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Lancaster's Adventures, Jordan, MT (2026)

08/14/2026

I apologize in advance for how long this became...

Asyou know, I ended my Northern Tier trip in Anacortes on August 9th.

What most of you do not know is that when I originally planned my Northern Tier trip, I wanted to go from Bar Harbor, Maine, all the way to La Push, Washington. I was still going to go to Fidalgo Island, which is where Anacortes is, but instead of going to Anacortes, I was going to drop down through Fidalgo, cross Deception Pass onto Whidbey Island, and take the ferry to Port Townsend to avoid the headache and chaos that is Seattle.

But a few days before I got to Anacortes, I decided to stop the trip there because my shoulder was giving me problems and my tires were well beyond what I would call bald. The day before reaching Anacortes, I had to stop and rotate the better of the two tires to the back so the worse of the two would be under less load on the front.

It was then that I 100% decided I was just going to stop in Anacortes. Between the shoulder and the tire, it just wasn't worth pushing on in my head.

So I made it to Sunset Beach, dipped my tire in, and finished the Northern Tier.

But that night in camp, I had some time to think. I still had four days before my wife arrived.

So what was I supposed to do? Just sit in Anacortes and twiddle my thumbs?

Obviously not.

I was going to push south either way, but that night I decided I was going to make the big push to La Push.

The next morning, I left Washington Park and took a route I came up with across Fidalgo Island. It ended up being a lot hillier than I expected.

I crossed the Deception Pass Bridge, which is a beautiful bridge and a little intimidating on a bicycle, especially with traffic being some of the worst, if not the worst, traffic of the entire trip.

After crossing onto Whidbey Island, I followed Route 20 for the most part all the way down through Oak Harbor and to the Coupeville Ferry, which really should be called the Fort Casey Port Townsend Ferry because it's in Fort Casey Park, but whatever. We're not going to get into that.

While getting on the ferry at Fort Casey, I saw what I believe was a sea lion, but it may have been a seal. Let me know down below. One bag of blubber looks about the same as the other bag of blubber.

The ferry took about 40 minutes, and when I arrived in Port Townsend, I got onto the Larry Scott Trail, which is the initial starting point of the Olympic Discovery Trail.

From here on out, I'll refer to the Olympic Discovery Trail as the ODT.

I followed the trail into town and then took a couple of back streets over to Fort Townsend Historical State Park, where I rented a hiker biker camp for the night.

This was the first time where I really had a lot of bicyclists in camp. There was also a very nice lady who had a cat named Cozy, which I ended up leaving all of my salmon for. Always a sucker for animals.

It was a good night.

I got an early start the next morning, backtracked to the ODT, and rode it down out of Port Townsend to what I believe they called Discovery Bay.

At Discovery Bay, I followed the GPX route supplied by the Olympic Discovery Trail's website.

And I say that because if you are doing this route, I strongly, strongly recommend just getting on Route 101 and following it around to Blyn.

The GPX file takes you onto part of the Pacific Northwest Trail, which is a hiking and backpacking trail.

It is not a biking trail.

I don't care what kind of bike you have or what kind of tires you have. It is not a rideable trail. I would almost put money on nobody biking that trail in its current condition.

It is hike a bike for a few miles. You have to push your bike through brambles, briars, and every variety of sticky, pokey, and itchy plant you can imagine.

My legs were absolutely trashed, and my socks were very saturated in blood by the time I got out of this section.

So just do yourself a favor and do your bike a favor. Take the 101 to Blyn.

I assure you, the 101 is worlds better than following the route the current GPX file has you take.

Eventually, you come out in Blyn and get back onto the Olympic Discovery Trail. From there, it is a very smooth paved trail with lots, and I do mean lots, of ups and downs.

There really aren't any flat sections. It is a very give and take kind of trail.

But there are also no bad sections of this trail, with the exception of the previously mentioned section.

That section should not even exist.

The rest of the trail takes you through a beautiful wooded area that you can't even tell you're in suburbia, even though you are.

I followed the trail down into Sequim, where I stopped at a grocery store and resupplied a few things before pushing on to Dungeness Recreation Area and Campground.

