Day 1: Seattle to North Bend, WA

Total Miles: 48

Elevation: +1681 / -1670

Temperature: 87

Today, we headed out from John and Kathy Saul’s house, leaving Seattle and making our way east.

We spent a short time on roads and then picked up the Burke-Gilman, Sammamish (several sections), Creek, Issaquah Creek, and Preston-Snoqualmie Trails. This was a mix of gravel and asphalt, with a long gradual uphill into the mountains along a gravel trail that felt very much a mix of hiking and biking, and then another long climb on the road leading to Snoqualmie Falls.

The lunch stop today was a food truck serving wood-fired pizza. Repping the OSU vibe, siblings Mary Jo and John were decked out in matching bike shirts, and the Michigan fans in the group tried not to take it (too) personally.

There was beautiful scenery aplenty, and Queen Mt. Rainier showed up in all her glory.

One highlight of the day was our climb to Snoqualmie Falls - breathtaking!

We rode into North Bend, home of the Twede’s Cafe (Twin Peaks fans?) and a great bakery.

We had the pleasure of experiencing a town-wide power outage around dinner time. But, otherwise, the day was a success, and we look forward to getting onto the road tomorrow to see what’s next!

Highlights:

We started the ride!!!!

Beautiful trail system out of Seattle

Snoqualmie Falls was beautiful.

Lowlights:

The town of North Bend blew a transformer. Their only transformer. Welcome to small town life.