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

Planning and Strategizing

During training we also had a lot of planning to do.  I used numerous resources to work on planning our trip:

• Figuring out detailed descriptions of the trail sections - I've included this document as well in our helpful links.  This will help you know approximate trail section distances, resources available along the way, resources in towns and also has lots of other references to check out.
• History - the John Wayne Pioneer Trail has a rich history that I have absolutely loved discovering and learning about.  I feel this is a very important part of riding the trail.  Learning about the history of this trail made the ride so much more memorable.  Please read the Friends of the John Wayne Pioneer trail website to learn about the trail.
• Trail etiquette - it is extremely important to follow trail etiquette.  There is much work being done to create a partnership between those who live alongside the trail, the towns the trail passes through, trail organizations/partners, and private land owners whose land the trail crosses.  In the process of these partnerships, sadly, some contention has arisen; especially related to gates and land crossings.  If a detour is required, especially if the detour is due to the trail crossing private land, you need to follow these detours.  Some detours you can change and ride on back farm roads; again, make sure these are not farm roads on private land.  If you camp along the trail, at campsites or in towns be sure you keep spaces clean; ask before using parks (all the cities/towns I emailed and reached out to were delighted to have us stay!); please be very respectful and friendly with the people you interact with.  I have not revealed names of some of our trail angels to respect their privacy, but at no point was anyone unkind or unfriendly when we asked for help, water or shelter.  People are very proud of this trail, its history, and the work being done to keep the trail alive and open.  Please help keep it this way!
• Maps - we used a satellite tracker from DeLorme (now run by Garmin) that allowed us to upload our intended route for each day so people could follow our journey and we would have a resource if any emergency arose.  I used Google maps to look very closely at detours, plan our route and then my dad would upload this information to mapshare.
• Gear, food, supplies, bikes, etc. - I could go on and on about these things, but this is all in our Resources Galore! page.  Please check it out!
• Reading other blogs and the history of the trail to gather intel and ideas.  We learned that the Snoqualmie Valley Trail is 31.5 miles long with ~948 feet of elevation gain.  We discovered that the JWPT is ~253 miles long from Rattlesnake Lake in Issaquah to the Washington-Idaho border north of Tekoa and that it is the longest rail-trail conversion in the United States.
• Rails-to-Trails Conservancy - this website is fabulous!  I used it to find maps, trail descriptions and as much information as possible about the trails we would be riding on.
• Permits - you will need two different ones.  A permit for the section of trail from Beverly to Lind that you acquire from the Department of Natural Resources.  The second permit is for the section of trail from Lind to Tekoa and you acquire this one from Washington State Parks.  You do not need a permit for the western section of the John Wayne Pioneer Trail; however, you should have a Discover Pass with you if you camp along this section (which you will!).  You need the permits for several reasons: they are required, rules of the trail are included (observing private property, closing and locking gates behind you, etc.), for the codes that will help you get through gates, and the permits include maps.
• Itinerary - this was a detailed document we gave to our support team with details of our route, mileage and where we intended to spend each night.  When we were out on the trail this became quite fluid based on what happened each day and how many miles we were actually able to ride.  Itinerary for Nick & Rachel's September 2016 ride and Itinerary for 2017 Ride

Planning & Strategizing