Two months!

It’s been two months! I’m not going to ask where the time’s gone, much of it passed exceedingly slowly as I crept uphill in granny gear with trucks almost grazing my elbow, sweat stinging my eyes. The cold nights, sudden noises in the dark and feeling of utter exhaustion with half the day’s mileage still to do are all fresh in my memory. So, though, are the albums worth of beautiful coastal views I’ve seen, the sunshine, the chats with new — and incredibly generous — friends I’ve made along the way, and the times I’ve made it to my intended destination and happily crawled into my sleeping bag. Those days are the best.

Then there are the gray whales. They’ve eluded me where I was sure I would see them and then popped up when I’ve not had such high hopes. As I continue south, I’m ahead of the peak of the southward migration and will be leaving the Pacific Coast Feeding Group’s hotspots behind but I’m keeping my fingers crossed that they’ll continue to surprise me.

My bike has been the source of more delays and frustrations than I would have liked this month and we’ve almost fallen out a couple of times. The conditions have been demanding though, with debris-strewn hard shoulders, rough sections of road and a heavy load. With better mechanical skills, I’m sure I could have prevented some of these issues or dealt with them more swiftly. In that regard, this has been a valuable lesson and, should I undertake another cycling trip in the future, I will most definitely pimp both my skills and my bike more thoroughly beforehand.

Right now, with solid puncture-proof tyres and a full set of new spokes on the rear wheel, Bertha the bike is — hopefully — ready for the final month of adventuring! I won’t even try to pretend to know what that will entail but I’m curious to find out. Massive thanks, as ever, to the David Henderson Inspiring Journey grant for making this trip happen, it’s truly the adventure of a lifetime.

Some summary stats (to Sunday 17th November):
Total countries visited: 2 (USA and Canada)
Total US States visited: 4 (Alaska, Washington, Oregon & California)
Miles cycled this month: 689.4 (1,293.4 in total)
Cumulative elevation gained this month (m): 7,315.5 (14,019.3 in total)
Number of sore knees: 2
Number of punctures: 6 (then solid tyres!)
Number of broken spokes: 2
Times gray whales seen: 6, probably 7 (once in Alaska (Pasagshak Bay), once in Washington (Neah Bay), twice in Oregon (Depoe Bay and Rocky Creek/Whale Cove), and two, possibly three, times in California (a stranded gray whale at Patrick’s Point, a probable gray whale at Point Arena and a lovely sighting from the highway near Meyer Gulch)
Things I appreciate more than ever: music, chairs and washing machines

One month in!

As of Sunday, it’s been a month since I arrived in America. In many ways, the time has flown by (not on the hills so much, perhaps) and the journey has already been quite the adventure! Here are some summary stats (up until Sun 20th Oct).

Countries visited: 2 (USA and Canada)
US States visited: 3 (Alaska, Washington and Oregon)
Miles cycled: 602
Cumulative elevation gained (m): 6,704
Number of sore knees: 2
Number of punctures: 4
Times gray whales seen: 2 (Pasagshak Bay, Alaska and Neah Bay, Washington)
Other cetacean species seen: humpback whales, killer whales, Dall’s porpoise, Pacific white-sided dolphins

This has already been my longest stay in America and, at times, the learning curve has been steep. My first five minutes in Oregon were almost my last as I encountered another variety of zebra crossing. I’ve mastered cycling on the right though, and bagels. Pretzels and the tiny, ill-fitting cubicle doors in ‘restrooms’ still confuse me.

Life on the road has been even tougher than I expected. The wind and rain have far exceeded anything that Scotland prepared me for. Turns out Scotland knows nothing of rain. And while cycling through heavy rain for hours on end, with my toes squelching in my shoes, is miserable, having to stand on the narrow hard-shoulder for up to an hour wrestling with a puncture while lorries swoosh past, sending waves of spray down my neck, is even worse. By the time I get moving again, I’m cold, plastered in road grime, behind schedule and fed up. There’ve been five punctures so far this trip, three in the last three days. They often cost me the crucial bit of daylight I need to reach my destination and the frequent micro-tweaks to my plan will, sooner or later, amount to a bigger tweak. But, for now, I’m pushing on while I can.

In terms of distance to cycle, the bulk still lies ahead of me and the hills will continue. The lure of warmer, drier weather and further gray whale encounters — both of the Pacific coast feeding group and migrating whales — encourage me onwards and I’m hoping my knees will cooperate. Here’s to the next month, whatever it may hold.

