Dread Not - Five Double Aught Overview

In about just less than two months I am heading out on the third solo supported tour of my lifetime. Oh wait, I did do an S24HO in 2012, but I am not going to call an overnight ride a tour. So, yes in 2012 I did my 2012 Cascade Traverse By-Pedal Expedition to Save Human Folly.  This was the ride that started the slogging-days of cycle touring for yours truly. In 2013 my solo tour was the Vines to Bitterroots. I took last year (2014) off and it's time to hit the bike once again!

Of course as all things some times go with us humans (pedalnistas included), yah gotta up the ante. We tend to challenge ourselves to go bigger, farther, faster. I'm no different. Some people call us Type A, or obsessive/compulsive or a glutton for punishment, or always searching for something, always trying to fill a hole in... Ahhhh, burro-shit I say.  It's about challenge and growth. It's about striving. It's about fun. Woh, where did that come from? Yes, this is fun to me. Yes, it can be tough, but the proudest things I have done in the last few years are my tours. 

So, how indeed did the ante go up this year? Five hundred miles that's how. This tour is 500 miles. The past tours were in the 350-400 miles range. This year... Manifest Destiny in the drops, staring steely eyed into the head winds, gnashing teeth, grinding it out for 500 miles. 

Ok, that's the distance. But Where? 

Here, then there and down. Over, up and down again. Due east, due south, due west. Mountains to high desert to beach. 

Start: Seattle
End: Lincoln Beach, Oregon.

As the crow flies, its a straight 211 miles. But as the burro clops along, and trying to see some interesting scenery, its a nice 500 miles.

Day 1: Over the Cascades, Snoqualmie Pass - by the Milwaukee Road
Day 2: Yakima River shadowing to Yakima
Day 3: Yakima Valley to Simcoe Mountains
Day 4: Descend to Columbia River by Dalles Road, head west to Hood River
Day 5: Hood River to Mt Hood (this by definition must be up!)
Day 6: Down from Mt Hood to Clackamas River
Day 7: Clackamas River to the Willamette River
Day 8: Willamette River over the coast mountains and down to Bella Beach, OR.

So what makes this tour so interesting to me is I spend a whole day on the old Milwaukee Road (Chicago-Milwaukee-St. Paul-Pacific Railroad) which is a hard gravel abandoned railroad and also rides through a few railroad tunnels (actually under Snoqualmie pass!). And later in the tour I return to the gravel when I ride Dalles Mountain Road down from Goldendale, WA (high above the north side of the Columbia River gorge) to the Columbia River! Then I skirt around the east and south side of Mt Hood and camp in Government Camp close to the top. What a cool name for a town... Government Camp.

So that is it in a nutshell. In the next few posts, I'll crack open the nut and provide more details on each day with included pictures. Giddy Up!