Wednesday, July 12, 2017

2016 John Wayne Pioneer Trail - Day 7

Once you leave Lind you will need your permit from the Washington State Parks as the gate codes differ. From Marengo we set off for Ewan and a plan to spend a night in the town of St. John.  We were almost out of Central Washington and the Palouse and noticed the ecology beginning to change - more trees, marshes and vegetation.  Several of the canyon cut-throughs were super marshy and soggy.

We chose to ride on into St. John as a treat towards the end of our trip; however, you can stop in Ewan and then continue on via the Rock Lake detour.  This detour is extremely important to follow due to the fact that there is a caved in tunnel, a rock slide and non-existent trestles, and private property that the owner has not permitted access to. The road detour I describe below does take you pretty close to Rock Lake where you can see the lake and the old trestle and tunnel. St. John is a lovely spot to detour to - many services (restaurants, B&B, hotel, grocery store, etc.) and you can camp at the fairgrounds where there are restrooms to clean up in. There are no services in Ewan, but you could potentially ask for water from one of the house in this sweet little town.  There also appears to be a church here that you could potentially camp at for the night.  You could also choose to ride from Marengo to Pine City. There are no services in Pine City, but you could perhaps ask for water from one of the houses and you could seek shelter and camping near the grain silos where the trail begins again.  I have provided several different directions for riding options below.

Trail riding notes:

  • Riding from Marengo to Ewan, then detouring to St. John; it is approximately 7 miles from Ewan to St. John: the trail mostly continues from Marengo to Ewan with several gates that have challenging locks to open. At one point you ride onto Wagner Road and it eventually joins the trail again, but there is little to no signage. When you reach Ewan the trestle is gone so you need to take the steep downhill road to the right and drop down to Highway 23; to continue to St. John you turn right onto Hwy 23 and ride until you reach St. John.
  • Riding from Marengo to Ewan, Rock Lake detour to Pine City: When you reach Ewan the trestle is gone so you need to take the steep downhill road to the right and drop down to Hwy 23; pretty much directly across the highway is WR Damrell Road, this becomes Rock Lake Road; follow for a little over 1 mile and then turn right onto Gene Webb Road, this dead-ends into a T where you will turn left onto Stephen Road; follow for approximately 13.5 miles where the road dead-ends into a T where you will turn left onto Pine City-Malden Road; follow this road for 0.7 miles and then turn right at the grain silos back onto the JWPT.
Trail angels: Joe at the golf course in St. John let us camp at the RV park by the fairgrounds. Tammy at the tavern let us use the phone and kept the kitchen open so we could eat our first meal not out of a bag. A lovely couple at Ewan let us know the road was pretty flat into St. John.

Memorable moments: Discovered that we needed an actual permit from Lind to Tekoa from the state, not just a Discover pass.  Managed to call the Ranger and get our permit and she was gracious enough to give us the codes, but neither worked.  First gate lift-over of the day and another later on; lots of other gates that we either went around or were able to make the locks open. Mama and I ran over a bull snake, but it was OK! Ended up riding on private property we weren't supposed to, but the gate opened and there was a state parks sign (**caveat: I believe this has changed as the maps now show trail access is permitted). Spectacular habitats and ecosystems with underground springs causing lush vegetation and animal life. Deep, heavy river rock to ride through. Went through gorgeous columnar basalt formations that looked like forts and other structures. Cows kept running alongside us in one pasture. Had to cross two small marshy spots. Take Wagner Rd until joins trail again, several spots riding on gravel type easements, poor signage and really tough locks to open; Hwy 23 to St. John. Mama fell arriving at our campsite, Rachel fell in the thick gravel. Saw two huge cargo jets fly over.

Wildlife sightings: Lots of red tailed hawks and other birds, 2 coyotes, 1 deer, Fly catchers (?) with nest, Yellow headed blackbird, mama duck and babies, Osprey and nest.

Vital stats:
58 canyon cuts
5 bridges/trestles
1 waterfall
34.93 miles
ATM = 5:03:26
MXS = 15 mph
AVS = 6.8 mph

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