Koby and I decided to get out of town in a different sort of way for a three-day weekend. We packed up our bicycles for a camping trip that turned out to be a huge gamble and great success.
The basic route from Bremerton (we got there via ferry from downtown Seattle) to the Big Creek campground. Google puts the route at 51 miles, plus another 5 or so getting to the ferry. We left Saturday morning and made it to the camp by 6 pm or so. The route along the water was really beautiful and, though it is marked as a highway, isn’t a very busy route and had a good shoulder to ride on (plus, going next to the canal is a nice, flat road). We made a stop in Hoodsport for ice cream (this is important later) and also, coincidentally, stopped at an information center near there. It was a good thing we made that stop – we learned that the campground we originally planned to go to was closed (they had a lot of snow this past year and many bridges and routes were still impassable). It also gave us the confidence to make it up the last stretch – nine miles with 980 ft of elevation gain wouldn’t be too bad if the climb were spread out, but the first two miles were basically the whole climb (and they were really tough). If we hadn’t looked at that map and had thought that we had nine miles like the first two, I don’t think I would have made it!
Lunch stop along the way!
The sign that we had been hoping to see on the last stretch! I was riding another borrowed bike (the mountain bike I usually used can’t take a rack), with borrowed saddlebags (and a borrowed sleeping bag, tent, sleeping pad, etc – I think I brought only my own clothes, backpack, and food)… I’m glad that we were able to make the trip on bicycles, but it made me very conscious of the limited space and weight that I could carry along for the three days.
We camped near Big Creek and spent most of the evening enjoying the creek, eating, resting, and building a fire for hot chocolate. Unfortunately, Koby got a flat tire as we worked our way around the campground, but we did have a spare tube and were able to fix it the next morning without any trouble. We didn’t have tire irons, however, so we made some creative use of a knife and a couple of spoons…
Our campsite...
A really cool tree near the creek…
Big Creek
We hiked up Mt. Ellinor on Sunday. It was about 6 miles each direction and a 5,000 ft climb from camp, but we had to skip the last 1000 ft of climbing and .6 miles because of the snowy conditions. It was a fun hike with plenty of views, a few interesting creek crossings, and tall trees.
One of those “interesting” crossings where the bridge was out.
Looking down on Lake Cushman
Trees!
We hit snow around 4300 ft and then we saw “The Chute” at about 4500 ft.
We couldn’t get up this last part safely (we went up as far as the jutting rock on the left side of the snow), but we watched several people glissading down (sliding down the hill) with their ice axes out as brakes. Apparently, there were mountain goats up there in the fog.
The view from the bottom of the chute on Mt. Ellinor.
We hiked back down and camped on Sunday night. We had a very successful fire and some great hot chocolate, too.
View on the way out of camp…
And then on Monday, we rode back. The logging company had a beach with a dock out on Lake Cushman. Given that Koby is not a small guy, you can imagine that the structure was pretty big.
It turned out to be more of an adventure than we had bargained for, but all went well in the end. Riding down the big hill was pretty fun (and made me realize all the more how much work we had done getting up there – I still have no idea how I managed that). Then, about 500 feet before we reached our ice cream stop, Koby got a flat tire (not the one we had just changed, though). We walked there, got some ice cream, found the patch kit, borrowed a sink to find the hole, and then discovered that the rubber cement in the patch kit was completely used up. And then we were lucky – the ice cream stop was a sort of country farm store and just so happened to sell bicycle patch kits… So we were able to get on our way, only for him to get another flat (this time in the new tube) about 2 miles later. At this point, we had our knife and spoon act down pretty well and patched things up quickly. We made it about 20 miles before he had his last flat. We pulled into a driveway and were able to borrow a bucket there and display our quick pit stop skills for some curious onlookers that time…
Finally, we made it to Bremerton on Monday evening. We had to take a different route back because the way we came only really worked on the middle of the day on a Saturday. Bremerton is not a town that is too friendly to a bicyclist (particularly one trying to catch a ferry) – the hills are steep and there is no good way around them because of the naval base. So we ended up following a very serious cyclist through the town. I was very proud when he remarked that I was doing pretty well on the bike I was riding (he and Koby were on road bikes that looked significantly newer than the recreational bike I was using).
An old Navy ship at Bremerton, near the ferry terminal.
And, of course, we just missed the ferry (they put the gate down as we pulled up), but we picknicked in Bremerton and caught the next one home…
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