The campground is about 3.1 miles off the ODT.

I set up camp, and several other bicyclists showed up, but I wasn't really in the mood to be social after my hike a bike day.

After talking to some of them the next morning, I found out nobody else had gone the route I took. They all followed the Strava heat maps, which conveniently take you down the 101.

So apparently everybody knows except the ODT page and the people dumb enough to follow their GPX file.

Me.

Anyways...

I packed up the next morning, rode the 3.1 miles back to the ODT, and continued down this beautiful paved trail with a lot more ups and downs.

At one point, I saw a lady have a mishap with her e bike. She got off to hike it up one incline, gave it a little too much throttle, and the bike went over the edge of the hill.

Thankfully, she was with a large group, and I'm sure they got it back up.

Eventually, you make it to Port Angeles East, and once you get into Port Angeles, the hills disappear until you get out of Port Angeles.

So you get a nice, smooth, flatish few miles riding along the coast beside the Salish Sea.

This section was absolutely freezing.

There was a very strong wind coming off the water. It was 65 degrees, but it felt like it was in the 30s or 40s. My hands were numb, my nose was running, and I was absolutely freezing.

It was stunning, but very, very cold.

So if you ride this section, take a light jacket and maybe some gloves. Or just avoid this section and go through Port Angeles on some of the roads.

The trail itself is absolutely beautiful. I went through during low tide, so it did smell a little oceanic and fishy.

But you will have that.

Leaving Port Angeles, you have about a half mile climb out of town, and then it is flatter again for a fair while.

Eventually, you pass into tribal territory. I cannot for the life of me remember what tribal lands it was, and I'm not sure I would have been able to pronounce it anyways.

This is also the area where you cross the Elwha River.

The bridge is pretty cool because the road actually goes above the trail, and they are on the same bridge. It is almost like a double decker bridge.

When you look out to the left, you have the mountains and the river, and it is just gorgeous.

After you get off the bridge, I believe you get onto Route 112 and follow it for six or seven miles.

While riding that route, you pass through the town of Joyce.

I stopped at Joyce General Store, and I can confidently say that after crossing the entire state of Washington, this was the most reasonably priced store I found anywhere in the state.

It is a very small store with a somehow incredible selection of items, and their prices were wonderful compared to the rest of Washington that I have seen.

And I covered a lot of Washington.

A couple of miles after Joyce, you turn onto a road I believe was called Joyce Piedmont Road.

You can't miss it. There is a big sign that says ODT this way with an arrow.

Along this route was the first time I saw a sign for the Adventure Olympic Discovery Trail.

I thought I was supposed to follow it, but the GPX told me not to. So I went down the trail a little bit, read a sign, looked at the paper map, and thought, "Oh yeah, I'm not supposed to be here."

The Adventure ODT is a single track mountain bike trail that looks super fun, smooth, and flowy.

But on a loaded touring bike with bald tires, I didn't dare chance it.

From there, you proceed up and over the mountain and then down toward Piedmont. You turn and head toward Crescent, where you get onto the Spruce Railroad Trail.

I cannot say enough good things about the Spruce Railroad Trail.

It is the absolute diamond in the rough when it comes to this trail.

If you have time to ride one section of the ODT, make it the Spruce Railroad Trail.

It is a beautifully smooth, paved rail trail. You go a few miles along the north shore of Lake Crescent, and then Lake Crescent disappears and you just continue flowing up the side of the mountain.

It is a constant roughly 3 percent grade for the entire six to ten miles, however long that climb actually was, but you don't even notice the grade because it is so beautiful.

Evergreens everywhere. Moss covered trees. Ferns everywhere.

You are just surrounded by this serene, beautiful forest.

The only negative thing I can say about this section is that the first mile or two has a lot of foot traffic from people hiking up to the Devil's Punchbowl.

I did not stop there, but with as many people hiking up to go swimming in it, I imagine it is quite beautiful.

I avoid people like the plague, so once I stopped and asked somebody where everybody was heading, and after they told me, I was sure not to stop there.

Take it as you will.

After you get to the top, you ride along the 101 again for a little while. This is also where you get cell phone service again, which was important because I needed to figure out where I was going to camp for the night.

