A blog post for the recent bike tour I took with my brother Rustin out west this summer.
Our destination was the International Selkirk Loop a 300-ish mile loop straddling the American/Canadian border in northern Idaho/Washington and southern British Columbia. The plan was to bike it in about a week, staying at inns and airbnb's along the way, and carrying whatever gear and clothing we needed on our bikes with us.
Saturday July 25th
We flew out very early Saturday morning taking Southwest airlines, which seemed to go ok for the most part. We opted to bring our bikes along as opposed to trying to rent something when we arrived; each bike was carefully packed into a special bicycle traveling case. These things look more or less like oversized suitcases, and interestingly enough they can be taken onto a lot of airlines as "standard" luggage (provided that you don't put put too much extra stuff in, and keep the total weight under 50 pounds).
Three people plus bags plus two large bike boxes is quite a lot more than would fit into any of our cars, however, so Rustin requested an "Uber XXL" for the ride to the airport (I had heard about "Uber XL" but not the even more spacious "XXL"). That actually worked quite well, there was easily enough space to get ourselves and all our gear into what turned out to be a large minivan.
We flew from Boston through Denver and then to Spokane Washington, where we collected a rental car (also carefully selected to have enough space for the bike bags) and drove then up to Sandpoint Idaho. Hot and dry in Spokane, and with air tinged by wildfire smoke (blown in from Oregon as we were told). We made it to Sandpoint after a couple hour's drive and checked into our AirBNB, then drove into town and had a meal at a restaurant -- "MickDuff's Brewpub", food was actually pretty decent. This particular AirBNB was in Sagle (the town just south of Sandpoint), and was very out of the way (up a good stretch of dirt road) and a bit quirky, but it did the job for us overall. In addition the owner of the place had told us that we could leave our rental car parked in his driveway while we did our ride, so that was a big plus. Also hanging around to greet us was a collection of curious chickens:
Sandpoint is not a big city; it has a smallish more touristy feeling, and it sits on the Pend Oreille river. The river at that point has basically expanded out into a sizable lake, and it is clear that lots of folks live there for the lake-related stuff (boating and fishing and such). The Pend Oreille starts in Montana and flows north and west up to Sandpoint, then crosses over into Washington and eventually connects up with the Columbia.
At the AirBNB we got out the bike bags, unpacked them, and built back up our bikes. This is always (for me at least) a nervous process, since you never know whether the airlines treated the bags nicely or roughed them up along the way. This time around the bikes came through just fine, no damage whatsoever, so that was a relief. We went for a short test ride just to make sure the bikes were ok:
Smoky air still, the app on my cell phone saying that the AQI was around 75, so a bit better than Sandpoint but still not the cleanest.
Sunday July 26th
Bikes at the ready just before setting out:
Our first ride of the trip was from Sandpoint up to Bonner's Ferry Idaho. We stopped for breakfast in Sandpoint, then hit the road.
The ride was about 40 miles, and it turned out to be a very easy one due to a solid tailwind out of the southwest (we were heading northeast). We were wafted along in comfort and ease, making good time and arriving earlier than we had anticipated. One wrinkle was that Rustin had a flat with about three miles to go, so he had to do some patching and repair work. He also discovered that the spare tube he'd brought was also bad (eek, faulty valve) so that was a mildly nervous moment. He was able to patch the damaged tube however and we finished up the ride. Bonner's Ferry sits on the Kootenay river -- looked lovely and enticing but for some reason there weren't any good places to swim, there wasn't a lot of public land on the banks where you could have gone in on foot.
On the way. This road paralleled the rail line, which was pretty active:
Flat tire repair work:
After a small snack and rest I spend some time relaxing in a city park while Rustin went off for another exploratory ride to the east of the city. We eventually connected back together and and rode up to our AirBNB a bit north of the main part of town. I was able to get in a nice nap around 2:30 or so (yay).
Dinner at a Mexican restaurant there in town ("Mi Pueblo"). AirBNB was nice, plenty of space to stretch out and relax.
