The pedestrian bridge at NE 80th St in Kirkland has been closed indefinitely because of recently discovered damage. Four permanents are affected. Rerouting is fairly easy using NE 85th St or NE 70th Pl/NE68th St.
Affected permanents:
Thanks to Mark Thomas for the tip.
Filed under Permanent Change, Permanents
Thanks to fantastic work by government agencies and independent organizations a bypass trail around the large slide that closed the trail between Rattlesnake Lake and Olallie State Park officially opens on June 5. Additionally the damaged sections at Carter Creek and west of Lake Easton have been repaired. All permanents using the trail will be rideable starting June 5. Several permanents that start at Olallie State Park and Hyak are already rideable. (All pending reactivation by RUSA).
The bypass trail is narrow. Washington State Parks asks that you walk your bike on the bypass.
There are reports of loose gravel in the Whittier Tunnel, aka tunnel 49, west of Lake Easton.
Current information from Washington State Parks.
Permanents on the trail include:
3653 Iron Horse Trail
4180 Wet Side-Dry Side
4882 Snoqualmie Valley, Middle Fork, Snoqualmie Tunnel
5081 Iron Horse & Middle Fork
5115 Three Lakes and a Tunnel
5175 The Real Northern Exposure
5789 The Shortened Real Northern Exposure
5790 Homestead Valley-Easton on the Iron Horse Trail
Thanks to Dave Harper for alerting me to this news.
Filed under Permanent Change, Permanents
On June 1 King County will close the ELST through the end of the year for the George Davis Creek culvert replacement project. The location is midway between NE Inglewood Hill Rd and Louis Thompson Rd NE.
The trail will be completely severed during construction. Riders will have to detour to the adjacent East Lake Sammammish Parkway, if it too is not closed. A large number of permanent routes are affected.
According to King County, there will not be a bicycle detour. Typically this means no accommodation will be made for bikes on the road, such as a coned-off lane or wayfinding detour signs.
The culvert under East Lake Sammammish Parkway will also be replaced. The status of the Parkway during construction is unclear. Official messaging has been inconsistent. The latest verbal information an SIR member obtained from the City of Sammammish is that the road will remain open. Likely there will be delays at the construction zone.
Presuming the Parkway remains open, riders can detour on the Parkway. We do not know exactly where the north and south ends of the closure will be, so right now cannot recommend where to exit to the Parkway and later return to the trail. Keep in mind property owners adjacent to the trail are jealous of their private roads and driveways.
In the event the Parkway is entirely closed, riders will have to climb and descend Louis Thompson and Inglewood Hill Rds along with detoured car traffic. In this case, routes not using the ELST will be more attractive.
Stay tuned.
Links:
https://www.sammamish.us/news/2026-construction-projects and search for “trail”.
Filed under Permanent Change, Permanents, Uncategorized
Update 5/2/26: The closure east of Hyak is still in place.
Update 5/1/26: The closure east of Hyak has been lifted.
For us on the west side of the Cascades, riding season on the Palouse to Casades Trail traditionally starts with the Snoqualmie Tunnel opening on May 1. But randonneuring season the trail will be delayed this year. The P2C trail suffered impassable damage in several places during the ’25-’26 winter. Initially the outlook was dismal; significant repairs were not expected to be possible this year. Fortunately major work is underway. The full trail should be rideable later in summer.
A widely-reported landslide in December 2025 severed the trail between Rattlesnake Lake and the Mt Washington trailhead in Olallie State Park. Initially repair was not anticipated this year. But thanks to Washington State Parks, the Washington State Parks Foundation, Evergreen Mountain Bike Alliance, and King County a temporary bypass is being constructed. The bypass is anticipated to open after June 15.
Additional damage farther up the trail caused a second closure beginning near Carter Creek Campground and extending to the tunnel. Repairs to this section are paused because crews and equipment were diverted for higher-priority repair of severe damage near Lake Easton. A reopening date for the Carter Creek closure is unknown presently.
Until these repairs are finished, riding any permanents that use the trail between Rattlesnake Lake and the tunnel is either impossible or requires unattractive detours on I-90.
Prior to learning about the second closure and the damage east of the tunnel, two routes starting at Olallie State Park were created, but are moot until all repairs are finished:
Information about the current condition of this part of the trail is available at the WA State Parks P2C West page.