I went out by the road to get better service and saw the Welcome to Olympic National Forest sign.

Of course, I had to go the half mile or so down the road to get a picture with it before getting back on the trail and following it down to Klahowya Campground.

You could just follow the 101 if you wanted to get off the trail for whatever reason. I don't know why you would, though, because it runs straight to the campground as well.

There was a small hiccup when I got to the campground.

I paid at the self serve kiosk, and it didn't drop out a ticket.

So I went to the camp host site, where there was a sign that said, "Camp Host Off Duty."

I rode around the entire campground.

He is the only camp host.

Sorry, bud. You're not off duty.

So I knocked on his door.

He came to the door with an attitude and told me he was off duty.

I'm like, "Well, here's my issue. I paid, and it didn't spit out a ticket. Maybe it's out of paper. I don't know."

He said, "No, definitely not out of paper. They just filled it."

He acted like I was lying about it.

I'm like, "Dude, I'm telling you, I paid. You can come over here and check it."

So he did.

He went over and wiggled his fingers in the slot like I hadn't already done that.

Meanwhile, another gentleman came up and also tried to get a ticket. The host watched him do it and still acted like we were both stupid because there were no tickets.

Like we had somehow messed up.

So I will be letting the Forest Service know how disgruntled their camp host is at that campground.

There is no reason to act like that.

But whatever.

The other person and I decided we were just going to write on a piece of paper that we paid, no tickets came out, and that we had notified the camp host. That way, maybe we wouldn't be bothered.

I was leaving the next morning before anybody came around anyways.

After leaving camp this morning ut was straight up out of the campground, across the road, and onto the trail.

The trail is actually on the road at this point.

About two miles down the road, the GPX file tells you to take one road, while the signage tells you to go right.

I went right, like the signage said.

A couple hundred feet later, there is another sign saying it is a shared road with the ODT for 7.6 miles.

Cool.

I will say that most of the time, the signage on this trail is exceptional.

The areas where the signage is bad, though, there is no signage, and it just leaves you wondering, "What the heck?"

For the almost eight miles I was on this road, I didn't see a single car going either direction.

Perfect.

I did see several animals that I believe were snowshoe hares in their brown season. If they weren't snowshoe hares, whatever they were, they were the fluffiest little rabbits I've ever seen.

At the end of this road, you're going down a hill, and thankfully there is a stop sign.

Because if there wasn't, you would miss your prompt for the ODT.

You stop, and then there is no obvious signage telling you where to go until you look up.

There is a small sign for the ODT that does not look like any of their other signs, telling you that for this section, you follow the 101 toward Forks until you get to 110.

But this sign is about 12 feet off the ground.

It is two feet taller than the stop sign.

I understand they probably did this so it would not obstruct the view of the stop sign, but they need something at eye level.

If I wasn't already stopped for the stop sign, I would have completely missed it.

Also, the sign does not tell you which direction to go on 101.

Thankfully, I have common sense. I knew I was heading west, and I knew which direction west was.

Otherwise, you're just sitting there twiddling your thumbs.

It doesn't make any sense, but they need to fix that and ill go more into my rant on this in the video, I'm waiting to see what the people at the ODT say back in response to my email. About this and other concerns.

So I got on Highway 101 and followed it for about 11 miles.

Along the way, I passed through the town of Beaver, Washington.

So of course, I had to stop and get something to drink and wet my whistle in Beaver...

After getting something to drink, I continued on to Forks.

Forks is about a mile past where you should turn onto 110 to go to La Push, but I hadn't had power in several days and needed to charge several of my electronics.

So I stopped at Tillicum Park in Forks and borrowed some electricity for a while before getting back on the road.

From there, I went back up to where the 101 and 110 meet and took 110 toward La Push.

Once you get on 110, there is only one slight detour onto a gravel road. It is only about a mile long, and if you want to avoid the gravel, you absolutely can just stay on 110.

It is a nice gravel road, but it is completely unnecessary.

You can easily skip it.

That being said, you stay on 110 and just ride into La Push.

There is alot of traffic (Thank Stephenie Meyer for that) but for the most part, drivers are considerate through this section.

