2016 John Wayne Pioneer Trail - Day 8

We treated ourselves the morning of day 8 to a glorious breakfast at the St. John Inn Cafe'! It was utterly fabulous to not eat oatmeal and such a great treat as it had rained pretty heavily the night before and we were cold and our gear was all wet.  Sandy was fortunate enough to find shelter under the picnic bench area at the fairgrounds.  This was doubly fortunate because since Doris/Huntzinger Road, Sandy had no poles and could not setup her tent or fly to be out of the elements.

We rode from St. John to Rosalia via back roads as we chose not to ride back to Ewan and take the Rock Lake detour; however, you could choose to ride back to Ewan  and take the Rock Lake detour. I've included directions below for back roads to Pine City from St. John.  In Rosalia, you are able to camp at the Rosalia City park and if you email ahead of time the mayor is willing to open the bathrooms where you can potentially shower and clean-up.  There is also potable water and a picnic shelter. You could easily walk up into town to have a meal as there are several restaurants and a market.  We were so grateful to lay out all of our wet gear in the sunshine and let it dry! The picnic shelter was extremely fabulous because it proceeded to pour rain all night and we were able to keep our gear dry.

Trail riding notes: From St. John you will need to ride back down Hwy 23 and turn right onto Pine City-Malden Road, follow this for approximately 9 miles until you reach Pine City. Turn right at the grain silos and onto the JWPT. If you do not go to St. John and ride from Marengo to Pine City, your day would begin in Pine City and you would be riding to Tekoa to finish the trail. When you ride this section you will ride through Rosalia and there is a brief detour here due to a trestle being out. I will provide the detailed riding notes for Tekoa in our Day 9 ride, but have included the information for Rosalia here. There are extremely steep and rugged trestle bypasses during this stretch, be sure to use caution as they can be very steep and overgrown so the trail bed is hidden and sometimes these lead down to road crossings and then quickly back up onto the trail. When you reach Rosalia, there is a trestle that is out requiring you to travel on the road for a brief distance; turn left onto W 7th St; take the first right onto Horlacher Road (if you cross the bridge you've gone too far); follow for 0.2 miles, then turn left onto the JWPT (you'll see the signs and gate).  After you get back up on the trail, there is a huge canyon cut-through that is a serious marsh; I would encourage you to wear water shoes or crocs to wade through as the water can be ankle deep.  As we were staying the night in Rosalia, we continued into Rosalia on W 7th St, turn right on S Park Ave, this dead-ends into a T at W 9th Street and the Rosalia City Park will be directly in front of you.

Memorable moments: Started our day off with a GLORIOUS breakfast at St. John Inn cafe' - so delicious!! Slept in picnic shelter in Rosalia, Nick brought us cookies and off-loaded a bunch of gear for us. Ate a ton of food to lighten our gear load! Started the day in off and on rain, then sunny and warm all afternoon/evening, did laundry at the spigots in Rosalia. Finding trees again in Pine City!

Wildlife sightings: 3 chipmunks, 2 Great Blue Herons, Rufous Hummingbird hovered in front of us in a gorgeous canyon we nicknamed 'Fern Gully', marmot, coyote pup checking us out on the trail

Vital stats:
6 canyon cut-throughs
8 bridges/trestles
1 gate locked and wouldn't open, second gate opened; we were able to get around the 1st gate by carefully maneuvering through the barbed wire fence
Stats before Rachel changed bike computer battery:
12.10 miles
ATM = 1:26:51
MXS = 26.5 mph
AVS = 8.3 mph
~1,280 lifetime miles on the odometer prior to battery change. Not working after battery change.

Mama's bike computer stats:
24.84 miles
ATM = 3:40:39
MXS = 23.6 mph
AVS = 6.7 mph

JWPT Day 8

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

JWPT Day 7