Downtown Walla Walla

Wednesday was spent in downtown Walla Walla. It’s a cool little downtown, pleasant if a bit touristy, but that’s ok. The downtown area is filled mostly with restaurants and, of course, wine tasting rooms for many of the 130 wineries in the Walla Walla area. I hit many places, but I’m just going to tell you about a few of my favorites, to keep things somewhat brief.

My first stop ended up being one of my favorites — Sapolil Cellars. Only a few of the wines were still in stock: a couple of syrahs and a chardonnay. But while the selection was limited, at least it was quite tasty. The chard was my kind of chard. It was crisp, minerally, with a nice hint of peach. Most importantly, there was no oak and no buttery flavors to it. The two syrahs were a 2006 and a 2007 from the same vineyard (Patina Vineyard). The ’06 was big, bold and rich, while the ’07 was a little softer. Both were quite tasty and had a nice balance of earth and fruit.

Hanging out in the Sapolil tasting room, I had a chance to chat for a while with Bill, the owner and winemaker. First off, he was really awesome in helping me to find a place to crash in Walla Walla that evening. But the conversation covered many different subjects including his philosophy on winemaking, and the joys he’s had bringing live music into his tasting room (a jazz trio goes really well with wine). He’s got a good laidback philosophy on winemaking — definitely of the “just let the grapes do their own thing” bent. We also spent some time discussing the massive amount of change a wine can go through while bottle-aging, even moreso than in barrel-aging in his view.

Another excellent stop in downtown Walla Walla was Sleight of Hand Cellars, just around the corner from Sapolil (the intersection of 2nd and Main is a wonderful area of winetasting, so much is located right there). Trey, the winemaker is a big music fan, so we spent as much time talking about music as we did about wine, but he certainly is making some tasty wines. The Magician, his gewurztraminer is nicely dry with a good crisp acidity and excellent fruit and floral notes. I was really impressed by the dry cab franc rose (The Magician’s Assistant). Bone dry. Very nice. Hard to find that in a rose. A hint of spiciness and some nice fruit really round out this wine.

My last stop in the downtown area was Walla Walla Village Winery. It was another very laid back tasting room with a selection of four wines. Both the riesling and the merlot were nice examples of their varietals, but my favorites were definitely the last two. The cabernet franc had an excellent balance of spicy pepper and rich fruit. The Bordello Red Bordeaux-style blend (guess what the building they’re in used to be) was very hearty and full and also nicely balanced. Definitely a great food wine.

The vineyards by Three Rivers Winery

I know that’s a lot to throw at you all at once, but I’m once again running out of time at the library here in Umatilla (that’s the way it always goes).

Of the five, I have to say that Reininger and L’Ecole No. 41 were my favorites. You may be wondering about the name of that latter one. The winery is set up in an old school house, and since it’s school district number 41, they added that on to the name. The guys in the tasting room were very generous. I even got to try a sneak sample of the 2008 Estate cabernet franc, which is still in the barrel. Already, it’s fantastic. I can’t wait for it to be released and to see how it develops. I just might have to join the wine club here.

Glencorrie is one of the newest wineries of the Walla Walla region, and I have to say, they’re off to a great start. Their first releases in June — three cab sauv-dominated reds — were all very well balanced with nice subtleties, which is kind of surprising in cabs so young (all three were vintage 2006).

So that’s the quick roundup of my trip through Walla Walla. I’m riding along the Columbia River now, and I’m going to keep heading west. There’s more wine country awaiting me, to be sure, and I’m almost out to the coast. Good times, good times…

As you may have gathered from the last post, I successfully survived my trip over the Continental Divide at Lemhi Pass, despite some rather insane gravel roads. The gravel actually spoiled what would have otherwise been a really nice downhill, but alas, I had to ride the brakes hard not to lose it on the dirt road there. Silly skinny road tires. This would be an awesome pass for mountain biking I think. No worries, though. I came across many other wonderful downhills.

The Bitterroots
The next day even, when I went over Lost Trail Pass and came down a marvelous mountain into the Bitterroot Valley, making my way up US 93. Just in case you thought Montana might be running out of beauty with all that I’ve seen on this trip, the Bitterroots do not disappoint in supplying more. Fantastic, no?

I ended up crashing for several nights with a friend of mine near Lolo, MT. In that time, I was able to go on a couple of very nice hikes in the Bitterroot Mountains (among other things, but again, more on that later), including this hike up to Bass Lake on a very treacherous and stormy Friday.

The Beer Cyclist?

I haven’t had the chance to check out too much wine, yet — I tried a couple bottles of Montana wine, which were less than impressive, and a bottle of Idaho wine, which was not too shabby, especially given the pricetag — but I have been sampling quite a few microbrews in the area.