Monday July 27th
Another tailwind-assisted ride today, and not a lot of climbing, so we zoomed along at a fast pace. The route went along the Kootenay river valley, so lots of very productive looking fields and farmland growing all sorts of things: hay, alfalfa, wheat, etc. We even saw a field growing hops at one point (very distinctive, it is hard to mistake it when you see it). At one point we turned off the main road and got into a smaller route farther down into the valley, which turned a bit rough and then into dirt before eventually connecting back up with the main road (there was some mild confusion over the route there, but we figured it out eventually).
Crossed over into Canada at the Porthill crossing, a small one (single lane, very rinky dink). The Canadian border guard quizzed us a bit about where we were coming from and how long we were planning on spending in the country, but no major hassles. I have crossed international borders by plane, boat, train, car, and motorcycle, but this was the first time I had crossed a country border riding a bicycle, huzzah!
From there it was another eight miles or so to Creston BC, the location of our next AirBNB stay. Creston turns out to be quite hilly -- getting to the main part of town requires a fair bit of climbing effort, as we discovered. The house we were staying at was well outside of town, maybe about a 5 mile ride to the south, so we decided that we would ride up to the main part of town first, having a meal and do some food shopping, and then wrap up by riding south again to the AirBNB. Lunch was at the Busaba Thai restaurant, very tasty indeed (we were both pretty hungry and had to ask for extra rice to go along with the lunch special).
AirBNB was nice and had a definite "family" feel to it, lots of evidence of little kids living there. It had a hot tub, but after a long sweaty ride I wasn't really in the mood to partake. View out the AirBNB window (looks like wood stoves are pretty key around here):
Tuesday July 28th
AQI was in the 70s in the morning and predicted to go higher, but the conditions seemed tolerable when we set out for our ride. At the start:
We started off by heading in to Creston to eat breakfast at a bakery, then Rustin decided he would wait until 10am for the town's only bike shop to open so that he could buy another spare tube. I opted to take off a bit earlier than that, so as to take full advantage of the cool weather in the morning.
The road from Creston up to Kootenay Bay paralleled Kootenay lake, a quite lovely body of water. The lake is about 120 kilometers long north-south, and then maybe 5 to 7 kilometers wide. The road we took (3A) runs on the western edge of the lake; it kind of alternates between tracking the shore closely and moving up along the mountainside; views were good overall but with lots of up-and-down climbing.
I stopped around the 25 mile mark at Mackie Beach Park, a cove with the pebble beach and a few picnic tables. Great place for a swim, the water was cool but not cold, very refreshing. There were maybe a dozen other folks there, not too crowded (the group next to me on the beach was speaking Russian, interestingly).
At that point Rustin caught up with me but missed the Mackie turnoff; there was some muddle while we got reconnected. From there our next stop was the town of Crawford Bay, where we had some lunch at the Black Salt Cafe. Food was good but the service was glacial, it took us almost two hours to get in and out of that place. Lunchtime refreshments:
After that we did the final 5 or so miles of the ride on to the even smaller town of Kootenay Bay.
Although listed on AirBNB the place we stayed at was really more of a small motel, which had its pluses and minuses (in particular the room we were in was a bit too close to the hotel bar/pub, so it was a bit noisy around the time I was wanting to fall asleep).
Wednesday July 29th
Better air this morning, still a tiny bit smoky but the AQI was down in the 50-60 range. We got up early and made our way down to the ferry dock a few hundred yards down hill, then grabbed a quick bite at a cafe there that opened at 6:30am (ferry was at 7:10am).
The boat ride was nice: not too crowded, good views of the lake. The ferry took us across the lake and deposited us in the town of Balfour, where we began biking to the southwest (Kootenay Bay was the top edge of the overall "loop" for us). We rode to the town of Nelson, then stopped for a second breakfast at a cafe there called "Wait's on Nelson".
