Day 5 August 7 Seattle to Alice Creek

Interactive Map: Click on the map

Photos: At the bottom of the page

Video: A bike trestle on the Snoqualmie Valley Trail

We started with light drizzle, which stopped quickly

The Burke-Gilman Trail is my home turf. I’d ride on it first no matter where I go from home. I was glad to show it off to Peter as we rode along Lake Washington and then on the Sammamish River Trail along the Sammamish River and Lake Sammamish. From there we connected to the Issaquah-Preston Trail, where Peter experienced again riding inside NW rainforests. We had lunch at one of my favorite restaurants on my long-distance rides, El Caporal in Fall City. From there we got on the Snoqualmie Valley Trail (SVT) but not without struggling. There is a steep (13%) hill that I had to walk the first time on the trip. Once on SVT, it was a very pleasant ride with trestles through, again, rainforests. But the second (southern) part of SVT is disconnected from the first (northern) part. To get to the second part, we had to first walk again from SVT to SE Tokul Rd and then carry the bikes and bags up to a bridge over the Snoqualmie River. From there, it was a steady, gentle climb to the trailhead of the Palouse to Cascade Trail (PTCT) near the Rattlesnake Lake. We were excited to get on PTCT. But Peter was exhausted from the climbing and ran out of water. After I got water from the Cedar River Watershed Education Center, we moved on to PTCT.

PTCT, formerly known as the Iron Horse or John Wayne Pioneer Trail, is a legendary trail known for its difficulty not mentioning the length (286 mi). Many bikers ride it to claim their badges of honor. It is also very pretty on the western side of the Cascades, covered by forests on both sides. I couldn’t have enough of the trestles. The forests are different when you look at them down from the trestles.

There are many reminiscences of the past glories of the railroad business along the Chicago-Milwaukee-St. Paul-Pacific Railroad, now converted to PTCT: electric power posts with tangling wires, piles of railroad ties, and station signs in the middle of nowhere. We crossed over many creeks, big and small. While some loose gravel surfaces made the ride slow, I had a blast on PTCT. We planned to stop at the Cold Creek Campground. But we couldn’t make it. This is the first of many times that we failed to reach our planned daily destinations. We camped at Alice Creek instead. It is a very nice campsite that can host at least four tents, with picnic tables and a vault toilet. We were the only ones there that night.