EV Scenic Byways: Coulee Corridor

Have you ever heard of the Missoula Floods? Up until a month ago, I hadn't either.

It was during a conversation with my school's two sixth grade science teachers last month that I first heard of the floods and got excited to explore eastern Washington's Coulee Corridor. Stretching from Omak to Othello is a region of channeled scablands and coulees (steep-sided ravines and gorges) formed from massive Ice Age floods some 15,000 years ago. An ice dam at Lake Missoula broke dozens of times, resulting in a series of catastrophic floods that carved out a large region of eastern Washington.

Dry Falls: When water flowed, it was five times the width of Niagara Falls!

Getting excited for a road trip is easy. Going on a road trip that is a first-ever documented journey in an all-electric Nissan LEAF is the tough part. For example, the only EV plug on a 175-mile stretch from Ellensburg to Spokane, Washington is in Moses Lake, at 68 miles from Ellensburg. We would not be driving as far east as Spokane this time, but there still was a need for charging solutions to cover the hundreds of miles that we'd be touring on this EVenture along the Coulee Corridor.

From western Washington, I decided to take a northern route, driving across Stevens Pass to the town of Pateros, 55 miles north of Wenatchee. A partnership between Plug-In North Central Washington and the Pateros Lakeshore Inn resulted in a high amperage Level 2 charging unit in this town, at the base of the Cascade Mountain range, within the past year. "Level 2" charging will provide most new Nissan LEAFs a complete charge in about 3-4 hours.

There was much fun to be had while charging in Pateros--what a beautiful area!

After departing Pateros, the only charging opportunities that we'd have access to for the next two days would be 50-amp service at RV campgrounds. Our first night's stay in the Coulee Corridor was near the Grand Coulee Dam, at an RV campground called the Grand Coulee RV Park.

EV Fear Factor

At about the halfway point from Pateros to Grand Coulee, I pulled our LEAF over to take in the vastness. Our previous charge was way back along the Cascade Range (background of the above picture). Seeing the mountains disappearing in the rearview mirror was a bit disheartening!

Beyond the impressiveness and fear factor of the views, this section of the Columbia Plateau has other "discoveries" that took our minds off of the charging situation. Massive boulders, known as glacial erratics, randomly scatter the landscape on the plateau; another indicator of the flooding that took place in the region thousands of years ago.

I knew that we could make the 55-mile drive from Pateros to Grand Coulee. However, no amount of planning and reassurance will prevent EV drivers from feeling occasional wisps of terror when driving in an EV Badlands area, where there is nowhere to plug into for dozens of miles all around. To make a comparison: It was like we left Pateros in a Toyota Prius with a gallon and a half of gas in the tank.

RV Park Charging

The owner of the Grand Coulee RV Park was very receptive to discussing pricing options for future EVs. While EV drivers typically prefer to pay for a Level 2 charge by the kWh (1,000 watts in an hour's time), metered RV campground receptacles are uncommon in the Pacific Northwest due to inexpensive electricity rates. Conversely, in California, many RV campgrounds have meters at every 50-amp receptacle.

Grand Coulee RV Park accepted a very reasonable alternative: A flat $5.00 EV charging fee for up to four hours of use at one of the bountiful 50-amp RV hookups. If travelers want to stay the night, the RV park will include the EV charging for free--just pay the nightly $20.00 fee for tent camping.

Electric Remote Controlled Helicopters

The owner of the Grand Coulee RV Park was excited to talk shop...about all kinds of EVs! It turned out that he is an electric RC helicopter enthusiast. We spent some time talking about battery technology and body frame materials. Like EVs, the RC helicopters are powered with lithium batteries. And like new EVs (read: BMW's i3), the RC helicopters had a carbon fiber frame.

With battery capacity/density continuing to increase and costs decreasing, we'll undoubtedly continue to see battery technology displace and/or replace the established energy sources in all aspects of our lives...our hobbies...our transportation.

Grand Coulee Dam: Enough Power Generated to Charge a Nissan LEAF more than 875 Million Times in a Year!!!

