Interstate 84 and the Stairwell From Hell

Sunday, September 17. Hood River, OR, to Portland, OR.

Well, we made it to Portland - at least, to near the Portland airport, just short of five full months from the day we left Lawrenceville. The trek will continue, for now, until we get to Lincoln City out on the coast, but in the grand scheme of things, this city was always our true destination. To be here, now, after the long journey, is what you might expect: exciting, amazing, and just a little sad, sad that the trip will soon be over and we'll have to rejoin the real world.

But of course, I'm getting ahead of myself. The question everyone wants to know the answer to is, was it windy today? And, happily, the answer is NO, it was NOT windy today, and we rejoiced. We did have a long way to go, though; we expected to have to go over 65 miles to get to a stopping point near Portland, and much of that on the Columbia River Gorge Historic Highway. On a Sunday, that might be slow going.

Sitting at breakfast, we could see that the river, unlike previous mornings, was not coated with wind-whipped whitecaps; and as we set out, we both smiled that the wind had finally abated. We were looking forward to a scenic day in the Gorge, and it would be nice not to have that to deal with.

Traveling through Hood River on Oak Street, the traffic was light and we were anticipating our next few miles out on Interstate 84. Nancy and I have distinctly different experiences when we have to get on the freeway like this, and so what we did today requires a little back-story so you may completely understand our respective frames of mind.

Nancy, for all intents and purposes, has no problem riding on the freeway. Totally fearless, happy that there are no hills and that we make really, REALLY good time there, she would ride on the freeway all the way to Portland if the darn map I have wouldn't keep sending us onto "safer" roads.

I, on the other hand, have a little history of being, well, let's say PHOBIC about being on a freeway outside the confines of a car. This goes back many, many years, and although I have made a lot of progress, I still have some trepidation about it.

It's hard to explain what it feels like. Years ago, confronted with the prospect of having to get out of the car on the shoulder of an interstate, my heart would race, I would begin to sweat profusely (even for me), and I found it hard to breathe. While there are perfectly rational reasons for being afraid to get out of a car on a freeway, my panic went beyond mere reason.

For me, standing on a freeway felt like standing on the boundary between the living world and the murky beyond, a kind of DMZ of mortality. The sounds of the tires against the road were like the shrieks of the doomed, zipping around me, too loud to ignore, too fast to see, ethereal and only quasi-corporeal - like they could pass through me and take something of me without my knowing it. So naturally I was petrified.

But I've made progress; I've HEALED, to the point where now, I can ride up the onramp and get on the freeway like I do it all the time. In my head, of course, all I can think is BREATHE IN AND BREATHE OUT AND BREATHE IN AND ... You get the point. Under the conditions, you'd imagine I'd take pretty much any opportunity to avoid the freeway, and you'd be right. Even if it involves a horrific climb of over 600 feet in less than a mile and a half, if it means I can get off the freeway, I'll take it.

So I can't explain why I missed our exit. I mean, I can, sort of - I misread the map; I thought we had to go 13 miles but it was really just 10. But misreading the map in such a critical way, in a way that meant we would ride another 5 miles on the freeway, well, I can't explain that. Maybe I am finally getting free of the phobia.

Good thing, too; we would end up riding on the interstate most of the way to Troutdale. More on that in a moment.

We got off the freeway a little before Cascade Locks, and took the opportunity for a little rest there at a plaza behind the post office. It overlooks what remains of the locks which made navigation around the Cascades rapids possible. This is quite a story, and it begins about 800 years ago with the Bridge of the Gods.

Eight centuries ago, a massive landslide created a land bridge from one side of the Columbia River gorge to the other, blocking the path of the river and eventually rerouting it almost a mile south of its original course. The natives in the area called it the Bridge of the Gods, and over time, it eroded, leaving behind just the most obtrusive of the obstacles; this would become known as, simply, the Cascades. The surrounding mountain range takes its name from this set of rapids, and the site of Cascade Locks (once known as Whiskey Flats) was the portage route.

When the portage route eventually proved too cumbersome, the Corps of Engineers built a set of locks. It took them 20 years to do it, but they did the trick - until, that is, the Bonneville Dam went in, submerging almost all of the locks. Today, only the topmost portion of the highest lock is still visible.

There is still a Bridge of the Gods at this site; it is a toll bridge, and bicycles are prohibited. So we were stuck on the Oregon side, interstate and all.

