Snoqualmie Valley Trail

For weeks i had been bugging my friends about doing a ride on the Snoqualmie Valley Trail. This is a wonderful trail and autumn is the most glorious time to do it.  Last year Nadine and Jeanette and i did a ride from Duvall to Tokal Road and back and we all really enjoyed the forest and the Autumn weather.

Nadine & Jeanette
(Oct 15 2010)

Jeanette & Nadine, Tokal Trestle
(Oct 15 2010)

So every time the topic of the next ride came up i've been suggesting Snoqualmie Valley Trail;  people were probably getting sick of hearing it.  

And i wanted to make it a long ride, not a quick jaunt on one section, but most or all of the trail, which starts in farmland, climbs gently through transitional forest, and then up steeply through pretty thick temperate rainforest and ends at Rattlesnake Lake in the mountains.

Yesterday we finally did it and it was magnificent!

Karen, Nadine, Mark, Emily at Rattlesnake Lake

We started just outside of Carnation, not quite the start of the trail, but about 5 or 6 miles of farmland from the start. Unfortunately i had to ride in a car to the start, and my headlight broke off in the car, but my mood quickly improved once i was pedaling in the crisp autumn air.

Karen heads down the leafy trail

We rode half an hour through the farmland before the trail entered the forest and started to slowly climb the ridge. We were all enjoying the leaves crunching under our wheels. Many leaves were still on the trees: red, orange, yellow. It was beautiful.

Alan & Emily

It was a gentle climb (rail grade of course) but we still all got pretty warm and had to stop and shed a layer.

Karen, Nadine, Emily, Alan

Once we got well into the forest, we got a warning to keep an eye open for Charismatic Mega Fauna!

Emily looks for Bears!

We pedaled, slightly up hill, for the next couple of hours through a most beautiful forest on this glorious Autumn day.  It was spiritual.


The hill was still pretty gentle.  Karen, who is generally faster than the rest of us, kept riding up next to me and saying she felt slow, that she was struggling.  It turned out that she just didn't realize how much we were climbing.  She was underestimating how hard we were working!

Near the end of the southern section of the trail is a spectacular trestle bridge. Long and curved, it goes high over the Tokal River and always deserves a stop to enjoy the view of the forest, the valley and the waterfall..

A quarter mile later, at Tokal Road there is a little tunnel under road and then stairs to carry your bike up to the road.  This section of trail ends here.  Actually it turns into a narrow hiking trail which i've always wanted to explore.  The trail would pick up again on the other side of the timber mill across the town of Snoqualmie.   However we had intended to leave the trail here anyway because we all wanted to visit Snoqualmie Falls -- and Karen had never been there!  It's only about half a mile away, and only about 2 tenths of a mile off of the trail detour route, so it was easy to get there.  The falls were astonishing.  Majestic, beautiful.  Since we've had a little rain lately there was more water than the narrow chute you can find there most of the summer (although not as much water as during Spring runoff!)

Alan, Nadine, Karen, Emily at Snoqualmie Falls

To connect up the two sections of trail, one option is to cut through the little town of Snoqualime, but both Nadine and i were looking forward to the other option, Mill Pond Road, on the other side of the river from the town.   It was a lovely, quiet, fast, couple of miles, and when we got to the steps to up to the bridge where the trail started up again, Nadine urged us to continue on the road.   It was worth it!  The tree lined Reining Road is wonderful.

Reining Road

This brought us via the back way into North Bend, right along the abrupt slopes of Mount Si.  We were all very hungry and stopped at Scott's Dairy Freeze.   This is a stop i frequently make when riding out here, and from the outside i always think, 'Do i really want to eat here?'    It doesn't look like some place you could get something good.  You can!  Everything is great!   And we actually sat outside at picnic tables!!

Emily celebrating a good lunch!

We ate quickly because it does get dark early these days, and i was really wanting to make it all the way to Rattlesnake Lake.  Everyone else was skeptical, but i really wanted to enjoy that section of trail as it gets higher and to accomplish the climb to the lake.  We were all worried about the time and some were getting tired. Before we left our lunch spot i filled my shirt pocket with french fries -- the other pocket always has dark chocolate covered almonds in it, so i can feed myself as i ride.  Got to keep the fuel handy!