Truly a structure that must be seen to be appreciated, the immensity of Grand Coulee Dam cannot be easily described. Let me try to do it some justice, courtesy of Wikipedia:

• The Grand Coulee Dam is the largest power station in the U.S. and 7th largest in the world.
• The third power plant (added in 1974), alone, produces twice the electricity as Hoover Dam.
• The dam has enough concrete (12 million cubic yards) to build a road from Seattle to Miami.

Steamboat Rock

Our second day of the EV road trip was filled with some of the greatest and grandest sites to be seen along the Coulee Corridor.

The first stop was at Steamboat Rock State Park. One of the benefits of going on a road trip during the off-season is that, by definition, there is hardly anybody else there. I took full advantage of this by plugging into one of the many unoccupied RV 50-amp service hook-ups at Steamboat Rock State Park (and later in the day at Sun Lakes-Dry Falls State Park). With the car charging, we had an excuse to take our time and enjoy the sites. And enjoy we did!

My daughter. Oh, and the largest waterfall in history: Dry Falls.

The drive in between Steamboat Rock State Park and Sun Lakes-Dry Falls State Park was actually one of the highlights of the day for me...the driver. This goes back to it being the off-season for tourism and there being nobody to share the road with. For 50 miles, from Steamboat Rock State Park to Ephrata, I knew that I could use as much of the battery charge as I pleased (remember, there was plenty of charging opportunities at the state parks). So, ECO mode was turned off and Steve's "Fun Mode" switched on.

Driving along Banks Lake, with 700-ft. basalt cliffs on either side, my senses tuned into a singularity. I only focused on the rush of wind as the car zipped along. There was no engine noise or exhaust rumble coming from our LEAF, which in turn, made the wind noise the one focus. It was glorious!

Bad daddy moment at Lenore Lake Caves--that's our son at the far left of the picture, wondering freely.

Along the shores of Lenore Lake are a series of seven caves accessible via a 1.5 mile roundtrip hike. For our six-year-old daughter, the rock climbing and scrambling was no problem. For our two-year-old son, the terrain was impassible in many areas. So what is a prudent dad to do? I put him on my shoulders, of course!

A little backstory: I am 6'11" tall.

Hiking and scrambling along with a 35-lb. child on my shoulders effectively made my center of gravity somewhere between my collar bone and chin. It was a miracle of all miracles that I did not fall to my death, along with my son, on the Lenore Lake Caves hike.

Lenore Lake Caves

Here is another view of the Lenore Lake Caves. These caves formed during the Missoula Floods when the igneous rock layers gouged away with the tremendous power of water.

Oops! I almost ran out of juice. Here, trickle charging in Quincy, WA.

At the end of our second day, I had planned on us camping and over-night charging in Quincy. When we pulled into town in the early evening hours, I still had plenty of charge remaining in our LEAF. I wanted to charge at a local golf course, Colockum Ridge Golf Course.

Before leaving on the trip, I had attempted to contact public relations folks at the Port of Quincy, who own/manage Colockum Ridge Golf Course. My inquiries with the Port of Quincy were never returned. I was not worried, though, because I figured that I could establish phone contact with the golf course manager, or even somebody in the pro shop, while on the trip.

Unfortunately, for two days, I had no cell service. In this age of The World is Flat, I was unable to get cell service or a data connection in hundreds of miles of driving. We were very much traveling in civilization, though...driving through many towns along the way. However in an era of being connected at any time and anywhere, I felt completely isolated from the civilized world.

Colockum Ridge Golf Course

After driving an additional five miles from downtown Quincy, we arrived at Colockum Ridge Golf Course. I immediately saw that the camping situation would not work because there were no restrooms accessible after hours. We returned to Quincy, as I remembered seeing a sign for RV camping earlier. Within moments of pulling into the "campground," I realized that we would need to find an alternative.

Those ten miles of extra driving out to the golf course, and back, had hammered my range, though. So we pulled in at a local grocery store and trickle charged for an hour.

Ultimately, we ended back at Colockum Ridge Golf Course. It would be a great spot to charge an EV while playing golf, but overnight tent camping was not ideal.

