, finally, here.

It was my first bike tour with more than just myself for company, and documenting it in the kind of detail I would have done in the past made less sense, since instead of writing about how a mountain or tree looked nice, or photographing it from all angles, I could just talk about it with Lee instead. I understand this is how conversation works, but as someone more frequently accustomed to travelling alone, on this trip at least the novelty didn’t wear off.

Washington is perhaps less iconic and probably less travelled than the coast further south – but this was a huge part of it’s charm. It often felt like we had an entire beach or road or campsite to ourselves. It feels remote and unspoilt in a way that it felt slightly harder to find in parts of California and Oregon.

Weather also puts people off – as storms from the Pacific Ocean move across the peninsula they have to lose their moisture to lighten up and clear the large obstacle the Olympic Mountains present. In other words it rains a lot. But we could a break with the weather and enjoyed sun almost every day.

That’s not to say there weren’t struggles. Washington’s logging trucks and logging towns are less charming, but all in all, out of all the parts of the coast of the coast i’ve now cycled, the days spent on Washington and Northern Oregon’s roads were some of the most memorable.

Our route – around 450~ miles of riding in total, seven nights of camping, eight days of riding, two countries, two states, and just one puncture.

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The trip, for me, started with a few days of jet lag in Vancouver on this sofa.

Cruising down Slocane Street. There’s a sweet spot inbetween seasons in Vancouver when it’s both sunny, but there’s still snow visible on the mountain tops.

We got a warm up ride in over to Deep Cove, and up to Demonstration Forest in North Vancouver where we saw two bears.

The trip started properly when we got the ferry from Tsawwassen, to Victoria, spent a night there, then the following morning took the 90-minute ferry to Port Angeles.

We’d opted for the coastal route, down the Olympic Peninsula, after hearing mixed things about the route via Olympia. It was more wild and unknown, but ultimate all the better for it.

A short first day took us to Crescent Lake. The road is a little sketchy – I distinctly remember a guy in a bike shop in Vancouver telling us we’d definitely die – and we’d scoped it out on Google Streetview to prepare for the worst. The discovery trail runs a section around the lake, but was partially closed, meaning we had to stick to the highway.

In reality it was fine, though I think we’d avoided the logging trucks as it was a weekend. The road – the 101 – tightly hugs the stunning shoreline of Lake Crescent before continuing out westward towards the coast.

Around 30 miles in we camped at Fairholme Campground which had great views of the emerald green water below.

The first instant oatmeal breakfast of the trip. A taste which would wear pretty thin, even in just a week.

The following day we left the lake and headed west and gradually south. Passing through the town of Forks – the home of the Twilight novels – a lot of the roads looked like this: long, quiet, not a huge shoulder but generally little traffic. A lot of dense thick forest which muffled the sounds and kept your sights on the horizon.

By late afternoon we reached Kalaloch Beach and the stop for the night. It was our first taste of a beach in Washington, and they were stunning. Like the roads, it felt like we had them largely to ourselves. They were vast and wild and the sunsets made you feel like you were camped on the edge of the world, which in many ways, we were.

We got into the habit of making coffee and dinner down on the beach if there was one. The trip was largely fuelled by Mountain House meals. I introduced to Lee to them after learning about them from a guy called Brian i’d met cycling the previous summer who was obsessed with them.

Essentially it’s a freeze dried mix of stuff in a pouch which you add hot water to, stir, and wait for 10 minutes or so. For the convenience, they taste incredible, though they come with a price tag (around $12~ a pouch). But for short trips they make a lot of sense. The Chilli Mac with Beef is their magnum opus.

The term Mountain House Moment™ was soon coined for the consumption of one if these meals in the perfect outdoor setting.

We were amazed by the weather we had. After a little bit of drizzle and mist on the first two days we had a number of clear, and unseasonably warm days. We were far more prepared for the rain than we were a year later in California.

Washington in the sun was a joy to ride in. With more or less just one road to stick on, there was very little to worry about.

Having said that, I believe on this day we counted upwards of 40 logging trucks passing us in ~30 miles. That sounds unimaginably bad. But in fact they were often more courteous than regular drivers, leaving us a lot of space most of the time, though the sound always sent a shock through the body.

After Kalaloch beach, a shorter day took us to Lake Quinalt – the ‘the Southern gateway of Olympic National Park’. This was a highlight of the trip for sure. We got a perfect camp spot by the water, had time to hike around the Quinault Loop Trail, and swim in the glacial lake with a clear view of Mt. Olympus in the distance.

On the trail I remember there were lots of signs warning about cougars in the area, which we laughed off at the time. But a day later we found out a cyclist had been mauled to death by one in the state, just east of Seattle, the same week. From that point onward, cougars overtook bears as our number one existential fear.

The making of a Mountain House Moment later that evening.

This was when Lee had started getting very into coffee after living in Vancouver for a few months. The phone is there to time the exact number of seconds to brew the coffee for. Eventually this fastidiousness would rub off on me.

At this point we were around 30-40 miles inland from the coast, as the crow flies. Continuing on from Lake Quinault, we had a longer, tougher and less interesting day to get back out to the sea.

This included making it through Aberdeen – the birthplace of Kurt Cobain but apparently where everything else goes to die – and working our way through some unattractive suburbs and more gnarly, busier roads, including crossing the Chehalis River Bridge.

At some point during the day we met a nice guy called Brian (all the guys I meet cycling seem to be called Brian) who was cycling a similar route to us. We crossed paths and then later found him at the campsite at Twin Harbours State Park.