After that we figured we had some extra time, so we cycled down to the waterfront where we rented a canoe for an hour. The paddle was nice; it was good to get out on the water (kind of breezy/choppy, so we didn't go very far). Lots of geese! I also saw an osprey fishing, that was fun to watch.
From there we had a choice to make on the route: we could either cycle the main road (pavement) or take an unpaved rail-trail called the Great Northern Rail Trail for the remaining 25 miles to Salmo. We decided to split up again; Rustin did the road and I did the rail trail (the tires on my bike were a lot beefier than the ones on his, better for unpaved stuff). We agreed to meet up again at Cottonwood Lake, which was about a third of the way from Nelson to Salmo.
Rail trail was great, although the ride from the canoe rental place to the trailhead start was insanely steep -- so much so that I had to walk my bike for a couple big chunks of it. Once I was actually on the rail trail the riding was great: gentle uphill, mostly shady, no traffic of course.
Cottonwood lake turned out to be another ideal swimming spot, we both had a dip there, probably the nicest swim on the tour. Not too crowded, nice sandy beach, and a dock to boot.
We took off again for Salmo after that, I continued on the rail trail and Rustin took the road. The rail trail surface started to deteriorate after four or five miles, eventually getting so rocky that I bailed, finding my way back to the main road. We rolled into the AirBNB a bit before 3pm and met up with the owner/manager.
This place was by far the weirdest/quirkiest location we stayed at -- in addition to the owner's house there was a large pavilion (apparently for yoga events), a sizeable yurt, a sauna, and then a camper/caravan (basically a medium-sized bus) that had been converted into an AirBNB room, which is what I'd reserved. The caravan was not very large but had everything we needed -- stovetop, sink, shower, composting toilet, and two beds. The caravan:
I had also reserved a session in the sauna for that afternoon -- almost didn't go, since by the time we arrived there we were both pretty hot and sweaty and dehydrated, but after a pause to get unpacked we did go and check it out. The sauna was in great shape, we had a good sweat and then a cold plunge in the tub just outside the door (very refreshing).
Dinner at the Junction Eatery in town-- pretty basic fare but a good meal.
Thursday July 30th
Cool in the morning! Below 60. We packed up and cycled into town to eat at the Dragonfly Cafe, pretty decent grub (pesto omelette). From there we continued on the main road along our loop -- some headwinds today (to be expected given all the tailwinds we had earlier in the trip) but OK riding conditions in general. Air quality adequate but with a progressively smokier feel the farther along we traveled.
Border crossing back into the US was another tiny one -- single lane, lone border guard. She took a look at our passports and remarked on how close we were in age, then spent a bit chatting (nobody else in line). Possibly the friendliest border guard I have ever encountered (most of them are "all business").
A bit later along on the trip we decided to take a "long cut" so as to avoid arriving too early in Ione, looping up into the mountains to the east to ride past Sullivan Lake -- very scenic. We rolled into Ione a bit on the early side, a bit past 1pm. This was one town where I had absolutely no luck finding an AirBNB to rent, so I resorted to reserving a room at the Riverview Motel. Interestingly enough this is also a place where Amy stayed during her Anacort-to-Glacier ride -- she pointed that out to me at one point while looking at our itinerary. View of the river from the motel:
Dinner that evening at the Ione public house, the single functioning restaurant in the town (we had salad and then a large pepperoni pizza). The bike ride back from the restaurant to the motel was a bit disturbing though -- we could see a huge cloud/plume of dark wildfire smoke approaching from the southwest, literally blotting out the sun as we biked along. Photo:
That night we kept the windows closed and the AC on low in the room. Rustin got up in the middle of the night and went to see what the air was like outside (so that we could open the windows if it had cooled off); he said that when he opened the door he immediately got a blast of "fireplace air", so he shut it again right away. In the morning the air had cleared a little, but when I went over to my bike I could see a coating on it from the smoke overnight (little bits of ash). Smoky air:
Friday July 31st
When Amy was on her trip back in 2021 she rode all the way from Ione to Sandpoint (84 miles), but I decided this would be a bit too much to tackle (since from Sandpoint we would have to drive all the way to Spokane), so instead I had reserved an AirBNB in the very tiny town of Usk WA along the way. The ride from Ione to Usk was nice, especially the first couple of hours; we followed a smaller road (Leclerc) on the east side of the river. Heading out of town:
Cool weather, shady for the most part. We did have a couple of dog encounters; a big black-and-white dog made a run at me around mile 26 (almost got close enough to bite), and then I rode past another marauding dog a few miles later (this one I yelled at loudly, and it halted its run). Numerous wildlife sightings along the way -- deer, geese, ducks, blue herons, legions of squirrels.