The Feathers

The Feathers are basalt columns located between Vantage and The Gorge Amphitheater. This is seemingly a popular location for amateur rock climbers, as there are numerous safety hooks bolted into the rocks throughout.

Rock climbers in training.

Our EV road trip's last destination was at the Wild Horse Wind Farm. The wind farm is Puget Sound Energy's second largest in Washington, and capable of generating 273 megawatts of electricity every year. The site also has one of the Northwest's largest solar power arrays, with more than 2,700 solar panels that are capable of producing 500 kW of electricity.

Wild Horse Renewable Energy Center

The purpose of this trip was to see some of the spectacular sights along the Coulee Corridor with my daughter and son. It was after leaving the Wild Horse Renewable Energy Center that I thought how fitting for the Coulee Corridor to be bookended with two clean power generating sources, with the Grand Coulee Dam at the north end and the Wild Horse Wind and Solar Farm at the southeast corner. And what better way to experience Coulee Corridor than to be in an all-electric Nissan LEAF!

EV Scenic Byways: Historic Columbia River Highway

Americana. 

Broadly defined as those cultural bits that we identify ourselves with at various moments in our history. For some, Americana defines us on a personal level.  

***

CHAdeMO Quick Charger

When my unborn grandchildren study American cultural artifacts from the first half of the 21st century, I believe that they will look at the electric vehicle (EV) quick charger as a piece of Americana. Much like how the drive-in movie theatre defined the post-WWII America six decades ago, CHAdeMO or Tesla Supercharger stations will be cultural icons of Generations Y and Z. 

There is little doubt that the internal combustion engine (ICE), gasoline-powered car will inevitably go the way of the dodo. The trump card for ICE vehicles now, though, is a massive infrastructure.  With more than 120,000 gas stations in the U.S., Americans are free to travel from sea to shining sea as easily as commuting to work from the burbs.  

On a societal level, for electric cars to replace our gasoline-powered vehicles, EVs must be able to do just that: take us to work and allow the freedom to travel long distances.  The requirement of traveling to work was satisfied with the release of the first mass production EV, the Nissan LEAF.  The LEAF allows for travel at highway speeds with all of the driving comforts we expect of our vehicles. Lacking, though, was a nation-wide infrastructure of quick charging stations to support long distance travel.  

Now with the pace of quick charger installations picking up, there is a growing interest from LEAF owners to use their EVs for road tripping duties, too. The U.S. now has more than 300 CHAdeMO charging stations, and although the LEAF is range-limited to about 75 miles per charge, one could theoretically drive their EV in perpetuity if there was an abundance of quick charging infrastructure.

CHAdeMO in WA & OR
PlugShare.com (January, 2014)

The possibility of limitless driving is becoming a reality in the western halves of Oregon and Washington. There, government-backed efforts have established the backbone of a robust CHAdeMO infrastructure. 

After my wife and I transitioned to owning two LEAFs, and no ICE cars, I longed to take my family on impromptu weekend excursions and far-reaching road trips.

Recently, while looking at the CHAdeMO location maps on PlugShare.com, I discovered that I could now drive a LEAF east of Portland, OR...quick charging all the way out to The Dalles. 

A trip from where we live (35 miles north of Seattle) into the heart of the Land-o-CHAdeMO (Oregon) would allow me to test the LEAF's ability to quick charge time after time, and hopefully cover some serious mileage. 

Taking my two kids (ages six and two) on a weekend trip to Oregon sounded great; all the better was that we could check out the town of The Dalles, which is where my father grew up.

The drive east of Portland, along the Columbia River, is a simple affair in an EV. Oregon has CHAdeMO charging stations located in Cascade Locks, Hood River, and The Dalles; all installed as part of the West Coast Green Highway.