A popular one in Montana is a brown ale called Moose Drool (I may have mentioned it before, I can’t recall). It’s quite tasty, and more importantly, cheap and everywhere. So while Montana wine may be nothing special, the beer here is really quite good.

I dropped in for lunch at a Brewery in Hamilton, MT called Bitterroot Brewing. Sampled several of their beers. Being a fan of the darker side of ales, I preferred their porter and their stouts to their pale fare, but everything I tried was good, so their beer seems to suite all palates and preferences.

My favorite of the Montana beers that I’ve tried has to be a scotch ale from Madison River Brewing in Belgrade, MT called the Copper John Scotch Ale. It was just so deliciously smoky and rich — this is what a scotch ale should be. Excellent.

So, as I said, I did get to sample some wine over this past week. There’s a winery in Missoula called Ten Spoon. They try to be very organic in their operation. I tried both their saint pepin (from Montana-grown grapes no less; it’s a hybrid grape that can survive the Montana winters) and their pinot noir (from Oregon-grown grapes). The saint pepin was ok. It had some nice fruit flavors to it, but was not terribly complex. The pinot was a complete disappointment. I don’t really know how you get Oregon-grown pinot to taste like that, but they did. I’d avoid that one if I were you.

More recently, on my travels in Idaho, I picked up a bottle of Ste Chapelle Winery’s dry gewurztraminer. At $7 a bottle, it’s quite the nice bargain. It’s also quite tasty. I wouldn’t say there’s anything especially unique about it, but it’s a wonderful example of exactly what a dry gewurztraminer should taste like. At that price, definitely a real bargain. I don’t know how available it it outside of Idaho, however.

Glacier National Park

Another highlight of my time spent goofing off and not cycling in the Bitterroots was the overnight trip up to Glacier National Park (between this and Yellowstone, I’ve already covered $50 of the $80 annual pass cost — a couple more parks and I’ll really be making out).

There’s no better way to put it: Glacier is absolutely stunning. I took so many pictures it’s going to take me a really long time to get them all sorted out. So, I won’t be posting the full gallery for a while, I think, but here are a few pictures to give you a taste (in addition to the picture at the top of the post).

Oh boy. Too many good pictures for me to put up right now. So, keep your eyes peeled for a posting of pictures dedicated to Glacier at some point in time, methinks. I just need to spend some more time sorting through them.

We weren’t able to do much hiking in Glacier, unfortunately. So, I still need to go spend some more time there (just like Yellowstone) with a proper backpack and really explore the backcountry of Glacier someday. We did rent a canoe, however, and we spent some time on one of the lakes up by Many Glacier. A few of those pictures were taken from the boat even. It was good times, no doubt; I just wasn’t able to spend as much time there as I would’ve liked.

Famous Potatoes

I’ve spent the last few days coming across Idaho. Saturday, I rolled over Lolo Pass, cross the border again, and today I update from the town of Lewiston, ID, on the border with Washington. Today, I’ll be crossing that border.

There’s been some incredibly wonderful scenery in Idaho. Coming down US 12 I was in national forest most of the time. The first night I camped out near a wonderful hot spring (which was absolutely great to soak in) that’s kind of tucked away back in the woods. Some locals were hanging out when I got there. There was actually a decent crowd. In the interest of preventing larger crowds, I won’t post publicly where the springs are located, but you can certainly ask me.

Yesterday was a bit of a haul. I had a nice climb first thing in the morning. Of course, with that was a nice downhill. And I mean really nice. A wonderfully windy, steep road led me down into the valley near Lewiston. That brought me here. Amazingly enough, I think that may bring us up to date. Except…

Lewis and Clark Caverns

I do remember wanting to talk about this a little bit. This is a throwback to two posts ago. After leaving West Yellowstone I spent a night at the Lewis and Clark Caverns State Park in Montana. In the morning, I took the cavern tour and had a grand old time with it.

And now, crossing into Washington, I really start getting into wine country. Your patience has been appreciated, and now we get to dive into the wine side of wine cycling. Stay tuned!

My friend in West Yellowstone dropped me off Monday afternoon and I spent a couple days backpacking around the Fairy Falls area and camping out in the Yellowstone back country. This way I could stay away from most of the tourists during the peak season (though even getting back country camping spots was a challenge). Wednesday morning, I made my way over to the Old Faithful area and hiked up to Mallard Lake and back. I of course, watched the ever famous geyser as well (honestly, ho hum).

Fairy Falls

The hike up to Mallard Lake.

Yesterday morning, I set out from West Yellowstone headed back up the Madison River Valley. I ended up putting in 110 miles yesterday and made it all the way to Lewis & Clark Caverns State Park. This morning, I took the caverns tour, and that was quite a bit of fun as well.

Alas, I haven’t the time to upload those, or the many other pictures I’ve taken this week. I should have some more time as I get into the Missoula area. I’m about to head over Lemhi Pass and cross the Continental Divide tomorrow. I’ll be sure to check in again sometime next week with more details.