Before entering we stocked up on some beer at this gas station. Shortly before this I had nearly got Lee killed by riding too close as a car overtaking in the other lane came very close to hitting us on our side of the road, so it was good time to take a breather.

We split a large campsite with Brian as the hiker / biker camping had a weird vibe and was partitioned off in shaded bit of the park which clearly didn’t get a lot of attention.

We took a larger site closer to the beach and the shower block – the first showers we’d seen since leaving Canada. It was good to have some extra company, especially since the whole place had a slightly abandoned feel. Brian made his own bike bags and I think lived in Cleveland, Ohio. Really lovely guy. He was cycling the length of the coast over 6 weeks.

The penultimate sunset in Washington.

The next day had a terrible start. We saw a dog get hit by a car, which, even now, is troubling to think about. The weather took a dip, and we ended up camping at a KOA. These are typically more commercial, family and RV friendly campgrounds with less charm than the state parks, but at this point we all wanted to stop, the day had this grim muggy feeling and it was hard to shake off what we’d seen in the morning.

On the upside they had showers, firewood – it was a comfortable spot to settle in for the evening and put the day behind us.

The area we were in – Bay Center – appeared the be in fact the center of nothing, a small nub of land sticking out into the Willipa Bay, separating it from the Pacific, and apparently the rest of the outside world.

Leaving Bay Center behind we had a long day ahead as we crossed into Oregon, over the infamously long and challenging Astoria-Megler Bridge.

Washington had been good to us, and though we left it under grey skies, i’d remember it in a different way.

We established two types of look for the landscape we’d been cycling through, either National Geographic (if it was sunlit and vivid and like old Kodachrome) or Unsplash.com (if it was overcast and atmospheric and like a VSCO filter.)

Crossing the bridge took time (it’s over 4 miles long, and is is the longest continuous truss bridge in North America), and was nerve wracking.

The climb at the end looks absurd as you approach it, but everything went smoothly until we had to exit the bridge and make our way into Astoria. I came close to getting Lee killed for a second time. Following that we took a long and much needed break for coffee and lunch, and a reset on everything. A new state.

Leaving Astoria we saw Brian, who had become separated from us, in a brewery, presumably he needed it after the bridge. We said bye and rejoined the 101 – i’d cycled the same stretch the previous summer and aside from one mighty climb it was fairly plain sailing to Cannon Beach.

The campsite we were aiming for didn’t open until the following day for the season, but we found another spot elsewhere, and ended up camped next to two bikers who happened to be from Liverpool, I think, but lived in the US, and tried to make out they were living out some Easy Rider fantasy, which was not wholly convincing.

We left them to it and went down to the beach.

We wouldn’t end up seeing much of Oregon, but of all the sites to see, Cannon Beach must be up there with the best.

The next day was the last on the coast, as we turned inland toward Portland and the final leg of the journey.

Overlooking Nehalem Bay on the approach to Tillamook, one of our last big glimpses of the ocean.

We stopped at Fat Dog Pizza in Tillamook where we could sample some of the cities famous cheese, before doing a last stock up at Safeway and pointing are wheels inland.

Heading Eastward inland, the roads had a different air about them. Initially we passed through farmland, before a raise in elevation took us along the winding tree lined highway 6.

I remember it took a lot of research to find a) the best and safest route from the coast to Portland and b) a camp spot somewhere along that route where we could stopover before spending the morning getting into Portland, but we landed on a gem with Keenig Creek.

The entrance to the campsite was just off the highway, but the camp spots were tucked away well behind the road and the creek itself. We were able to find a spot tucked up on some higher ground amongst the trees, it was primitive, but probably one of the best spots of the trip. And all for $10.

I can’t remember how we found out, but there was a house on a trail about a mile and half from the campsites where you could buy wood, so we took a walk down there and got a ride back in the back of a the truck with a big bundle of wood for the night.

The Wilson River was far too cold to swim in but apparently a popular swimming spot on warmer days.

Portland was still 63 miles away and it was a tough final day. The 6 had felt great to ride the previous evening but now it was Saturday, the roads were busy and steeper and it felt like we shouldn’t have been on them.

But we survived, and after a final descent which lasted about 20 minutes, we laid on the grass outside a gas station for a while. From there we got could take a quieter, farmy approach to the city.

One last sandwich for the road, at Phil’s 1500 Subs, 20 miles from the city.

We slogged through the suburbs, through Beaverton, past the Nike HQ, and eventually into the city where we crossed a bridge into East Portland and found our Airbnb.

The stress of navigating a new city never puts you in the best spirits for arrival – I think we both were feeling that – but after we’d checked in, decompressed, and adjusted to our normal human clothes again, then I felt a sense of accomplishment.

The neighbourhood we were in in East Portland was great. Old wooden colourful houses with porches and wind chimes and flowers in bloom. We headed out for beers and bbq to celebrate.

I was glad we had a couple of days to explore. Getting the train back to Vancouver meant no stress in finding boxes for the bikes, or figuring out how to get to an airport with all our crap.

We were free to enjoy the city and bounced around on our bikes from coffee shop to coffee shop, Pok Pok, some thrift stores, some food trucks, some beer bars. All the Portland things.

The train back was allegedly going to take about 7 or 8 hours to reach Vancouver. It ended up taking about 12 or 15 or maybe longer. We stopped keeping track after it got dark.

Train travel in America will always be fascinating me, despite the pace at which their trains seem to crawl along. The views from our Amtrak window were good, whilst we could still see them.