Today we cycled from our dispersed campsite at the Noxon Reservoir to the Kilbrennen Lake Campground. We had blue skies with a few clouds. The road surfaces were a mixture of paved and non-paved.
Riding statistics: on Friday June 14, 2024, the 37th day on the Western Wildlands Route route, it took 10:00h (06:48h moving time), between 06:51 and 16:52, to cover 113 km (70 miles), including 1419 m (4656 ft) elevation gain, with an average speed of 17 km/h (10 mph). During today's ride the average temperature was 25 °C (80 °F) with a minimum of 12 °C (54 °F) and a maximum of 42 °C (114 °F).
Totals: So far, it took 11 days, 10 hours, 4 minutes and 50 seconds of cycling time to cover 3950 km (2455 miles), including 44281 m (145286 ft) elevation gain, with an average speed of 14.7 km/h (9.1 mph).
4am in the morning and a truck passed our campsite. And another one, and another one. I think between 4:00 and 5:30 about six trucks drove by. Making a lot of noise on a climb on a dirt road. They were probably used for logging activities. There was no safety issue because we were not close to the road itself. It was more a noise issue. Once we got up at 6am, we have not seen any truck anymore. When I was getting my clothes on at 6, I heard rain drops on my tent. Oh my, would it get worse? I quickly continued hoping I could get all packed before it really gets wet. But when I opened my tent it was a false alarm. The clouds were already moving ahead and a clear blue sky appeared above us.
We continued where we stopped yesterday and cycled along the Noxon Reservoir. At the end of theake there was a huge power plant. Not much later we started to see more houses, these already were part of the town of Noxon. We would not visit Noxon, we crossed a wide river, that came from the power plant, and continued at the other side. There we stopped at a gas station, one of two options to get some food for today. We bought only the necessary and hoped the second option would also be open, a pizza / deli. It was open and we ordered a sandwich to go. We ate it later in the day, and it was amazing, kind like a Club Sandwich that we eat at home.
Feom here we had to take a paved road for a while until we had to take a right onto gravel. Not much later our climb started to Snake Pass (7km, +400m). The climb was quiet easy, we had a good road. The top of the pass was followed by a nice downhill. It was somewhat red.ote we only saw one truck when climb and descending the pass.
About 25km further we arrived at the town of Troy. Out last formal town before the border. Sow we had to get groceries for the rest of the day, tomorrow, and maybe for the morning the day after. There was a good grocery store and we could find everything we needed, and more (ice cream).
After Troy we had a few more smaller climbs to get to the Kilbrennen Lake Campground. It only had a few spots on a first come first get basis. Fortunately there was only one site taken, so we could pick whichever we wanted. We picked a nice campsite with a bear box, easy to store the food during the night. After dinner we got some rest.
According to the weather forecast, it could be our last summer day. They expect cooler temperatures for the days to come (13/14 degrees Celsius), and tomorrow a high chance of rain. Fingers crossed that it will not be too rainy.
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