From North Bend, the trail crosses under the freeway, and then turns upwards and climbs more significantly.  This part of the trail had fewer colored leaves, it's more native northwest temperate rainforest, big cedars covered with ferns and moss.  I love it.  The riding was a bit harder up hill and there were some voices suggesting we stop and turn around.  We did have to stop and get some more food in us (my pockets supplied me!) part of the way up to the lake, but we did make it all the way and everyone was very happy.

SUCCESS!  Alan, Karen, Nadine & Emily -- Rattlesnake Lake & Rattlesnake ridge.

I walked over to the water -- the lake was VERY low, in early summer feet would be wet where they are standing in the photo above.  The lake was formed when the reservoir for the new Seattle City water system was built 100 years ago.  The water leaked through the gravel hill next to it and flooded Rattlesnake Prairie and the town of Cedar Falls.

I did have a moment of panic at the lake.  With my cellphone off, and my cyclometer over by my bike, i checked the time on my camera.  It said it was ten after three!!!  That's only an hour and half from sunset!  I panicked and rushed everyone back on the bikes. It was probably 15 minutes later that i looked at my cyclometer and realized that my camera was an hour fast -- i had neglected to change the time on it last week!

Heading downhill was fast.  It was a big change from our pace up the hill!

A few miles down the trail down the trail Alan got a flat tire, and we all stopped while we fixed it.  It didn't take too long before we were cruising again.  This time we didn't take the loop through North Bend but stayed on the trail, which eventually bisects a golf course.  The section after the golf course was one of the nicest sections, straight and leafy with a tunnel of trees down the trail.

We walked down the stairs from the bridge back to Mill Pond Road and then just as we started up the hill to Tokal Road again, Karen got a flat tire.  This one was more difficult and it took three attempts to fix it.  Now we were a bit worried about sunset.  After going through the Tokal Tunnel again, i looked back and the lighting on the trees made it look like an animated cartoon at the other end of the tunnel. It was magical.

Here comes Emily through the tunnel!

And more easy, fun, pretty down hill riding.

We got back to the cars right as the darkness was closing in. In the last mile of this 47 mile ride, i reached 4,000 miles total for 2011, which was a nice milestone.

Here's a map.

Capitol Hill Streets Missed in 10 Months

I love visiting places: seeing a new place and learning something.   It's why i love to travel to far away countries and why i love to bicycle in the city.  I get a huge thrill from just being in a place, any place, every place.

I've always loved maps, maps are such an amazing representation of real world data.  I love maps so much.  i have to admit in addition to the honor of being somewhere and the thrill of learning, there is a bit of an urge for checking off boxes too. I'm a collector.

As a kid, i loved coloring in states, counties and countries i visited -- i still do in fact.  And maps to me, are just screaming out YOU COULD BE HERE!   A street map is just a graphical set of places to be, to see, to learn about.  To color in!   Maps are to be drawn on.  When i was in high school i bought a map of my city and a felt tip marker and tried to keep track of every street i had bicycled on.  And later i got another which i colored in with every street i had been on in a car.  I covered quite a lot of the city.  I loved being there.

As i moved to Seattle, I started a streets bicycled on map, on paper with felt marker.  I kept it up for a long time.  I don't know how accurate that was and i eventually stopped coloring it in.  And any motivation towards completeism i ever had, any interest in being on EVERY street, was trumped by my belief in the reality, and beauty, of imperfection.

But i still wonder how many streets in Seattle i have bicycled on, how many i have missed. I'm always excited when i ride on a new street or new block.I know there are neighborhoods that i have probably covered almost completely in the last 20 years. When i first got my Washington Topo(tm) map software as a gift, back in about 2002, my first thought was to start coloring streets.   But i was too busy and didn't have the patience.  

