Day 8 - August 7: Dayton WA - Clarkston WA

66 miles.  3136 feet up, 4002 feet down.

Well, well...... what to say about today.......  Another beautiful, hot, uneventful ride.  A little over 100 km, all on US 12.  For a long-ish, climby-ish ride, it was pretty easy.  Of course, the fact that we had yet another day of tailwinds undoubtedly helped in that regard.  

We had an early (for me) start to help to beat the heat.  I think I was on the road about 7am.  Just 13C when I pulled away.  It would have been the perfect temperature to ride in all day.  It did get warm by the time we were done, but we've had hotter days.  It also helped that we were done all the climbing by noon.  

We were still in the heart of wheat-land all day.  Below is some of the wheat processing infrastructure in Dayton.


The view coming out of Dayton..........






After not much climbing at all, we had a really sweet downhill that went on and on.  After about 10 miles into the ride, the soft hills of the last few days seemed to morph into coulees and windmills started to appear again.  And- more colours began to be evident in the hills.  In the coulees, the agriculture seemed to be at road level and the hills themselves were often more au naturel.  The coulees seemed to last until about mile 25, and they we saw a return to the softer hills.  







 
Although - as pointed out on an info board at our SAG stop, the establishment of windfarms still leave the opportunity to cultivate the land around the wind mills.











Smokey says.............  "extreme!"


Some of the architectural highlights of Pomeroy and area.






Although we did a lot of climbing this morning, the bulk of it was "imperceptible".  Very gentle and a tailwind.  Just the last 2.5 miles up to Alpowa Pass were a little steeper, but really not bad at all.  If only all future climbs are so gentle..............



And with that, our work was pretty much done for the day.  Fifteen miles of downhill followed by a flatish section into Clarkston.  Gotta love a sign like the one below............  Oh - and the coulees are back.











And finally to the Snake River, which we rode beside into Clarkston.

















Artistic and creative storage of bicycles as we neared our hotel.


In to the hotel by about 1-ish (I can't really remember) and again I was one of the lucky ones whose room was ready for me.  Another great day today, and a big day coming tomorrow.  


The Ride:

Garmin:  107.8 km.  3073 feet up.  3643 feet down.

RWGPS:  107.4 km.  963 m up.  1227 m down.

Temperature range:  13C - 37.7C


The Route:


Clarkston WA.  Population 7,161

Clarkston is part of the Lewiston, ID metropolitan area, and is located west of Lewiston ID, across the Snake River.  The name Clarkston is a reference to William Clark, of the Lewis & Clark expedition.  Directly east across the Snake River is Lewiston, named for Meriwether Lewis and the larger and older of the two cities.  The expedition passed westbound through the area on October 10, 1805.  Neither Lewis nor Clark ever visited the Clarkston side of the river.  In 2000, 21% of the population lived below the poverty line.  The port of Clarkston is home to one of the largest cranes on a navigable waterway east of Portland.  Agriculture is a major industry in the area and the port handles a lot of barge traffic carrying grains.  Clearwater Paper Corporation is also a large employer.  


Comments

  1. Lynn CAugust 9, 2024 at 5:47 AM

    OK, I love the landscapes you are capturing, but where on earth are they finding all those logs? Also, the picture of the truck next to the stone cliff... the cliff looks like basalt to me... Is it do you know? that would indicate volcanic activity way back when...

    ReplyDelete

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