Usk had a gas station, a bar, and a bakery -- super tiny. There was also a huge sawmill, I haven't seen an operation that size in quite some time (including an absolutely vast pile of sawdust and shredded bark in the back):
We had hoped to eat lunch at the bakery ("Mellany's"), but when we arrived it was locked up tight (both the sign on the door and Google said it was open, but it was definitely not). We bought some lunch stuff at the gas station there and continued on to the AirBNB, which was about 5 miles to the south, more or less in the middle of nowhere. We finally rolled up at the appointed address -- it looked a bit elderly/sketchy but the apartment inside was just fine, plenty of room, decent kitchen, and a washer/dryer.
Rustin went for a ride in the area while I rode back to the Usk gas station and loaded up on supplies and dinner materials. Surprisingly the gas station had a decent frozen food section, so I bought us some Asian noodles and veggie fried rice, which turned out to be quite tasty.
Saturday Aug 1st
Once again the forecast had been for poor air quality (110+) but when we woke up it was still down in the 70's range, good enough for riding. We backtracked into Usk, crossed the river, and followed Leclerc road again down to Newport WA where we crossed back over the river into town. Late breakfast there at a coffee house ("My Sidewalk Cafe"). Friendly folks there; we chatted with the counter ladies and one of the other "regular" customers.
Biscuits and gravy! Haven't had that for ages...
From there we took a series of smaller roads that ran along the south side of the Pend Oreille river, first Old Priest River road, then Dufort Road, then Lakeshore Road. A certain amount of up and down, but good riding conditions overall.
Since we had started quite early (6:30) we rolled into our destination in Sagle a little after 11, to the original AirBNB that we had stayed in the first night. The owner was there to meet us briefly, so we chatted with him for a bit and then went to unlock the car. At that point we had a nasty surprise-- there were two holes in the back of the rental car rear window; the safety glass had shattered and there was a bit of a mess. The AirBNB owner told us that he had no idea how the window had been broken (?) ... he was nice enough though to lend us his shop vac to help clean up the mess a bit.
We got our bike cases out of the car and got busy breaking down our bikes and packing them up into the travel cases. We eventually finished that up, got into the car, and headed for Spokane. Hot and sweaty ride, since we weren't able to use the car's AC with a big hole in the back window; we eventually made it to Spokane.
Rustin picked out a lunch place ("Centennial Bar and Restaurant") in the center of town overlooking the Spokane river, and as we were driving towards it we could see big plumes of smoke from an active wildfire just north of town, yikes. That turned out to be the "Old Trails" fire, which apparently had started only around 11am that morning, and was only around 5 or 6 miles (yikes) from where we were eating.
After that we drove down to our final AirBNB, an apartment located in a smallish cluster of houses not far from the airport.
Sunday Aug 2nd
Flight back was mostly uneventful -- we did have an hour and half delay in Denver due to an air traffic control issue, but that was about it. At the tail end we used "Uber XXL" again to transport our bikes and ourselves back home, that worked just fine.
All in all an excellent trip, lots of good rides. In retrospect I think we were quite lucky with the wildfire smoke when you get right down to it; these days if you are visiting the American west in the summertime you can almost guarantee that there will be fires burning somewhere, and we somehow managed to dodge the worst of the smoke for our rides.
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