What i did do however, was draw in bike rides.   Frequently at the end of a ride i would draw it on the map afterward.  I saved those over the years.  A couple of years ago my friend Kent gave me an old GPS unit, and since then i often take it on bike rides with me so it will draw my route on the map when i get home.  Sometime last fall i unconsciously got in the habit of drawing, either freehand, or with the GPS, my bike ride EVERY DAY.  Sometimes i would post them on this blog at the end of a ride.

Then in April i started merging them together into a full month of riding map for each month; this is fun because it shows a big mess of rides and that data shows where i go often, rarely, and not at all.  Today i combined all of my rides for October into one file and then merged that into the 2011 year to date file. 
 

It showed me that i've covered a lot of central Seattle. I've covered almost all of downtown.  I haven't ridden as much in Wallingford or Ballard as i have in past years, i've covered the bike trails and main routes around town, and ridden many different routes south to Bike Works.  This map is cropped so it doesn't show the routes i've taken outside of the city (i tried to post that, but the lines just weren't visible they were so small).  But there is something that really jumps out on this map. The large group of neighborhoods that make up Capitol Hill are so thoroughly covered that it's a solid mass.  I had to take a closer look at that.

Wow!  When i blew it up i immediately could see that from I-5 to 19th Ave E and from Madison Street to Interlaken Park i had only missed a few blocks.  So i made a map with only the missed blocks drawn in.

 

So without trying, with out even a thought, i've cycled almost every block in this 2 square mile neighborhood in just the first 10 months of the year. And that's only counting the rides that i drew in.  There are a few, such as the cemetery, that i know i did, but didn't get drawn in.

Since i'm only left with a couple dozen out of the 1,000 or so blocks in the area, i'm left with a quandary: should i just go about my daily business, not thinking about this and see how many of the red blocks i cover normally in the next two months, or should i set out exploring, see places i haven't seen in awhile, or have never seen, bicycle even more in my city. There is certainly a voice inside of me suggesting it is somehow more PURE if i don't go out of my way, but of course i can't resist the opportunity to explore. 

Check back at the end of November and again at the end of the year for an update.

UPDATE (end of November):
I covered many of the missed streets this month.

Purple streets are blocks i rode this month, but had not for the first 10 months of 2011.  Red blocks are still missing.  Yellow blocks are not drawn in but i'm pretty sure i have ridden them.  I'll do them again.  And the X's are blocks that the map says exist that don't really exist.

A lot of these that i 'filled in' this month, i covered in my daily travels, but quite a few i went out of my way to experience. In at least one case i took some friends along on a ride home from BikeWorks covering a section of 13th Ave E.

 I had fun plotting routes and exploring.  And it was good motivation to get out and ride.  I'm pretty sure that i had been on all of these streets in previous years, all but one or two blocks looked familiar.  A few more in December and i can call it a complete coverage year!


UPDATE (December 11):
This afternoon on my way home from running errands near the University i covered the few blocks connecting to 19th Ave that i had missed and then when i looped down the dead end on Pike St off of 18th i completed my fun task of picking up the few missing streets on Capitol Hill, so i covered every block of every street in every neighborhood on Capitol Hill in 2011. 

A Good Country

By almost all social indicators, Norway is the most successful country in the world. The best place to live. It is at the head of the class that includes Switzerland, Iceland, Canada, among other wonderful places.

Norway has remained strong and independent of the EU, has the most friendly immigration and refugee acceptance policies in the world, has universal health care, universal free education, rehabilitation instead of prisons.  The people are happy healthy and content.  It is peaceful and virtually crime free.  They live longer than almost anywhere else. They have high taxation, keep corporations in check and the people have an astonishingly high standard of living. Everyone has good food and lots of consumer products.  It is the envy of the world.

Even more than Switzerland when i visited i found it to be a place i really wanted to live. I was overwhelmed at comfortable it felt. 

How do they do this?

They have proportional representation and have very outspoken, active progressive political parties spawned from the resistance to occupation during WWII.  These parties have spoken strongly for progressive social and economic issues in an open and clear way that is different from most other places.  They have spun these ideas away from the Commie-Fascist axis and made an almost perfect state.