Before we had to get back on the interstate, though, we traversed a portion of the (read this in your best movie trailer voiceover voice) Historic Columbia River Highway State Trail. Just beyond Cascade Locks, this portion becomes a bike and pedestrian trail, so we had no motor vehicles to contend with. The first mile was utterly, jaw-droppingly stupendously beautiful. We went from the side of a road onto a path and into a primeval forest, surrounded by ferns, moss-covered trees, and a canopy of leaves. It was a totally different world. The path descended and then rose to a tunnel under the interstate, and then to a creek where there was a water treatment plant (near and dear to my civil engineering heart).

At this juncture, we were confronted with something that, regrettably, is far too common on bicycle trails across this country: contradictory signage. The other probelm we have found is LACK of signage, so perhaps the existence of a sign at all is a tiny blessing; but this was a sign that said "bike route", accompanied by an arrow sign pointing up a small hill. The problem was that it pointed up a road that was prominently marked "One Way" down, and was mounted on the same post as, and directly beneath, a "DO NOT ENTER" sign. A little farther up the road we could see the two "WRONG WAY" signs. But the happy little green bike route sign cheerfully directed us to ignore all the other signs; just go on ahead, you're OK, you're on bikes, it's not like you're REAL traffic. Go ahead. Break traffic law.

We finally obeyed the tiny green sign, ignoring the large, red, more anal-retentive signs telling us to obey the law, and found the trail again about a quarter-mile up the road. For a few moments, blissfully ignorant of what we would shortly have to do, we were happy.

Then we found the staircase. The trail includes a staircase. A STAIRCASE. The only acknowlegement that bikes must traverse this monstrosity are grooves alongside the stairs so bikes can be "rolled" up. The pitch was too steep; we had to take the trailers off. So Nancy walked her bike up the SIX FLIGHTS while I walked her trailer up. Then we went back down and took my bike and trailer up the same way. Finally, I went back down to get my trunk, which I had taken off to make it easier for Nancy to balance the bike.

Oh, yes, yes we did get pictures. We got MANY pictures, some of us laboring to get our gear to the top, some of the stairway itself from the bottom and from the top, and finally one of the entire staircase from across the adjacent road (inaccessible to us on bikes, but a short hop over a concrete barrier).

We got all the gear to the top, bitching and moaning the whole way, wondering if the people at Adventure Cycling had even SEEN this thing. We couldn't imagine they had. If they had, I think they would have just told us to stay on the freeway.

Back to the freeway: we left the trail for a short, 5-mile trip on 84 again, before rejoining the Historic Trail once more. This portion is still under renovation, so the surface is scraped and rough, and full of hazardous potholes. It took us past Horsetail Falls and then Mulnomah Falls, where we stopped for a bite to eat. These waterfalls are not possible; they are thin cascades that emerge from the top of high cliffs and become feathery wisps as they descend. At least, that's how they look from afar. Up close, that feathery wisp is a still-powerful column of falling water.

Shortly after leaving Multnomah Falls, we saw a sign that said that the Historic Highway was closed west of Bridal Veil, up the road; the detour, naturally, was Interstate 84. So back to the freeway we went.

It was more than 16 miles, and the first 8 or so were almost a blur to me; and when we stopped at a scenic overlook, Nancy pointed out that we were making REALLY good time and that we hadn't had to climb a hill in miles; I was stunned to see how far we had gone, and even more, that I had not realized how flat the road was. I made a conscious effort to pay attention; and soon, I spotted a great blue heron down on the river. The drivers whizzing past could not see it, but I pointed, and Nancy saw it too. So it IS possible to see cool stuff while on the freeway. You just have to be on a bike.

We got to Troutdale, and promptly met another cyclist, Gerard Woods, out on a liesurely 20-mile loop ride, who we asked for direrctions. He was very nice and led us around a less busy way than shown on the map to the bike path near Marine Drive, in northern Portland (near the airport). We rode and talked with him for about 9 miles, and finally exchanged information when we reached the cluster of hotels near the airport (where we would begin the process of comparison-shopping).

So, now, we will spend tonight and the next here in Portland, and tomorrow Jim and Suzi (my parents), will be up to spend the day with us, in a kind of pre-celebration of our arrival. In the next leg of our trip, we will head to either St. Helens or Clatskanie, on the way to Astoria. We anticipate less than another full week on the road before the end.

One last note: we have had a request for some "trip stats", information about miles, climbs, and other stuff to be posted on this site. We will compile some of those things and probably put them up after we reach Lincoln City. A tidbit to tide you over: to Portland, we have traveled a total of 6359 miles, taken 20 rest days, and gone through 20 states, 2 provinces and Washington DC. More soon!