Because my children would be with me, I plotted out some sight seeing along the Historic Columbia River Highway.  This 15 mile "highway" is a two-lane affair that runs parallel to I-84 along the Columbia River, between the CHAdeMO stations in Wood Village, OR and Cascade Locks, OR. With seven easily-accessed waterfalls and six state parks along the way, it is no wonder this section of byway was named one of ten "Ultimate Road Trips" in the world by National Geographic. The Historic Columbia River Highway's design is also impressive, as the grades never exceed 5%...making this road truly an "EV friendly" scenic byway.

The Historic Columbia River Highway: Then and Now

The night before my kids and I departed, I took out my father's autobiography, which he completed before passing away five years ago. It was actually the first time since Dad passed that I was able to get myself to read his life story. 

Flipping to the parts that talked about his family's time living in The Dalles, I read his account of the byway: "...and we moved over the Old Columbia Highway that was very crooked and had panoramic views of the Columbia Gorge. At one point, the whole hillside collapsed just behind our car with huge boulders crashing onto the highway."  This piqued my interest! 

Continuing through Dad's writing, I read more about his time living in The Dalles . What I was really hoping for was to read about a kid-friendly stop in The Dalles that would be a nice grand finale for our road trip. Dad's account of Celilo Falls seemed to perfectly fit the bill:

...(Celilo Falls) was remarkable for its powerful eddies and brave Celilo Indians that fished off flimsy wooden scaffolding platforms hung out over the falls to net salmon weighing 50 pounds, or more.

And, later:

"...a tourist heaven with Celilo Falls as the top billing." 

I started getting emotionally overwhelmed, and stopped reading the autobiography. However, I had what I was looking for: The Grand Finale--Celilo Falls.

The goals for the road trip were set.  One, collect data about battery pack temperatures related to driving my LEAF on a road trip where successive quick charging would be used. And two, provide my kids an opportunity to see some of the most beautiful scenery in the Pacific Northwest.

***

Leaving home on a Friday night, we quick charged five times, arriving in Cornelius, OR for our overnight stay 7 1/2 hours later. Notably, the drive from Seattle to Portland took 5 hours, 7 minutes. Before driving EVs, the Seattle to Portland haul was about a three hour trip. 

Driving freeway speeds, up to 80 m.p.h. on that first leg of the trip, and quick charging five times, did have an impact on battery pack temperatures. We arrived in Cornelius with an average pack temp of 102.5 degrees.  

Parking outside for 8 hours helped to cool things down!

I parked/charged the LEAF outside during our 8 hours in Cornelius. The effect of low ambient air temps was remarkably effective at dropping the battery pack temps. 

To view the complete pack temp/GIDS/travel speeds spreadsheet, visit: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8RkQ9sOBlRfTnMwNlYtMUgxdk0/edit?usp=sharing 

To view the complete LEAF Spy data file with the above information and much, much more, please email me at: coramsc at gmail dot com.

Is this charging station ever used for EV charging?!?

The next day, Saturday morning, we set out from Cornelius driving due east along the Columbia River, and planned on arriving in The Dalles that afternoon.

Our first quick charge on Saturday was at a Walmart in Wood Village, OR.  To say that this location was a pitiful charging station situation was an understatement! There were shopping carts filling both EV charging spots, with more shopping carts overturned next to the charging station itself. After moving some carts, I was able to squeeze the LEAF in to access the CHAdeMO station.

With a 72% charge, we left Wood Village and headed up to the higher elevations to travel the byways.  

Driving along the Historic Columbia River Highway was nothing short of spectacular!

12th Man Pride at the Women's Forum Outlook

60mph Wind Gusts at Crown Point Vista House

Latourell Falls

Yes, kids love waterfalls!
Here at Shepperd's Dell Falls.

Bridal Veil Falls

Multnomah Falls

At Multnomah Falls, we could not get closer than the lower parking and viewing area, as a large boulder had fallen onto Benson Bridge less than two weeks prior, taking out a swath of the footbridge leading to the upper falls. It was just as well because we were into the afternoon hours and still needed to get out to Celilo Falls, two quick charges away. 

I drove as reasonably fast as possible from Multnomah Falls, into Hood River to charge, and then into The Dalles. In The Dalles, we quick charged to 67% which gave us just enough juice to make the 13 mile drive east to Celilo Falls, and back.

