Pedaling Peterson hits ultimate trail

Spokane Valley’s grande dame of outdoor pursuits is preparing for her ultimate Joy ride.

On June 2, Joy Peterson plans to join a half-dozen cyclists and begin pedaling her 17-year-old, built-like-a-tank Nishiki from Prudhoe Bay to the tip of South America.

If all goes as planned, she would complete the 16,000-mile tour in April.

By then, Joy would be 81.

I mention her age up front simply to get beyond it, because Joy’s distinction in the outdoors goes way beyond her years.

Peppering her with questions Wednesday was like playing a computer game in which every scene has layers upon layers of discoveries.

For instance, when she said, “I’ve been to Mount Rainier,” you must prod to learn that she’s hiked the 95-mile Wonderland Trail around the mountain and she was thinking of scaling the peak this summer to become the oldest woman to reach its summit.

“But then this bike trip came up so Rainier will have to wait,” she said.

“I’m realistic,” she added. “I don’t know what kind of condition I’ll be in when I come back from this tour or whether I’ll come back at all. It’s that kind of trip. That’s what’s so exciting about it.”

Peterson said she’s been an outdoors girl since she was a Depression-era youngster helping her family live off the land on their 2.5-acre “farm” in Veradale. She recalled going out with her brother – Western Washington hall of fame basketball coach Chuck Randall – in a storm just to see what it was like to sit in the rain.

She logged years of service leading young scouts on 50-mile hikes and church groups on camping excursions before and after she tended her flock of five adopted kids. She taught backpacking at various schools, including Spokane Community College, but had a soft spot in her heart for special cases.

Thirty years ago, she led two boys from a broken home on a bicycle tour as a diversion to keep them out of trouble.

“Those boys were among my favorite partners because they were always available and willing to go off the trail and explore,” she said. “One of the boys ended up hiking and biking 3,500 miles with me all together. I can remember him worrying when I pedaled over White Pass on a five-speed and only three of them worked.”

Stacy Cossey, a broker at Smith Barney, was 12 and 13 when she hiked the Pacific Crest Trail through Washington and Oregon in three installments with Peterson.

“Of the many things I learned from my Aunt Joy, one was the names of all the plants and animals. Another was to bring a bag and pick up garbage,” she said.

“My middle name is recycle,” Peterson explained. “I’m Scotch, and proud of it.”

Among her fond memories: “Spending a night in a backcountry shelter with another hiker and a dog he’d named ‘Methane.’ “

Among her favorite places: “My sweetheart hike is in the Columbia Gorge. I go at the right time in June with the rhododendrons in full bloom and see nine waterfalls in 10 miles. Part of the trip is on a trail that’s been abandoned for years. Not many people want to go with me.”

What motivates her: “I have this compulsion that always says, ‘Go.’ I see those tracks leading up Mount Adams and my heart starts to follow.”

Judy Waring of Coeur d’Alene partnered with Peterson to backpack in the Blue Mountains a few years ago. Waring, a strong hiker at 68, said Joy is her match.

“Joy offered to carry all the food,” she said, noting that Peterson is just 100 pounds and 4-foot-10.

“I was leading, and Joy was like a little Trojan, babbling all the way. I wasn’t paying attention and I went up a wrong drainage and got us lost. It was late and I was terrified when we came to an abandoned hunter camp. I’m thinking this is where they will find our bones the next spring, but Joy’s delighted, poking around the old campsite, imagining how it had been. I was on the brink of tears and she was completely at ease.”

Peterson said biking and traveling with gray-haired people has advantages in winning hospitality from those she meets on the trail. In most cases, however, when evening looms she avoids comforts and campgrounds and, as she puts it, “I disappear in the woods.”

Equally game gray-haired outdoor fanatics aren’t growing on trees.

“I have a solo kayak and a two-seater because I have to do whatever I can to get partners,” she said. “That’s my biggest problem. People my age don’t want to go and younger people have to work.”

The zip in her step might come from her favorite camping breakfast, the foundation of which is oatmeal laced with seven spices, including a pinch of cayenne pepper.

In a box she’s mailing ahead for her first food cache in Fairbanks, Alaska, Peterson has carefully prepared her meals. She’ll bolster oatmeal with eight nuts each day: three almonds, two Brazils and three walnuts. She’s dried a variety of fruit, including huckleberries, to fortify the peanut butter.

The first leg of her trip will be mostly gravel and mud from Deadhorse to Fairbanks. “I’m bringing wool ski pants that are 80 years old and a chicken-feather sleeping bag, both of which I’ll dispose of in Fairbanks,” she said. “I’ll be wearing boots because I hear you have to push your bike a lot.”

She was wearing her Bloomsday T-shirt Wednesday as she swept into Two Wheel Transit like a tailwind. She finished second in her age division this year. “If I’d have known I was only a minute out of first, I’d have moved it a little, but I was taking it easy because I’d just had seven immunizations I needed for my trip.”

Inside the shop, mechanic Dave Mannino had put in $900 of labor and parts into her ancient bike. “We did the extreme makeover,” he said.

Peterson stood shoulder-high to the counter, weighing the pros and cons of tires and other gear as she coasted through her needs and hopes that her partners would be similarly free-wheeling. Then she left and the shop seemed deserted. Everybody stood silent for a few seconds before Jordan Keough spoke from behind the counter.

“That’s not a story,” he said. “That’s a book.”