Thursday, October 22, 2015

Lost in the Woods (Cedar River and Green River) (2015-10-17)

I rode out on the Cedar River Trail and down the connector trail until it sort of "vanished." After that, I wandered in the woods for a couple hours before finding a bike trail to the highway, which got me to the Green Valley. From there, getting home was easy.

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More after the break…

Outbound

The night before this ride, I was hosted by a generous former coworker and her husband to discuss randonneuring, super randonees, and PBP. This is relevant here because I had to start this ride at about 08:30 due to how late I got to bed after that.

I started by heading over to Capitol Hill up Pike St, then rode down Broadway's cycletrack.

And then crossed the José Rizal Bridge and headed down over Beacon Hill. However, my route sent me on a number of odd side streets.

After missing my planned turn onto the Chief Sealth Trail by a few blocks, I cut over and got onto it.

It really is a gem of a trail here.

Once I got near Rainier Beach, I headed down the hill and got onto Rainier Avenue to head toward Renton.

After entering Renton, I went along the little road through the airport that the Lake Washington Loop officially follows, then went into downtown Renton where I stopped for a water refill and then some.

He went on about my Salsa Cowchipper Bars, big tires, frameset, and so on. Eventually, a guy riding an underbone caught his attention and I left, getting onto the Cedar River Trail.

Shortly after the pavement ended, I took the south fork of the trail and went up the steep climb.

And continued along that way.

I eventually got to the railroad tracks and just pushed my bike over them, as that was my plan from the start.

And then continued up the other side to the dirt trail.

Eventually, I found the abandoned railroad tracks that originally occupied the right of way.

Unfortunately, the trail didn't keep going.

Lost in the Woods

From the tracks, I rode with little bits of hiking around sketchy stuff.

And eventually made it to a place where I took the left fork, which sent me straight toward buildings. This turned out to be private property, so I didn't want to go near the buildings. Instead, I rode across a bumpy meadow back into the forest then started hiking the hiking trails, trying to find my way to the highway.

I found a fairly straight trail and rode it for a bit until I approached what my GPS said was a street, then tried to head toward it. I eventually ended up edging along an office property, but it was fenced in and had blackberry bushes, so I had to turn back.

I then eventually ended up along the edge of a housing development, but I didn't see a way through. Dogs started barking after a while, so I high-tailed it out of there.

I eventually found my way back to the straight trail…which lead straight to the highway. After wasting something like two hours, I was finally out.

Rather unhappy, I went to the Black Diamond Bakery for a root beer float and some coffee.

Inbound

I left Black Diamond by following the highway to the road down into the Green Valley, then followed the latter.

And kept following the valley all the way into Auburn.

Once I got to Auburn, I hung a left and stopped by a familiar coffee shop for, well, coffee.


I then returned to the road along the Green River and took it into Kent, overshooting the entrance of the trail I had originally intended to take. Since I did that, I found may way down to the trail a little further on, then headed back toward the entrance along it.

Much to my surprise, I found that it didn't actually pass under the BNSF mainline.

However, I just went under the bridge to get to the other side, anyway.

And went to the entrance, only to start heading along the trail again.

On the way back to the BNSF mainline, I was minding my own business on the far right of the trail and a guy walking the other way shouted curse words loudly in my ear right when I passed him. I responded, "I can't hear you!" a few seconds later, not turning back to face him, of course.

After a while, I noticed that the trail degraded.

But I eventually made it onto a road that I took to where the main portion of the Green River Trail meets the Interurban Trail, and took the former for a while. I switched over to Frager Road at a point, which was a lovely ride with nary a soul around..

Eventually, I had to get back onto the Green River Trail. This involved hanging a right, then turning around and veering left to go under a bridge I had crossed. Eventually, I ran into the detour I knew about and rode a side street, following the signs that directed me to a stair climb.

From there, I stuck to the trail all the way until South Park, then crossed the Duwamish River There. East Marginal Way was pretty dead that far south, so it was a fine ride. I saw a guy doing something similar to what I was doing as I got further along.

And then I stopped by at a Mexican restaurant with the kindest older women waiting the tables.

From there, I headed home along East Marginal Way, 1st Avenue S, and then my typical route home. I used 6th Avenue instead of 4th Avenue past Pike Street since the former is less annoying traffic-wise.

I got home fairly late for the distance.

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