Except for the dump trucks that want to get as close to you as they possibly can.

But we're not going to go there either. 😅

I made it into La Push.

I went down to First Beach, and it was absolutely beautiful.

Insanely foggy, as you will see in the pictures.

I would love to see it without the fog. I'm sure it is absolutely stunning.

But geographically, I don't know how often they don't have fog. It is just a very cool, wet, foggy environment.

But I'm going to count those miles toward my Northern Tier trip because, I mean, it was the same trip.

I'll update the miles when I do the actual video to reflect the full mileage.

The ODT will be a video of its own, though, and it will probably come out well before the rest of the Northern Tier route.

I filmed this differently, and there is just so much footage.

Like, there is almost a whole terabyte of footage just from the Northern Tier.

So it is kind of an overwhelming amount of files to sort through and edit.

But yeah, guys.

I finished.

I got to La Push.

I can't tell you guys how much I've enjoyed this adventure.

I did not take a lot of pictures of this trip because, honestly, I didn't plan on posting about it.

But once I got down there and saw the beach, I was like, I can't be here and not tell you guys about it.

So here we are.

I hope you guys are having a wonderful day. The weekend is coming faster than you know it.

Get outside and seek you're kind of adventure!

I appreciate all of you so much for following along.

Photos are in reverse order, sorry 😅
Also, I saw 3 owls, in 4 days. Pretty cool in my opinion!
Which is more worn out? The tires or the shoes? 😅 I think I got my money's worth out of both!

Priority Bicycles
Pinion Drive Technology
Aeroe BikePack
MODL

08/10/2026

Day 87 ends with just over 47 miles.

Well, actually...

My 2026 Northern Tier, East to West, trip concludes with 3817.81 miles.

Today has been an interesting day.

I don't know exactly what I expected, but Mother Nature decided to get one more go at me with some of the worst headwinds of the entire trip.

And they were cold headwinds, too.

It is so much colder on the coast. I'm guessing it's probably in the 50s with the wind chill. Nothing that's actually cold, but considering the temperatures I've been dealing with for most of this trip, it's pretty cool.

I followed the route all the way through Anacortes and all the way to the official end of the Northern Tier route.

And then I decided...

Nope.

I've been going back and forth on whether I wanted to end the trip there or find a beach. It just doesn't seem fitting to end a cross country bicycle trip at a ferry crossing.

So I followed the route all the way down to the ferry crossing, looked at it, and said, "Nope."

Then I pedaled right back up that hill.

That just wasn't a fitting end.

So I made my way to Washington Park, reserved a hiker biker campsite for tonight, and then made my way down to Sunset Beach.

I don't know if I'll stay here tomorrow night or not. I guess I'll figure that out tonight.

But Sunset Beach seemed like a much more fitting place to end this journey.

And even though it wasn't sunset when I got here, the name still seemed appropriate.

This has been a pretty intense journey.

I've met a lot of great people along the way.

I've met a few not so great people along the way, too.

I've had some incredible experiences, some miserable experiences, some moments where I wondered what in the world I was doing, and a whole lot of moments where I was reminded exactly why I was doing it.

And I can't thank you guys enough for following along.

I don't care if you've been here since Day 1 or if you found me today.

Every single one of you who has followed along, commented, sent a message, shared a post, or just quietly watched from the sidelines has meant more to me than you probably realize.

As for what's next...

I honestly don't know yet.

I have a plan for getting home, but it's not 1,000% set in stone until it actually happens.

I had a much bigger plan originally, but between my shoulder still giving me some trouble and a company apparently not wanting my money because they won't answer my emails, messages, or social media inquiries, that plan didn't quite work out.

The goal is still to do the other half of that adventure, though.

The current plan is to get a motorcycle and take a scenic route home.

And I'll probably share some of that adventure, too.

It just won't be nearly as in depth as this trip, and thankfully, it won't take anywhere near as long.

After that?

Who knows.

I think I'm going to pull the kayaks out when I get home and dust them off. I may even try to do a through float of the Mad River in Ohio.

Apparently there is only one other person on social media who has documented doing the entire thing, and he lives pretty close to me.

So maybe that's another adventure.