But like Switzerland (and Canada and Iceland) they've been able to do it because they are outrageously rich from very nasty, dangerous, dare i say 'evil' means.   With Norway it is unrestrained resource extraction.  Fish,  Metals.  Oil.  Massive extraction at a extinction rate.  This is the dark side of such a wonderful place.

Nothing is simple unfortunately.   Keep in mind that it is such a 'perfect' place to live (and i think it is!), while you read this short, horrifying interview.  Norway's Foreign Minister on arctic drilling, with it's accompanying maps & charts.

October Streets ridden

In September i rode 342 miles, 97 miles less than last year.   I volunteer for a bike ride in the San Juan Islands every year and this year i was in a car instead of on the bike, that more than made up for the difference.  Here's where i rode in September.  (Blue is bus rides and train rides)

Here's a blow up of the central city.  (The green is riding the Octobike with 7 other people in the Arts parade.)

I rode 403 miles in October.  Fifty miles more than last year.  Here's the big map.

and the city map.

I do love Autumn!

October Light Rail Tunnel Map update

Currently there are three TBM, Tunnel Boring Machines, digging 21 foot diameter holes through the hill i live on. Sound Transit has a page with the most current (generally monthly) project update.

Last month i posted maps that show the location of each machine.  The October data was released this week, so here are the locations.

Brenda is digging the first of 2 tunnels from Broadway and Denny to Pike & 9th while Balto & Togo are digging from the University Station to Broadway and John.

Brenda is currently under Union St at Bellevue Ave, a block past the Northwest School.

Balto is at E Louisa St between 20th Ave E & 22nd Ave E

Togo is at E Lynn St between 19th Ave E & 20th Ave E

Autumnal Rides

We did an absolutely glorious 60 mile ride on Tuesday and another nice, shorter, Autumnal ride today.

On Tuesday I took light rail to Tukwila. I really do like the light rail, it's so easy and comfortable and it gets me out of the city quickly. A lot of these south end rides would not be possible with out it.

There's a wonderful piece of artwork at the Tukwila station that i like.

They still haven't fixed the elevator button labels, and i still have to stare at them confused every time.

I went down the steep hill to the intersection of the Interurban Trail, the North Green River Trail and the South Green River trail and met the group there. Nadine led us through Renton along a nice route that avoided the worst of the major streets to the Cedar River Trail. We stopped at a Fall farmers stand and got some banana bread and apples (and took some photos with pumpkins which i will post once Emily sends them to me). Once we finished the portion of the trail along the freeway we were in the forest. It was glorious. Emily had never been on it and she was amazed. I love that trail and this day, with the crisp, clear, cool air, the crunchy leaves on the trail and brightly colored leaves on the trees. It was perfect.

At the end of the trail we climbed up from Landsburg to the few rolling hills along to Black Diamond. We stopped for a QUICK sandwich at Black Diamond Bakery. (it's easy to get bogged down there with all the food. And Pie!) And then it was just a couple of miles until we headed downhill off the ridge in to the Green River Valley. We had actually climbed quite a bit on the trail, and then out to Black Diamond so dropping off this ridge was very dramatic, as you can see from this profile of the ride.

From there it was a gentle downhill through horse farms and pastures, with ridges on either side. Wonderful.

Today we again met at the trail intersection (i took light rail again) and rode up the Green River trail, through South Park to Alki beach for fish and chips, then back. I split off at the Boeing plant south of South Park on the return, and rode home along Airport Way and up through Judkins Park. (I stopped at Goodwill and picked up some great wool pants for cycling along the way.)

The leaves were nice, the dew was heavy, the air was crisp and we had a fun ride.

Emily & Karen under the Autumn Leaves on the Green River Trail

Alan & Linda

Nadine

Karen, Demlza, Emily, Linda

On the way north we stopped off at Jack Block Park which has great views of the port, the bay, downtown and the Puget Sound. We took a group photo.

Linda, Demelza, me, Emily, Alan, Nadine, Karen

The woman who took our photo for us was also on a bike ride. She was riding a wonderful old folding bike.