Update 5/3/26: The P2C Central page has been updated to state the trail is still closed from Monahan Rd to Stampede Pass Rd. This is a shorter section than indicated on the map below, but still means you cannot ride from Hyak to Lake Easton.
Update 5/1/26: The closure between Hyak and Lake Easton has been lifted. The state of the trail surface is unknown. Loose gravel has been reported in the Whittier Tunnel.
The section below is now out of date still relevant.
A landslide on March 23, 2026, east of Hyak damaged the trail, the railroad, and power lines west of Lake Easton. The trail is closed at the west from the Whittier Tunnel (aka Tunnel 49), to the east at Monahan Rd. The only detour is 7 miles on I-90, including a construction zone with skinny shoulders. Repairs in this area are anticipated to be complete around the beginning of June. Recent reports are that the construction zone is rideable, but you should check with the P2C Central office whether the trail is open during work hours.
You can find current info this part of the trail on the WA State Parks P2C Central page.
Comments Off on Palouse to Cascades Trail: Not as bad as it could have been
Filed under Permanent Change, Permanents
High river flow during the storms in December 2025 scoured and destabilized the embankment that carries the Cedar River Trail about three miles from the trail’s eastern end at Landsburg. The embankment and trail surface have eroded significantly in the last month. The trail will likely collapse soon. Crossing the closed section of the trail is far too dangerous, despite local residents continuing to walk and bike across it.
Most people were probably unaware the trail was so close to the river here.
King County has furnished no information about repairs. Given that the embankment is not a levee protecting a flood zone, repairing the trail probably has low priority. Fortunately the damaged section can be bypassed on residential streets:
Four permanents have been rerouted. The routes are slightly shorter and lost some gravel credit, but gained a 15% surprise.
0401 Leschi-Auburn-Leschi
0848 Mercer Island-Selleck
1076 Southern Exposure
5709 Cedar River Wilderness Run
Comments Off on Rerouting near the east end of the Cedar River Trail
Filed under Permanent Change, Permanents, Uncategorized
The last mile or so of the Snoqualmie Valley Trail is closed to bicycles and pedestrians very close to Rattlesnake Lake. The trail is being used for vehicle access to residences on Edgewick Rd while Edgewick is being repaired. Edgewick is not a detour option. The SVT should reopen in early April according to King County.
Detour options are not good. The route beginning with 136th Ave SE at I-90 is strongly discouraged due to extreme grades, poor sightlines, and fast drivers. A safer option is to follow permanent 4078 Snakebit backwards from North Bend. This is a substantially more difficult route than the SVT’s nice railroad grade. The best option is probably to choose other routes while the SVT is closed.
Note that permanents continuing up the Palouse to Cascades Trail (Iron Horse) past Rattlesnake Lake are deactivated due to the serious washout that occurred in December. The rideability of most of those routes is moot anyway while the Snoqualmie Tunnel is closed for winter.
Comments Off on Snoqualmie Valley Trail Closure near Rattlesnake Lake
Filed under Permanent Change, Permanents, Uncategorized
Starting February 1, 2024, gravel credit and timing will apply to permanents with unpaved portions! Relaxed timing should open up new terrain and gnarlier routes should become accessible to a wider variety of riders.
An extra minute is allowed to complete a route for every kilometer of gravel. The extra time allowance is computed by adding up all the gravel segments in a route, then dropping any fractional kilometer. (Ride with GPS displays the summary unpaved distance.) For example, at the minimum average speed of 15 kph, a 200 km route has a basic time allowance of 4 min/km, or 800 minutes. If the route has gravel segments of 20.6 km and 2.2 km, the sum is 22.8 km. Thus the extra time is 22 minutes. The total time limit is 822 minutes or 13 hours 42 minutes. This is the same rule that has been used for RUSA gravel brevets and populaires.
RUSA’s RwGPS routes contain the overall time limit in the final cue. Presently the time limit is based on 4 min/km. After Feb 1 the volunteers will begin updating gravel routes with the extra time allowance. It will take some time to work through all the routes. If you are unsure whether a time limit has been updated, you can check it yourself with the method described above.
RUSA’s results logger, where you enter your elapsed time, has been updated with gravel distances. It will know the correct time limit regardless of whether the time limit in the RwGPS route has been updated.
Gravel permanent kilometers will be tracked in your results and apply toward gravel awards.
