Sumas & Vicinity

Finally, I passed the 62-mile barrier with a seventy mile ride on Sunday. I've been wanting to ride to Silver Lake Park, very near to the Canadian border, about thirty-three miles northeast of Ferndale. I planned a route on Google maps, which gave me three alternative routes, but unfortunately the map I printed out didn't show very many crossroads, and the type was so tiny and grey I could barely read the road names it did show. I also have a Bellingham/Whatcom County bicycle map published by the Mt. Baker Bicycle Club, which helpfully shows the route of the proposed Bay-to-Baker Bicycle route, which would have been a good way to go, except that the route is actually still in the proposal phase, and doesn't actually exist yet. Furthermore, the names of the roads on the two maps, and the signage on the actual roads often don't match up, and out in the county, roads often sort of segue into other roads, without any definite turn-off. Actually.

In other words, I didn't make it to Silver Lake again. But I did ride to the border crossing at Sumas, then toured around the farm country east of town, before heading south until I connected with Mt. Baker Highway at Nugent's Corner. After that, I passed through a new roundabout on the highway, where I turned off to Smith Road to get back to Ferndale.

I had my first clip-out-fail of the season at the intersection of Hannegan Road and Front Street in Lynden, just as I got to the red light at the top of the hill. My right clip got stuck and I fell over in the crosswalk. Oops.

The first navigational problem I ran into was finding Hampton Road on my way of of Lynden. It seems all roads lead to Highway 546, which I didn't like riding last weekend, so I kept turning back trying to find Hampton. I finally hit upon it, and rode several (?) miles until the intersection with VanBuren Road, which would be the connection with the Bay-to-Baker bike route, once it exists. There is no signage for the route now, it's just marked on the bike map. I turned left here, aiming for Silver Lake.

This is cow, corn and blueberry country. It's curious the way the hills rise straight
 up from flat farm lands. I wish I knew what geological processes were at work here.
I think the grey triangular area on the right side of the blue hills is a landslide,
 I'm not sure how recent.

VanBuren Road lead me on to Hwy. 546, and I tried turning back again, but couldn't figure out how to connect to the route I wanted to use. At this point, I'd ridden almost ten extra miles trying to find my route. Realizing that if I tried to continue on to Silver Lake Park the ride would be much longer than I was prepared for, I decided to give in and follow the highway to Sumas, explore around a bit, then loop back homeward.

Sumas' business district is a lot more active than Ferndale, but much smaller than Bellingham. Several businesses are vacant, including two big truck service stations, I think former Shell and Chevron stations.

The Canadian border crossing

A lot of the businesses are car-centered - gas stations with convenience stores, and auto repair shops. There is a pretty little public park, but the restrooms were locked. Instead, I went to a giant log-cabin-style gas and convenience store on Cherry St. with a clean and accessible bathroom, where I could also get an americano and ice cream, and sit outside on a shady lawn to read my maps.

Young corn

I thought, on leaving Sumas, I would ride Cherry St. to Halverstick Road, then turn off to North Telegraph Road and follow that south to South Pass Road in Everson and head west toward home from there. However, inside Sumas city limits, Halverstick is called Front Street (or possibly Main or First . . . ). I made a guess on that point and hit the right road anyway, but when I got to the probable turn off to North Telegraph, I discovered the road was actually Hwy. 547, which is much like Hwy. 546, and not nice to ride. But there was an interesting looking gray-paved farm road called Rock Road heading east parallel to the border, so I decided, what the hell, see where it goes. It turned out to be a very nice ride, connecting to the zig-zagging Hillview Road which runs near the base of the mountains.

On the way to Sumas my speed held pretty steady at 14-15mph average with a light tail-wind. Hillview Road was a lucky choice once I turned back because it tacked across the wind rather than heading straight into it all the way, so I didn't have to struggle so much to keep my speed up.

I might have to consider learning to use GPS to figure out where I've been. I'm pretty sure I went south via Telegraph Road and Siper Road to Nugent's Corner, where I turned right/west to Hwy. 542. I crossed the Nooksack river and rode up the hill until I encountered the new roundabout on the Mt. Baker Hwy., where I decided to take Smith Road all the way back to Ferndale. It's a long, straight shot, with good bike lanes but high-speed car traffic, and some steepish rolling hills.

A common affliction of cyclists

New roundabout on Mt. Baker Hwy.