Nice old Raleigh folding bike

Long shadows on the trail in the afternoon

It was a wonderful Autumn day and i was very happy to be on the bike.

Thursday Night Route Choices

One of the great things that has happened in the last couple of years at Bike Works is the social aspect. When i started volunteering at the bike repair work parties on Thursday nights i always enjoyed the ride home. Those night time rides are glorious: the streets are empty, wet or dry, cold or warm, it's just so nice to be out in the night. But it was a bit of a downer riding alone.

In the last 12 to 18 months we've developed a nice group of folks who ride north together almost every week. It's an enormous amount of fun -- a bicycle gang running through the dark city at 10pm. It's social and all bike geeky too. We chat and argue and enjoy riding together. We learn from each other: from conversation of course, from riding styles, from bikes, and we learn different parts of the city from each other.

One of the very cool things about these rides is the way people slowly peel off the group as we roll through the city from neighborhood to neighborhood. We might start out with 6 or 7 people, someone will peel off after a mile, and then a mile later someone else will peel off. By the time we get to Broadway there might be only a couple of us, sometimes more, sometimes fewer. I'd love to see a map plot animation of each person peeling off.

Every week as we gather out front of Bike Works preparing to ride home, there is the issue of which route we will take this week. It's about 6 miles from Columbia City to Broadway. There are 7 basic routes with plenty of variants on each. Each route has benefits and drawbacks, supporters and opposition. We've ridden all of them, and most have at one time or another been the default route.

I draw many of my rides on my topo maps, and sometimes take a GPS with me, so i made an image with all seven rides on it, measured the distance and total climb on each. I was a little surprised that 5 of the different routes are essentially the same distance, one is a bit longer, and one is significantly shorter. I thought there would be more variance.

In blue, the beautiful Lake Washington Boulevard route is the longest at 7.0 miles and has the most climbing with 537 feet.

In purple is the zig-zag route, or the 31st route (i call it Melanie's route, because she's the one who showed it to me). It's 6.5 miles with 462 feet of climbing.

In green, the Beacon Hill route is 6.3 miles, with 495 feet of climbing.

In red, a little flatter is the city's official marked Letitia route. It's 6.2 miles and 399 feet up.

In white i've occasionally ridden via Renton Ave. It's 6.2 miles and 447 feet up.

In yellow, directly up MLK is 6.1 miles with 384 up, often seen as a 'quick' route.

And in black, mixing with the heavy traffic directly on Rainier Blvd the whole way is only 4.3 miles with 374 feet of climbing.

I usually rate the hilliness of a ride by calculating feet per mile of climbing. All of these routes come in above my arbitrary Seattle average of 50.0 feet per mile; most are around 65 feet per mile. Strangely that makes Rainier the steepest, at 88.0 feet per mile -- but probably only because it is so such a shorter distance.

Mapping the progress under Capitol Hill

Currently there are three TBM, Tunnel Boring Machines, digging 21 foot diameter holes through the hill i live on. Sound Transit has a page with the most current (generally monthly) project update. However, it shows the distance in feet that each machine has dug, there is no map, no clue exactly where the machines are. I've asked Sound Transit to provide that kind of page, but they have not. And, in fact, they seem to be a little worried about people knowing where the machines are. They insisted for the first 2 months that they had not started digging under the Montlake Cut, until one day they suddenly announced that they had completed the tunnels under the canal. The tunnel is less than one tunnel diameter below the bottom of the water!

Since i plotted the route of the tunnel on a USGS map when they first released the route, i figured today that i could plot the progress report too. So here are three maps that show the locations, according to the Sept 27 progress report, of each Boring Machine.

Brenda is digging from Broadway and Denny to Pike & 9th. (There will be a second run for Brenda to dig the second tunnel.)

Balto & Togo are digging from the University Station to Broadway and John.
Balto

Togo

In addition, that progress report page is dynamic. It only shows the most current update and i could not find any way to read previous updates. (So if you're reading this in the future, that link will not show you the data i was working from). I will try to post maps every time they release a new progress report, no promises though.