Maybe it's something completely different.

The sky's the limit.

I've got time to figure it out.

I've also got a few other things I need to figure out.

Some of you know this, and some of you don't, but I quit my job to do this trip.

So I have to find some more employment when I get home.

I've got a few jobs in mind. I just need to get the gears turning and start working on making one of them happen.

I'll start working on that on the way home.

For right now, though, I'm going to start making my way toward Olympic National Park.

My wife will be flying in in a few days, and we're going to spend some time traveling around and seeing some of the Pacific Northwest.

I'll probably post some pictures and updates from that.

Until then, unless I stumble into something really cool, this may be it for a few days.

And honestly...

That's okay.

I've spent the last few months riding across the country, sleeping in a tent, dealing with heat, cold, rain, wind, mountains, smoke, flat tires, long climbs, questionable decisions, amazing people, frustrating people, and more miles than I ever thought I would pedal.

And now it's over.

I can't believe it's over.

I really can't.

Thank you guys.

Seriously.

Thank you for coming along for the ride.

It's been an incredible journey.

And I can't wait to see where the next one takes me.

And I hope this has inspired some of you to go have some adventures of your own.

They don't have to be big.

They don't have to be huge.

They don't have to be grand.

Just seek adventure.

Priority Bicycles
MODL
Adventure Cycling Association

08/09/2026

Day 87

Off to a late start today.

There's a million reasons I could give. I could say it was a lack of motivation. I could say it was because it was cold.

Because Washington is ridiculous and apparently has two seasons a day, while Ohio, where I'm from, has four seasons a year. 😂

But honestly, I think it's probably just procrastination.

I don't want the trip to be over.

It's so nice knowing I'm this close, but once it's over, what's next?

That's the part I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around.

But I'm getting on the road.

I should finish today. I think I have less than 50 miles left. Somewhere around 47, I think.

So yeah...

Today should be it.

I hope you guys have a wonderful Sunday, and I'll check in from the coast if all goes well.

Priority Bicycles
Aeroe BikePack
Pinion Drive Technology
MODL
Adventure Cycling Association

08/09/2026

Day 86 ended with 44.78 miles.

It was a pretty chill and relaxed day.

I took several breaks just because I could.

My moving time was probably some of the fastest I've had on this trip. It's amazing what flat ground does for your speed.

But I took so many breaks.

So. Many. Breaks.

Pretty much every time I saw a bench, a nice spot by the river, or a nice spot next to a mossy tree, I stopped.

I did not get my pizza.

I was going to. I even stopped at a pizza place, but before I went in, I realized my bike needs a little TLC before the push to the end.

So I just grabbed a couple things at the grocery store next door and continued on to Rasar State Park.

The campground is completely full except for the hiker biker sites. They're $12 a night, and all three were available.

And I am in a mossy, mossy forest.

It is absolutely gorgeous.

I'm not very far away from the other people in the campground, but the trees are blocking so much of the noise that it's incredibly peaceful.

Wonderful.

I'm going to set up camp, do my little required TLC on the bike, and then I'm going to call it a day.

Unless something goes wildly awry, tomorrow is Anacortes and the finish of the Northern Tier.

Don't worry.

The adventures don't stop there.

They're going to take a pause for a minute, but they definitely do not stop there.

Oh, and the best part.

The absolutely best part about this state park...

There are showers.

Some of you might not understand why that's so amazing.

But for the people who have toured, you get it.

I'm going to run Washington state out of water tonight. 😂

Have a good night, everybody.

I will try to get back to everyone's comments and messages before I go to bed.

Also, I felt like I took alot more pictures than I did.. lol hopefully I remembered to video at least... 😅

Priority Bicycles
Pinion Drive Technology
Aeroe BikePack
MODL
Adventure Cycling Association

08/08/2026

Day 86

Good morning!

It was a really quiet night at Newhalem Campground. It always amazes me how quiet a campground can be when people actually practice proper campground etiquette.

It doesn't matter how many people are in the campground. After 10 o'clock, it's basically just crickets.

Which is exactly how it should be.

I couldn't sleep, though. I was up until 1:00 or later. I don't know if it's anticipation of the trip ending, or just my brain doing its thing. I honestly don't know.

