Rock Lake Ride

 

Like a lot of other small towns I had never heard of Malden before the fire last fall. So I did what I do. I looked it up on the map. Almost immediately the blue of Rock Lake southwest of Malden stood out to me as a natural feature. I noticed the dashed line depicting John Wayne Trail running along the south side of the lake. I had followed the JWT from page to page since moving to Spokane 7 years ago. It looked like there were plenty of gravel roads in the area and an intriguing spot called Hole In the Ground on the east end of the lake. This was enough for me to start thinking about a bike ride through the area.

After staring at the map for an hour and plotting I had a route around Rock Lake figured out. That is as long as my map was accurate which when it comes to secondary roads and dashes wasn’t always the case. I’d start on the west side and go clockwise through the hole, then east into Malden to see the ruins and return on the JWT. Likely being combination of shadeless Palouse and scablands I thought it would be a good springtime ride when the day would be cooler. I wasn’t real sure about the distance but 50ish miles sounded about right. Also I wasn’t sure about drinking water out there so going farther I’d likely need more than the 2 bottles my bike could hold.

A gradual uphill pavement warmup lead to my first turn. On to a gravel road with an energy sapping, deep, loose, slow going riding surface. High above the lake the clear bright day made for good lake views as the light breeze rolled across the low early season hay fields. The road surface turned to hardpack gravel at the sign that said road not maintained for winter travel. The landscape turned to more scabland than Palouse and there was actually more trees than I expected. A coulpe switchbacks around an old barn led me down to The Hole In The Ground. This is a really nice basalt canyon with some flowing water that meanders its way into Rock Lake. After the climb out at the next road junction a sign says gravel ends. I took the gravel ending road as the landscape turned back into Palouse and the gravel turned to dirt. I came out onto pavement just before Malden.

I made a tour of main street or what was left of it. At some point and maybe again in the future I could see a water stop here and maybe some refreshment in the park. The JWT was easy enough to find but within a mile I got to a burned out trestle. A recent fire victim no doubt. Luckily a paved road paralleled the trail with easy access back to the trail through a burned out property. Farther along was another burned out trestle, this time without the easy road access. I tiptoed across the burned out timbers using my bike as an outrigger as the creek ragged from spring runoff below. In Pine City the view opened up and I could see another burned trestle so I took a pavement to gravel to JWT detour. Back on course I encountered more trestles not burned and in fairly ridable service. There were also 2 tunnels with just enough curve so you couldn’t see light through to the other side without getting half way through.

Eventually the JWT made its way to the south rim of Rock Lake and the trail almost turned into singletrack for a while. A couple of rock slides and gates I encountered were easy enough to pass by. As planned the JWT dumped me out on the west side of Rock Lake where I had started a couple full water bottles earlier.