Rocking the pass!

June 10, 2021

I am going to talk about the rest day first today. We had a great rest day. We rested a lot . We slept in, had a big breakfast, watched an old movie on TV, took a nap, went grocery shopping, went to a brewery and then had dinner. While at the brewery we saw another bike tourer enter town. Kevin is from Madison, Wi and is riding solo to New Jersey. We talked about our experiences so far and then he went on to his hotel. We saw Kevin on the climb up Sherman Pass and Ross talked to him at the summit.

We have been communicating with Rachel and Patrick since before the trip. They are on the same tour as us. We have been consistently 1 day ahead of them and have been trying to see if they will catch up and we can ride together for a bit. We have been unsuccessful in meeting them. Well it turns out they arrived in Republic yesterday. They were in the brewery the same time we were but they were outside in the back of the brewery and we were outside in the front of the brewery and we never meet. We found out later that we were at the brewery at the same time. What was really funny is that there were only about 5 people in the brewery the whole time we were there.

The ride started out on the golden tiger bike path. The bike path was about 2 miles long and avoided a big downhill then uphill on the road. After the bike trail, we commenced climbing up Sherman Pass. It was a sunny day with cool temps in the mid -50’s. We made good progress and we felt pretty strong after the rest day. After about 10 miles of climbing I was able to have a memorable moment. A big black bear crossed the road about 50 yards up the road in front of me. I saw it cross the road and then scramble up the bank. When we road past the spot, Janet could hear it in the woods. I have been telling Janet I wanted to see either a bear or an elk and today I did see one.

As we got closer to the summit it got colder and more cloudy. We got to the summit about 1 pm and Ross was waiting for us. Ross can climb the mountain passes much faster than us seniors. He is very nice and waits for us at the summit, many times it takes us over an hour to reach it after him. He waits patiently for us in the cold windy weather. When we got to the summit we ate lunch (a ham sandwich with some chips). Then we proceeded down the hill. It was very cold to start and Janet lost feeling in her hands and feet. We stopped a couple of times to warm them up. As we got lower down the mountain it got warmer,and eventually was very nice. It was a great downhill with a small creek flowing down next to the road almost the entire way.

At the end of the downhill we stopped at a convenience store and got chocolate milk. After resting a bit, we went another 2 miles to our campgrounds. We have a great campsite, right on the banks of Franklin Roosevelt Lake, which is in Kettle Falls, Wa.

Sherman Pass was our last pass in Washington. We have one more pass, Logan Pass in Glacier Park, in about a week. Tomorrow we are shooting for Ione, Washington which is about 50 miles away.

Republic had historical plaques above the doors of downtown buildings

Sherman peak is on the left and Snow peak is on the right. These peaks are about 7000 ft. Sherman pass was at 5575 feet.

Ross waiting for the senior members of the group.

Today's ride: 44 miles (71 km)
Total: 389 miles (626 km)

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