I did consider finishing the trip today. I think it's less than 90 miles to Anacortes.

But I'm not sure if I will.

I want to take my time with the last little bit of mileage. If I make it there today, great. If I don't, I don't.

I'm not going to rush it.

I do have one very important goal for today, though.

Find a pizza and eat it all by myself.

I don't know why, but pizza sounds absolutely amazing right now.

So it's a late start this morning. I backtracked to Newhalem town to get some food and drinks and get a little charge on my taillight. It died yesterday, and I didn't get a chance to charge it for very long.

The battery life on that thing is pretty impressive, though, so it shouldn't take long to get enough charge to get me through the day.

I ended up spending a lot more time sitting around in Newhalem doing absolutely nothing, waiting for all of my electronics to charge, than I probably should have.

I'll have to find an actual grocery store at some point today because the general store in Newhalem has a pretty limited selection. But I got enough to hold me over for sure.

The weather on this side of Washington Pass seems to be much more predictable, which is a very welcome change. It only got down into the 50s last night, and it's supposed to be in the 80s today.

Hopefully that's what the weather looks like for the next couple of days.

I don't know. I feel like I'm just mumbling to kill time at this point because I have a lack of motivation today.

😂

Anyways, that's the plan.

I'll see what today looks like.

Have a great Saturday, guys. I hope you find some adventure of your own.

Priority Bicycles
Pinion Drive Technology
MODL
Aeroe BikePack
Adventure Cycling Association

08/08/2026

End of Day 84 ended with 50.02 miles.

And I'm sorry if this feels generic. It feels generic to me doing it, but I'm not going to make a separate post for Day 84 and Day 85. I'm physically and mentally exhausted after the last few days, so we're combining them.

Day 85 ended with 51.73 miles.

Where we left off at Loup Loup Pass, the smoke did not get better as I dropped off the pass. If anything, it got much worse.

I made it into Twisp, found a Rosauers, and got some real food in my system, which was desperately needed. I completely forgot to do a resupply while I was there, which was a pretty huge oversight on my part. Apparently my brain had already checked out.

From there I went through Winthrop, which is a really cute little Western styled town. Pretty much every storefront looked like an old saloon or some other old school Wild West building. Definitely a tourist attraction, but a cool one.

Then I made it to Mazama.

Mazama was small, cute, and expensive. That's really all I have to say about any of those towns.

From there, I started my climb over Washington Pass.

And considering it was 97 degrees when I left Mazama, the climb went much better than I expected. I think I only walked about half a mile on the way to Lone Fir Campground.

I picked a campsite close to the creek, which ended up being amazing white noise all night. I went down to the water, rinsed my clothes out, and just stood in the creek to cool off.

That water was so freaking cold.

Going from the 90s to what felt like standing in the middle of a pool on top of an iceberg was quite the temperature change. I was only in it for a few minutes, and my feet hurt for probably 20 minutes, maybe even longer, after I got out.

I also filtered a bunch of water because I was severely dehydrated after the climb. I had actually stopped sweating about 10 miles before camp.

If you know, you know.

That was another huge oversight on my part. There were definitely creeks along the climb where I could have stopped and filtered water. I just got stubborn and wanted to make it to camp.

I went to sleep on top of a picnic table with the intention of not setting up my tent so I could get an earlier start in the morning.

I fell asleep for two or three hours, woke up, and it was almost dark.

It was in the low 50s.

So it had dropped roughly 40 degrees in just a few hours.

I decided maybe sleeping on top of a picnic table wasn't such a great idea after all, set up my tent, crawled inside, and passed out.

I woke up around 5 a.m. It was still cold, and I decided I wasn't ready to get out of my warm sleeping bag and my little tent heat bubble just yet.

Around 7:00 or 7:30, I finally got up, packed everything away, and headed back toward Washington Pass.

It was 46 degrees.

I walked the first half mile or so because starting out on an incline is never good for me. Once I got some blood flowing, I got back on the bike and started pedaling.

Apart from stopping for pictures and to catch my breath, I made it all the way to the top.

Between Day 84 and Day 85, I probably walked about two miles of the climb up Washington Pass.

