Day 3
The plan for day 3 was much shorter, and required much less climbing, than the previous day. But I eventually learned that I underestimated Eastern Washington.
In the morning, I hopped on the bike and enjoyed some tailwind on the last bit of the Methow Valley. This is along the Methow, looking ahead at the town of Pateros. The bridge ahead marks the spot where the Methow dumps into the Columbia.
In my 2016 tour, I did not cross the bridge, instead turning right and heading south down the Columbia. Today is where my tours diverge: I turned left to cross the bridge, and headed east up the Columbia.
Much of Eastern Washington is desert, but there is also extensive farming.
After a while, I came to Chief Joseph Dam.
Chief Joseph Dam is purely used as a hydroelectric plant: the reservoir behind the dam has very little capacity, and is not used for anything besides power generation.
After Chief Joseph, I left the Columbia behind for most of the rest of the day: I was heading farther up the river, but the road itself runs through the desert. And that's where things got surprisingly tough: strong headwinds, high temperatures, and undulating terrain rapidly drained me.
Deep in the desert is where the first signs of an overuse injury appeared. I've known for a long time that the cleats on my MTB shoes were too far forward, and I've lazily neglected to do anything about it. This tour finally called me out on it, inflicting damage to my right achilles.
On a better note, after the long trip through the desert, I came back to the Columbia River, and to a highlight of the day: Grand Coulee Dam.
Grand Coulee Dam has a misleading name: it's located near the head of the upper Grand Coulee, but it does not dam the Grand Coulee, it dams the Columbia River gorge.
It has two major roles. Besides having an enormous power generation capacity (double the aforementioned Chief Joseph Dam), it's the source and centerpiece of the Columbia Basin Project, rerouting Columbia River water for irrigation. It provides water to about 600,000 acres of land that would otherwise be too arid to farm, and it would be possible to add another 500,000 acres if the project were expanded.
Now, although I said that the name was misleading, Grand Coulee Dam does have quite a lot to do with the Grand Coulee.
The Grand Coulee is an enormous canyon, with an upper and a lower basin, formed by cataclysmic floods during the last ice age. As part of the Columbia Basin Project, earth dams were built at both ends of the upper Ground Coulee, so that the coulee could contain water: Grand Coulee Dam pumps water from the Columbia River hundreds of feet up into the Upper Grand Coulee, creating the artificial Banks Lake, from which the irrigation water flows.
From Grand Coulee Dam, I rode up the hill to the Grand Coulee and Banks Lake.
Pictured here is the shore of Banks Lake within the Upper Grand Coulee. The butte is Steamboat Rock, a feature within the coulee that the cataclysmic floods failed to erode: it stands just as tall as the coulee walls. I finished the day's ride at Steamboat Rock State Park campground.