The grande finale...Celilo Falls!

At 4:30pm, we pulled into Celilo Park. It was getting dark, so we zipped into the parking lot and hopped out. At the water's edge, all that could be seen was the tranquil Columbia River lazily flowing past. 

I was dumbfounded. My father's own autobiography noted this place as the "crown jewel of the Columbia." We walked back to the car. The road trip was over, and it was time to figure out how to get home.

Celilo Falls: It's History

Just before leaving the Celilo Park parking area, I pulled up next to a historical marker and sign. I read about how Wyam Falls (later, referred to as Celilo Falls) was an ancient fishing ground for the Celilo Tribe, and in 1957, with the construction of The Dalles Dam, the fishing grounds were inundated by the subsequent rise of water.  History.

Originally, I had planned for us to head back into Cornelius for a good night's sleep, before returning home on Sunday. After the disappointment at Celilo Falls, I really just wanted to be back home to read again about what Dad said of the falls. 

Driving home, I stuck with the same formula for driving as on the trip down: drive at, or above, the speed limit.  But this time, I didn't go above 70 m.p.h., which I knew would still get the battery pack plenty hot.  

We were making good time, and everything was drama free until pulling onto the I-5 on-ramp after a quick charge in Castle Rock, WA. With an average pack temp of 115 degrees (the highest temp sensor in the battery pack was showing an EV-melting 132.8 degrees), I tried to do a typical torque-loving acceleration onto the freeway.  However, I was sent into sensory shock when the LEAF didn't respond to the pedal to the metal efforts.  

Looking at the dashboard display, I could see that the LEAF's idiot-proofing was in full effect.  The car's computer had restricted power delivery by more than half and brake regeneration by a whopping 75%.  

Here's how a LEAF tells its driver to "SLOW DOWN!"

Neither my wife nor I are overly zealous at babying our EVs. Instead, we believe that we will use vehicles to best fit our needs, even if it means that pushing the envelope reduces the vehicles' performance in the long run. 

At this point, however, I actually was not worried about the long-term effects of a melting battery pack. No, instead, I was concerned that if I kept pushing the LEAF hard, my kids and I may end up on the side of the freeway in the middle of the night with a dead car.  So, I set the cruise control in the low 50 m.p.h. range, and succumbed to a tortoise's pace the remainder of the drive home.  

We pulled into our garage at 3:00 on Sunday morning, having completed our 729 mile road trip in just 33 hours!

***

The next day, I again took out my father's autobiography.  I wanted to see if there was anything that I had missed while reading about Celilo Falls.  This time, while not in an emotional state, I read Dad's full account of his years in The Dalles, including his thoughts of Celilo Falls:

On March 10, 1957, The Dalles Dam changed the river's direction when they closed the flood gates for the first time...never again did we get to see big, thick salmon caught and the mighty spot on the Columbia.

and,

The Columbia River ran backwards the day they closed the spillways on The Dalles Dam, and the roar of the falls was history. 

So, I had missed it.  I had missed reading my father's own words explaining that Celilo Falls no longer existed.  Looking back on the road trip, though, I am actually glad that I didn't initially know the truth. Discovering the loss of Celilo Falls firsthand was a moment that I will never forget.  And if I'm destined to remember the anticlimactic "grand finale," I will be sure to keep that tragedy alive with my children as they grow up.  

Perhaps the real story of this EV Scenic Byways: Historic Columbia River Highway is that we humans play a major role in deciding the fate of the natural treasures we most admire. For better or worse, Celilo Falls no longer exists.  And I cannot stop wondering if my children will someday take their own kids to see the sites along the Historic Columbia River Highway, and be surprised to find out that one of the remaining jewels of the Columbia River Basin is gone forever.  History.

If electric vehicles are to supplant gasoline-powered vehicles, the development and maturing of a quick charging infrastructure must happen.  Will CHAdeMO and Supercharger be ubiquitous in thirty years? Or will the limited quick chargers that exist now be oddities that a generation is defined by?  

Either way, they are destined to considered Americana.