That's better than I expected to do, but not quite as good as I would have hoped.

But I made it.

And the climb was absolutely beautiful.

I took a couple pictures at the top and started my descent.

I say descent loosely because there were a lot more ups than I was expecting.

At one point there was a motorcycle I was pacing down the mountain. He was probably 30 or 40 feet in front of me when a car almost pulled out in front of him.

The car let him pass.

Then pulled directly out in front of me.

I was probably doing about 45 at that point.

I have absolutely no idea how I missed him.

But I decided I was going around him, and I did.

Apparently he took that as a challenge.

That's where we're going to leave that.

I eventually made it down to Gorge Lake, which is absolutely beautiful.

The crosswinds and headwinds on this section were ridiculous. The wind was so bad that I started taking the middle of the bridges whenever I crossed them.

I figured if the wind was going to hit me, I wanted it to hit me where I had plenty of room.

And weirdly, the wind wasn't coming from the open side like you would expect. It was coming off the mountainside.

I don't know if it was hitting the mountain and rebounding or what, but when a gust hit you, it would move you several feet at a time.

Eventually I made it to Gorge Lake, and I was exhausted.

So I started pushing the bike.

That's when Jodi stopped and offered me a ride to Newhalem, which was where I was headed.

I was a little on the fence at first.

I've been trying to do all of this myself. I've turned down so many rides on this trip because I wanted to be able to say that I did it all under my own power.

But I was feeling pretty defeated at this point.

She could probably tell I was on the fence because she said, "I'm going to pull over at the next pullout. You can either take the ride or not when you get there. Either way."

I'm like, "Cool. Thank you."

I got to the next pullout.

I took the ride.

It was just under six miles to Newhalem.

She doesn't have Facebook, but if she happens to see this through her husband's page:

Jodi, thank you. Seriously.

I was mentally and physically pretty broken at that point.

The last few days have been a struggle. The smoke. Four mountain passes in four days. The heat. The dehydration. And then the situation with the car.

I was just done.

And you tend to get these road angels when you need them the most.

I definitely needed one when she stopped.

There was actually another car that stopped shortly after my little incident with the other car. They asked if I needed anything, which I always appreciate.

I told them no.

I wasn't walking because I was hurt, or because I couldn't ride. I was walking because I was frustrated and I was taking that out on the bike, so I decided to walk for a while instead.

They stopped, checked on me, and continued on their way.

Then a mile or two later, the other car reappeared.

Yeah.

Not exactly a fun day.

So I really, really appreciate Jodi stopping when she did.

From there I went into the Newhalem General Store and got some food. I got a burger that had probably been sitting there all day because they only charged me half price.

In hindsight, if I'd known they were going to charge me half price, I probably would have gotten two.

It wasn't bad, though.

It might have just been because they were closing soon. The general store closed at four.

I went over to the visitor center, charged my phone for a little while, and then made it to Newhalem Campground.

Everything was either reserved or closed because of hazardous trees. Apparently several campsites in the park are currently closed because trees need to be removed.

But campsite number three had a sign saying:

Bicyclists only. No motorcycles. First come, first serve. One night only.

Cool.

So I went looking for a camp host so I could pay for it.

I went through both loops of the campground.

No host.

The host spot is completely empty.

I assume, just like some of the other campgrounds, nobody wanted to host here this year because of the fires.

And honestly, I can't blame them.

The good news is there is zero smoke on this side of Washington Pass.

That is a very welcome change.

I went back up to the visitor center to see if I could pay there.

They were already closed.

So I got my money out just in case somebody happens to come along.

And that's where we're ending this one.

I'm sure this post is probably a little all over the place. It's been a rough couple of days, and I'm sure I left some things out accidentally.

There are also definitely some things I left out on purpose because people can be incredibly frustrating.

😂

But we're here.

We're safe.

We're on the other side of another mountain pass.

And tomorrow we're back on the road.

I hope you guys had a wonderful couple of days.

Thank you all so much for following along.

Priority Bicycles
Pinion Drive Technology
Aeroe BikePack
MODL
Adventure Cycling Association

Lancaster's Adventures

08/14/2026

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