To check whether a route is a gravel route, use the Permanents Search function at rusa.org > Permanents > Search. The results will list unpaved distance. For example, searching WA routes of 100-199 km gives:
Baked Goods and Cle Elum-Hyak-Cle Elum contain unpaved distance, so you would get gravel credit and timing for riding them.
RwGPS might say a route has unpaved distance yet RUSA does not show any unpaved distance. Reasons could be:
Surface-type information comes from the crowd-sourced Open Street Map project. Surface-type data is missing or incorrect for some roads, leading to errors in unpaved distance. If you notice errors when riding, such as unmapped unpaved segments, or incorrect unpaved distance, you can report errors with the form at rusa.org > Permanents > Permanent Route Update Request. (If you’re really dedicated, you can also correct OpenStreetMap yourself. Then routes created in the future will have the right surface type.)
Comments Off on Gravel Permanents
Filed under Permanents
Last summer a portion of the trestle across Fidalgo Bay was burned. Reconstruction finished ahead of schedule last month. Three permanents were affected. They can be ridden now without detouring onto Hwy 20:
3040 San Juans Shuttle, 3043 Snohomish-Anacortes, 3044 Snohomish-Anacortes-Snohomish
I know you all missed chancing your tires on the broken oyster shells.
Thanks to Matt Kreger for alerting me to this news.
Comments Off on Tommy Thompson Trail Trestle Reopened
Filed under Permanents
Lots of new routes have been created since my last post about routes.
#04367 Divas 2 Good 2 Stoup, 105 km, designed by Mark Thomas, was the route used for the Divas Populaire.
#04412 Redmond-Golden Gardens, 102.4 km, was contributed by Randy Oakley. Apart from the Missing Link in Ballard, it is entirely on the Burke-Gilman and Sammamish Valley Trails. At 47.8 km the route has a curious left turn onto the Burke-Gilman from Shilshole Ave that involves getting on the right-hand sidewalk along Shilshole. SDOT has done what it could to ensure cyclists make the turn under the protection of the traffic light. Please study the map and execute the turn as intended for your safety.
#4481 Packwood-Paradise-Packwood, 126 km, should be a spectacular route once the wildfires pass this year. Note Stevens Canyon Rd is only open Fri-Sun this year due to construction.
#4509 Cle Elum-Hyak-Cle Elum, 100 km, is 92% on gravel on the Iron Horse Trail.
#4454 Southworth-Belfair-Keyport-Bainbridge, 104 km, is a scenic and rather strenuous route with 4200 ft of climbing. If you find this route unchallenging you can move on to:
#4518 Vashon Ramble, 102 km. Finally I worked out a route on Vashon! With 6500 ft of climbing don’t let the name lull you into taking it easy. Note Burma Rd is closed. The closure signs are on the side of road to allow local traffic to pass. Don’t mistake that for the road being passable. It is definitely cut.
Geoff Swarts has been busy constructing a loop around the Olympic Peninsula:
He also has some routes to get you down the Oregon coast:
#4536 Mazama-Chesaw-Mazama, 402 km, was created by request.
#2342 Four Pass Challenge, 605 km, was reactivated by request. This route climbs Stevens, Old Blewett, White, and Cayuse Passes in addition to traversing the Yakima River canyon.
#4180 Wet Side-Dry Side, 404 km, was updated for the closed trestle on the Issaquah-Preston trail.
If you are feeling mildewed this winter consider my new routes in Death Valley:
#4387 Dante’s Palette – Death Valley, 120 km, has a devilish 8000 ft of climbing to a peak elevation of 5460 ft.
#4390 Black Mountains Loop – Death Valley, 218 km, has yet more climbing but mercifully below 3400 ft elevation.
Comments Off on Permanent Route Updates
Filed under Permanent Change, Permanents
Someone set the trestle on fire last week. Cascadia Daily News. This is the trestle that crosses Fidalgo Bay approaching Anacortes. Several routes use the trestle:
3040 San Juans Shuttle, 3043 Snohomish-Anacortes, 3044 Snohomish-Anacortes-Snohomish
The routes will remain active. Detouring on highway 20 is straightforward. Leaving Anacortes there are side roads and a bike trail accessible at S Fidalgo Bay Rd about half a mile before the traffic circle on 20. You cannot use this trail and roads going into Anacortes because of the median barrier on 20 at S Fidalgo Bay Rd!
Comments Off on Tommy Thompson Trail Trestle Closed
Filed under Permanents