The Gallatin River helping to form the Missouri

It was a two day ride from Great Falls down to Three Forks. Between Great Falls and Helena was some amazing scenery along the river. It was a hot couple of days of riding there, and I got trapped in a couple small storms. I also popped my first flat tire of the trip. Just before Three Forks, though, I did get to stop in at this cool place called Wheat Montana Farms Bakery & Deli. These guys have a great story.

Between Great Falls and Helena

After exploring the headwaters near Three Forks, I took a detour off route from Lewis & Clark Trail to make my way down to Yellowstone. For the most part, I was following along the Madison River into the town of West Yellowstone, where I am today, before I set off into the park for a few days. I’m probably going to take a bit of a break from cycling and do some backpacking around Yellowstone. I’ll have to start keeping two mileage counts this trip: cycled miles and hiked miles.

There’s been some tough riding around western Montana, and I know it’s only going to get harder as I go over the mountains, but the beauty continues to amaze and makes the experience what it is. I’ve adapted more, I think, to the inherent solitude of bicycle touring — perhaps the amazing things I’m getting to see have helped. I’m looking forward to the change of pace backpacking will bring for a few days. I’ve made friends with a tour guide from Yellowstone here who is going to tell me which spots are awesome to go to and which spots to avoid. Already, he’s shown me hidden, tucked away, secret hot springs to soak in. But I’ll tell you more about it on the flip side of Yellowstone.

More Montana pictures…

Between Great Falls and Helena

Riding down in the Madison River Valley

So I’ve made it to Great Falls, MT. I think that puts me at about 1,650 miles of cycling. Not really having any idea what my final mileage count is going to be on this trip (who knows what detours will distract me), I’ve decided to call this the half-way point. Were I to shoot straight for the coast from here, I’d be well over half done, but I’m expecting my path through western Montana to resemble a drunkard’s walk. There’s just too much cool stuff I want to check out while I’m in the area.

From Winnett, I kept on rolling down SR 200, up and over the Judith Mountains and into Lewistown (which is, incidentally, not named after Capt. Lewis of the famed expidition, but another military officer, from a later period of history, who established Fort Lewis there. Lewistown also claims to be the geographic center of Montana). From Lewistown, I deviated from SR 200 to make my way up to Fort Benton.

It was on this road that I took my first dive of the trip. Riding down this 8% grade into a valley by Square Butte (every cyclist’s dream), and while distracted by the amazing scenary of the valley unfolding before me, the pavement ran out underneath me and suddenly I was hitting gravel road at thiry miles an hour. My skinny little road tires were not happy with the situation and down I went. Nothing major, just a minor scrape here and there, and the bike held up pretty well: dirty, but no damage. So keep on rolling I did.

Fort Benton is quite a nice town, and it’s on my list of places I’d like to return to someday (just look at that view of the Missouri River). There are a few companies that run multi-day canoe and camping tours of the river, which sounds like an excellent vacation for some future summer. The Upper Missouri Breaks Interpretive Center was quite fun as well. I happened to stumble into town on the evening of a talk about the geology of the region. Did you know bentonite was named for Fort Benton?

You may not even know what bentonite is. It has many uses, but true wine geeks should know it as a commonly used fining agent to remove cloudy proteins from wine. The other really nifty thing about this clay is that when it is wet, it expands to over twice its original volume. This can be very useful or very problematic, depending on the situation.

Last, but hardly least, I stopped in at a used bookstore and outdoor equipment store (handy combination). Picked up some new shorts and another book to read. This store was really quite something. Unfortunately, the name of it escapes me at the moment, but Fort Benton isn’t a big town, and I believe it was on 17th St right off from Front Ave. So, if you’re ever in Fort Benton, stop in and say hi to Tom, the owner, and perhaps pick up something fun to read.

It was not a long ride from Fort Benton into Great Falls. I arrived early in the afternoon on Tuesday and spent some time cycling along the River’s Edge Trail. The falls that named the town have long been dammed in the interest of hydroelectric power, but there are still some cool river views to be had. From here, I head south, continuing along the Missouri towards the headwaters at Three Forks. Until next time, enjoy some more scenic views of Montana.

I rolled on down SR 1804 from Williston almost to the border to check out the Fort Union Historic Site. Fort Union used to be a big, important trading post on the Missouri River. Today, a reconstruction of it sits mere yards from the Montana border (technically speaking, the parking lot is in Montana). It seems like a cool bit of history, so I explored for a while. The shot above is the view of the Missouri River from Fort Union. This is only a couple of miles from where the Yellowstone River and the Missouri River come together. I took some shots of Fort Union as well.