La Push

Visiting La Push, home to the Quileute Tribe, required another detour but was absolutely worth it to chat with tribal member Emily Foster, editor of the official newsletter of the Quilete Tribe The Talking Raven, over lunch. I’ve been reading Howard Hansen’s depictions of Quileute life in La Push in the book ‘Twilight on the Thunderbird’ but to hear about life in current times was just as interesting.

Turns out La Push was the setting for Twilight, which I’m led to believe is a tale of vampires, wolves and angst. Fans of the series have since boosted visitor numbers to Forks and La Push. Not really my thing but La Push is certainly a spectacular setting. If you can picture a dense, lichen-cloaked forest running down to a craggy coastline where pines perch atop rocky islands and surf crashes onto sandy beaches littered with bleached tree trunks, that’s La Push and it’s beautiful.

The gray whales are most apparent here in spring as they migrate north. Then, a Welcoming of the Whales ceremony is held, with prayers, singing and dancing on the beach. The ceremony, first held back when the Quileute would hunt the whales, continues although the whaling has long since stopped. An offering of salmon is paddled into the bay, representing the importance of the sea and its inhabitants to the Quiluete Tribe. If I can time my next visit to La Push to coincide with the ceremony, all the better.

Neah Bay

Neah Bay, close to the most northwesterly point of the contiguous US, was a bit of a detour for me but — as the home of the Makah Tribe — an important stop. Unfortunately, my short visit didn’t allow me to meet any of the Makah Tribe but I found the Makah Museum fascinating.

Much of the museum is dedicated to the story of Ozette, a Makah village that was buried by a mudslide approximately 500 years ago, then increasingly exposed by coastal erosion in 1969. A huge operation was launched to salvage not just artefacts from the village but also confirmation of the Makah’s way of life at that time.

Taking photos in the museum was prohibited but these postcards give an idea of life in the Pacific Northwest

As well as the Ozette operation, the museum outlined the seasonal patterns of subsistence of the tribe, including the springtime gray whale hunt. The hunt was halted in 1920 after commercial whaling had dramatically reduced the gray whale population. Since the eastern Pacific gray whale population was removed from the endangered list in 1994, the Makah have been keen to resume subsistence whaling. The discussions regarding this are still ongoing.

As well as the gray whales that pass close to shore during the northward migration in spring, some gray whales (the Pacific coast feeding group) remain in the Oregon-Washington-SE Alaska region until autumn and I was lucky enough to spot one from shore. I’d camped out at Hobuck Beach, four miles from Neah Bay, and had braved the mosquitoes to look for whales as I ate my supper on the beach. All was quiet. My luck changed in the morning though, when blows rose up from beyond the surf. A gray whale!

San Juan Island

Admittedly, sunshine can make all the difference and my stay on San Juan Island was gloriously sunny. However, even in the rain — which I experienced in impressive proportions as I left — it would be hard not to like a place where you navigate by old barns and fields of cows. For me, San Juan was an excellently calm stepping-stone from the bubble of the Alaskan ferry to the traffic and tribulations of my next destinations.

As luck would have it, my friend, marine mammal expert Dr Frankie Robertson, lives on the island and very kindly housed, fed and entertained me while I was there. As we drove around, Frankie brought me up to speed on the status of local marine mammal populations, ongoing studies and research questions still to be addressed. Our trip out to Lime Kiln State Park, where killer whales often cruise by close to shore, was cetacean-free but I was lucky enough to meet Jeanne Hyde, Lime Kiln’s resident killer whale expert, whose enthusiasm for all things marine was shared with energy and humour.

Friday Harbor’s Whale Museum contained an abundance of information about the Salish Sea, the local killer whales, gray whales and more. Jars of whale lice sat alongside baleen plates and patches of barnacles still attached to leathery strips of whale skin. A gray whale skeleton was suspended near that of a killer whale and, mindbogglingly, the skeleton of conjoined harbour seal twins found in 2013.

An evening walk on the island’s south coast gave us stunning views across a flat calm Strait of Juan de Fuca to the mountains of mainland Washington. Minke whales, the species we’d come looking for, eluded us. Instead, we watched synchronised teams of diving ducks, foxes in orange and black, a group of otters in the shallows, a bald eagle and grazing deer. Even better, Frankie assured me that — apart from a visitor earlier this year who’d promptly moved on — the island was bear-free. What a place!