October Bikerafting

I’ve been a little absent in posting new blog entires here, but I finally got around to adding one:

In keeping with my annual October bikerafting tradition, here is a trip from earlier this week. It’s a trip that I have not done previously, but is quite accessible from town. It’s really not a new concept for many backcountry adventurers in Alaska to use a packraft to cross a river, but people may not think of it in an urban setting where masterpieces of civil engineering are so readily available. This trip was fully self contained with no driving needed.

I started out on the Richland side of the Columbia River and rode my bike through Chamna trails and over the bridge to the Pasco side of the river. From there, I rode north along paved roads and canal gravel until I reached the general vicinity of “Carbody Beach”. I inflated the packraft and loaded my bike on to prepare to paddle. I paddled across the Columbia River and followed the Richland shoreline all the way back downstream ~6 miles to Leslie Groves Park (Home turf for the Tri-City Bike Polo players). At the park, I deflated the packraft and reloaded the bike with all of my gear. I then headed out to join up with the Tapteal Trail out near Horn Rapids golf course. Once on the Tapteal trail, there is some heavy sand to contend with and I had quite a large harvest of goat-head/tackweed collected by my tires. After adding more sealant and pumping up my tires a few times, I then worked my way back to where I started to complete the full loop. All-in-all another fantastic fall day to be on the water and on the bike.

General Route here: https://ridewithgps.com/routes/48826386