That was one ass-busting ride yesterday being almost the full course of the Little White Salmon River. From confluence with the Columbia to just about where the first drops fall from its glacier’s icy fingers.
As it turns out the steeps are not as bad as thought and the new 29-tooth cog never got used. The 27 saw much good sweat though! The cool of the morning at 45f gave way to an afternoon’s 87F. No wonder my tank ran dry. The last uphill sprint to avoid traffic into White Salmon ended with me wheel sucking a 70 year old for the last five minutes. No excuses… I was whipped much as Levi Leipheimer was by Floyd Landis in the inaugural Amgen Tour Of California. One has to try though! Miscalculations being a fact of life.
The climb up the Little White Salmon has to be classic Western US. There are deer about to bed down and wild turkeys awakening. The smell of alfalfa and clover is on the air while cowboys saddle up with a laconic wave and a friendly countenance. The jigsaw puzzled patterns of Ponderosa Pine bark are fronted by the pale blue of Ceanothus and the odd red splash of Aquilegia. All easily seen at an uphill pace that seems a crawl as we pass orchards with beehives and creeks feeding the river. The water still runs clear despite its speed and volume. Melt-water not yet in evidence to discolor. Tall grasses wave ahead of the mower. There is hardly a soul in the world. Ahead lies the volcano called Mt Adams while eyes in the back of my head drink in the volcano called Mt Hood. Saving sufficient breath to talk I tell Ron I am glad that life brought me to this spot at this moment. Of all the world’s places, this is where I want to be right now. Perched on a slender amalgamation of carbon and titanium, parting the peaceful air of this mountain morning. The climb is hard in every way feared but made simple by a brain and senses inundated and awash with nature coming in on a million motes of dust, pollen and scents. This is laughably easy given the prior week’s trepidation. If my right knee did not send out indecipherable messages of pain I might be king of at least this mountain. With summit gained, it’s a fast twenty miles or so to Glenwood through a mixture of Ponderosa Pine on hillsides and Quaking Aspen in the meadows that lead down to the wetlands of the Conboy wildfowl refuge.
The road surface is harsh and hurts not just muscle and sinew but the psyche. Moving at 27 mph now and the tires are singing on the aggregate while the senses scream. The views are stunning as Mt Adams collects clouds and the fingers of meadow that make up Bird Creek are clearly still choked with snow. Glenwood comes fast… A couple of ramshackle farms and a long dead filling station that most likely purveyed when gas went for thirty cents a gallon. The store has bananas and an ancient bench on which to momentarily rest before turning west towards Trout Lake, again on a road that climbs, is interminable and is also surfaced to loosen ones teeth.
These miles are a numbing expanse of Pine forest, lit by the sun and shards of broken beer bottles that twinkle amongst the Penstemon and Lupin. I don’t get it. This trash! The descent into Trout Lake that comes not a moment too soon is a headlong plunge through clear-cut affording views into the valley of the Little White Salmon. Speed is tempered by a gusting headwind that makes speeds approaching forty overly reckless. The last miles into Trout Lake are flat and meandering. They split apart an Echinacea farm and Alfalfa pastures irrigated by gurgling rivulets of the rivers icy waters burbling through sluices and water meadows. Red Winged Blackbirds drop notes of liquid song like water into a pool and Western Meadow Larks sing from atop fence posts. 2006 is arriving here with a mansion or two and realtor signs on acreage dwelling in the shadow of this most magical mountain.
Trout Lake for the most part is suspended in time past. Its general store replete with trophies of conquered Elk and Cougar, its bench worn by the seats of a million coveralls and the scales awaiting the bounty of the next harvest of Huckleberries from the lava outcroppings and Bear’s dens of Indian Heaven. This really is the west. The west as often depicted to hungry readers in far off places. It is captivating. It is rough and it is not too far from poor. This is a comfortably shabby places. From Trout Lake it is downriver and therefore downhill on HWY41.
A headwind attempts to defeat gravity but mostly fails. With the bit between my teeth, I race us onto a momentary break upon the bridge at BZ Corners. While we look at kayakers and rafters putting into Spring swift waters, a yellow lab x godknowswhat tries to sample a chunk of my right calf. Of all the godamn things to be a pain in the ass on this ride it turns out to be a dog old enough to know better! With a kick and invective suitable for BZ Corners we are away and stroking for White Salmon via the river/road crossing at Husum Falls. Llama ranches, Buffalo ranches and the worlds most scenic álfalfa ranch go by to the tune of headwind in speeding spokes. Now this is getting to be hard work at high speed and the element of fun is long past. The wind pisses me off, the cars piss me off, and the unknown temperature pisses me off. With one more climb to go I am done. I really am and can feel for a fact that the engine is out of gas. I charge the hill with the what remains, towing Ron to Eyrie Road and the view West, down stream Columbia.
Beggared, I freewheel the last five minutes on his back wheel, using his energy to take me home. Spent, reflective, happy. There is little I would trade for that moment when Ron quietly extends his hand in thanks for the shared experience and effort, turns around and anchors his bike in the bed of the truck and speaks of a cup of coffee as we go about re-entry.