From there I hopped back up to US 2 to cross over into Montana. I had been bucking some pretty intense winds from the west all day, but just before crossing the border, the storm descended upon me. The rain started, and the winds picked up. I mean, seriously picked up. I spent the next 22 miles fighting headwinds gusting up to 40mph. Some of the gusts were bringing me to a standstill even on a downhill. A couple of east-bound cyclists I ran into at a rest stop in Bainville thought I was completely nuts for riding into this wind. What does it say about me when the other crazies think I’m the crazy one. The rain cleared by the time I made it into Culbertson. I found the city park and set up camp for the night.

Wednesday morning, a howling wind made me want to just crawl back into my sleeping bag and rest for the day, but I set out. In the end, I actually cleared my first century of the trip. I was fighting remnants of Tuesdays headwinds for about 55 miles, but then I turned south and things got nice and calm. I made it the full 100 miles from Culbertson to Circle, MT.

Thursday I rolled into Jordan, MT and tonight, I’m in Winnett, MT. Along the way, I’ve seen some amazing views of the Montana Badlands. Just breathtaking… The photos don’t really do justice to the vistas, but I’ll try to let them speak for themselves anyways.

In this part of the country, when they say “open road,” they know what they are talking about. From Bismarck to Williston I have ridden many a stretch of road that look exactly like this: long, rolling and complete bereft of another soul. It’s both frightening and awe inspiring.

I rolled out of Bismarck on Wednesday morning with not too far to go and a nice wind at my back (this, of course, would not last). For the first time in this trip, I encountered some truly outstanding scenic riding. Going across Wisconsin and Minnesota was nice and all, but the views from the road they offered simply do not compare to some of the views I had rolling up SR 1804 out of Bismarck.

It was a short ride — a touch more than 50 miles — the first day out of Bismarck, and I arrived at Cross Ranch State Park in the middle of the afternoon with some time to spare and hang out. The tent sites were right on the Missouri River and offered up some cool views as well. I rather enjoyed this campground. The tent sites were nicely laid out.

There was one other tenter at the campground this Wednesday night. There were a few RVers as well, but the RV sites were nicely isolated from the tent sites. We hung out, built a nice big campfire, and traded stories. Several other tent sites were marked as “reserved,” so we had expected a few other tenters to be around that night, but I guess everyone chickened out in face of the impending storm.

A storm, a storm, oh yes, a storm. We were right at the eastern edge of a tornado warning zone that covered a large swath of North Dakota’s Badlands that night. The ranger didn’t think any tornadoes would touch down near the park, since there were strong winds out of the southeast blowing things away from us, but we were warned about the heavy rain and lightning coming our way. My tent held fast against the onslaught of water from the sky, fortunately, and I had only a few things to dry out in the morning sun.

The winds had reversed on me by now, and I was to spend Thursday and Friday riding into headwinds gusting up to 25mph. I didn’t have much further to go on Thursday than I did on Wednesday. Another 50 miles and I was to Lake Sakakawea State Park. Along the way, I stopped in to check out the Knife River Indian Villages Historic Site. A very cool spot (and a nice break from cycling into the wind). Most notably, they have built a reproduction of a Hidatsa earth lodge.

Lake Sakakawea State Park was very nice as well. Interestingly enough, it’s the western terminus of the North Country Trail, a backpacking trail (not yet completed) that extends from North Dakota to upstate New York. The tent sites were less interesting than the sites at Cross Ranch, but they were very spacious. I encountered a couple of other tenters getting an early start on a weekend of boating on the lake. There was another nice campfire with more stories swapped. They were even nice enough to share some beer. They wanted to get an early start on the lake, and I knew I had a longer day of cycling on Friday, so we weren’t up too late. Good times, though. I’m enjoying hanging out with other tenters. Still haven’t run into many other cyclists recently (and none headed the same way I’m going), but this is still pretty good.

On Friday I had about 75 miles to cover. It was a fairly uneventful day, and I ended up camping very primitively at the Deepwater Recreation Area about 15 miles south of Parshall, ND. Deepwater is little more than a clearing with a boat ramp maintained by the COE. Nothing impressive but it served it’s basic need of allowing me a place to sleep for the night. I set out early on Saturday, knowing that I would have 95 miles to cover that day, if all went to plan (I had camping options near New Town, about 40 miles out from Deepwater, but fortunately I didn’t need them).

It was a hilly 95 miles, but fortunately it was far less windy, and the slight wind was coming out of the south now, which gave me a bit of a boost on a few stretches of road. Some of the views along SR 1804 coming out of New Town were outstanding. What can I say? I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.

That last picture is my favorite of the trip so far. Go on. Click on it. Seems almost magical, doesn’t it?

Anyways, that about brings you all up to date. Tomorrow I set out from Williston, cross into Montana, and keep rolling on down the Lewis & Clark Trail. Much excitement lies ahead!