Walla Walla – Minam – Joseph – Halfway- Hells Canyon – Baker City – LaGrande – Blue Mountains – Walla Walla

Winding through vineyards outside of Walla Walla in the morning sun, it feels wonderful to be back on the touring bike for a multi day adventure. A year ago, I was five weeks and 16 countries into a ride from Helsinki to Athens, riding with Allegra along the turquoise Gulf of Corinth. This 8-day trip will be less ambitious in scope but, I hope, no less effective at reconnecting us with the natural beauty and sense of adventure that comes from being out exploring the world. 

Climbing out of the Palouse and into the Blue Mountains, the prairie ends and the pine forests begin. We see elderberry, sage and mullen and enjoy the smell of late summer in the air.

In Minam, we camp at the end of a two mile gravel road, at a bend in the Minam River. Hot, dusty and elated to be done with a hard 80 mile first day, we jump into the river and lie back, watching the blue sky overhead and relishing the cooling fresh water.

We fall asleep under an amazing expanse of stars, brighter and clearer than I have ever seen, listening to the sound of the river. All is well.

From Minam, a long descent brings us into verdant farmland, through Enterprise and the foothills of the Wallowa Mountains to Joseph. An air of Williamsburg exudes from the owners of the Joseph Hotel as one describes the intricacies of a proper Finish sauna and the other explains the hotel’s Modern Western aesthetic as he runs his hand through his perfectly mussed mullet. It’s all a bit much, but the Turkish cotton towels are a treat. We stroll a half mile out of town and watch a firey red sunset over the Wallowas, perhaps the only benefit of this year’s Western wildfires.

From Joseph, we take a remote 65-mile Forest Service road steadily up and over the Wallowas, via the Hells Canyon overlook and down through Pine Valley.

As the valley opens up and the sun disappears behind the mountains, we ride into the little town of Halfway enjoying the rich earthy smell of farm country on a warm summer evening.
The next day, after a delicious breakfast of waffles, we ride into Idaho and through Hells Canyon, watching the dramatic canyon walls get narrower and steeper.

The Hells Canyon dam, where we stop in the shade for lunch, has significantly altered the Snake River ecology, turning what must have been a raging tumult of rapids coursing through the canyon into what is now a quiet reservoir. It is gorgeous, but rising water temperatures have led to bright green algae blooms, unsafe for swimming in areas, and a native trout population slowly being crowded out by catfish. That evening at the Copperfield campground we meet Robbie, a talkative 60ish man with a grey ponytail on his second cross country bike tour. We like his North Carolina accent, easygoing nature and decide to ride together the next day.

As the morning light bathes the valley, we ride back through Halfway for breakfast at a friendly small town cafe, where, over eggs sunny side up, heavily buttered toast and bottomless cups of Folgers, we chat with the affable owner. He is a Californian who bought the 130,000 acre Pine Valley Ranch and has continued to invest in the community, with the café and two bed and breakfast hotels. He seems to be doing good business and is employing at least 10 people just at the café, a good sign for this small rural town. 

The hot and desolate road from Halfway to Baker City follows the historic Oregon Trail through wide open expanses of scrub brush, sage and my newly discovered nemesis, goat head thorns.

Despite puncture resistant tires, I get six flats and break three tire irons. It makes for slow progress. 

Despite the dry heat and strong headwinds, we push through our first moments of discomfort of the trip, manage a smile and eventually make it into town.

Baker City has a well preserved historic main street, with handsome brick buildings and a surprising number of cafes, galleries and other signs of prosperity. We also notice a number of youngish, pierced and/or bearded hipster types who look like Portlandia refugees. At an attractively designed cafe, we ask the young African American waitress what brought her to Baker City. Family, she says with a shrug. She can’t wait to leave and is planning to move to Seoul to teach English and eat Korean food, her favorite. Small town life in a globalized world.
We leave Baker City with fresh legs and wind our way out of the wide open scrub brush terrain and into foothills of pine trees and elderberry bushes.

A walrus mustached volunteer firefighter gives us water and tells us to be careful since there is a lot of traffic on the roads today. We haven’t seen more than a car every 15 minutes, so we are a little puzzled. I guess traffic is bad wherever you are from.
We ride through Union and on to LeGrande on country roads, picking ripe apples and plums off trees and enjoying the sweet smell of spearmint, which is evidently a roadside weed here.

In LeGrande, we eat a surprisingly good Greek meal at a double wide mobile home turned restaurant called Yia Yia Nikkis. The friendly and corpulent owner apologizes for having sold out of the baclava and offers to run home for more. 
From Baker City, we ride back over the Blue Mountains, camping at 5,000 feet at Woodward Campground in the Umatilla National Forest. As the sun goes, it gets cold quickly and we dig out our wool hats and down jackets, which a couple of days ago we were wondering why we had brought.

The dark night sky is again a blanket of bright stars, and we listen to an owl hoot as we fall asleep. In the morning, we eat cereal and nearly frozen bananas while still zipped up in our sleeping bags. The 20 mile descent is chilly, but we stop in a sun patch to pick elderberries. 
Rolling back into Walla Walla, we feel rejuvenated by the adventure, the full days outside, nights under the stars, and friendly small town people. Exploring the world slowly on a touring bike is an absolute pleasure. You develop an intimate relationship with the terrain, sweating up the hills and fighting the headwinds, savoring the descents, and developing a comfortable familiarity with the smells and sounds of the landscape. But most of all, it requires meeting and interacting with people from very different backgrounds,  and time and time again reminds us of people’s near universal goodness and generosity.