Washington State Route 7

Are you sick of the breakneck pace of Interstate 5 between Portland and Tacoma? Are you looking for a better way to get to Southwestern Washington or the St. Helens Volcanic Monument? State Route 7 might be the answer to your question.

SR7 isn’t one of the more picturesque ways of gettting out of the Seattle-Tacoma metro area, but it’s better than Interstate 5. While SR7 certainly isn’t a wide-open, empty, or untraveled road, it’s far better than I-5. It certainly is rather nice in that wide sweeperish sense common to Western Washington’s newer rural highways.

Northbound on 7 near Alder Lake

Northbound on 7 near Alder Lake

Alder Lake

Alder Lake

Left in place almost as a surprise, is a very nice set of twisties that can be found near the Nisqually River and Alder lake. The corners are marked from 25-35mph and are quite enjoyable if you can avoid getting stuck behind a truck or RV. There’s a few sweepers that can be ridden quite aggresively with a decent view of the corner, where the trees aren’t so close to the road. Most sport riders familiar with the road prefer to turn around a few times on these curves to get a few good runs in, just watch out for various nasty activities and vandalism by the local residents. They’ll call the police at the drop of a hat, and have been known to pour oil on the road.

While SR7 actually starts up near Spanaway, its southern terminus is down at US Route 12 in Morton. If you are heading south to Vancouver or the west side of Helens, I recommend you gas up at Eatonville (Morton P.D. is notorious for persecuting motorcyclists and fuel in Elbe is outrageously expensive) and take State Route 508 west to I-5. If you’re going east to Yaki-Vegas or the Windy Ridge side of Helens, go slowly through Morton and gas up at Randle. Morton P.D. has been known to pull entire groups of motorcyclists over that are riding at most 1-2mph over and write everyone up for 10-15 over.

Very few passing zones south of Eatonville. SR 508 heads west just as you get into the outskirts of Morton. Rather good for those days when they have festivals going on downtown.”

If you’re taking SR7, Mineral Hill Road is highly recommended

Microsoft Streets & Trips file for State Route 7

Overview Map of Washington State Route 7:
Map of WA SR7

Google Map:

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Last 5 posts in Sweepers

Last 5 posts in Western WA

Sweepers, Western WA | September 25th, 2007
3 Comments

3 Comments

  1. Chris1254 Says:
    August 31st, 2009 at 8:57 PM

    Did this one a couple weeks ago along with about 1/2 of the 508 road.  The trip from Spanaway to Tanwax is pretty tame (flat and straight), but once you get south of the Tanwax Greens Golf Course the fun begins.  The road is great so long as you’ve got some open space in front of you.  When I went through I got stuck behind some oldies in a Caddy so was a bit limited.  Once you get off the hill and along Alder Lake it gets mild again, but is a great ride all the way to Morton.

  2. Bill Says:
    March 1st, 2010 at 10:11 AM

    Not sure what happened to the OP in Morton, but that’s where I fuel up and have never had a problem. Just be respectful and slow down before you get into town and should have no problems.

  3. admin Says:
    March 1st, 2010 at 11:45 AM

    Thanks Bill.

    The article is based upon feedback from the sport-riders down around Helens. Yes, I’m sure they have a bit of a bias, but better safe than sorry. I myself have gotten the evil eye from the local gendarmarie even while creeping through town doing 24 in the 25 zone in 2nd gear to keep the noise down.

    In fact, I’ve been hearing from other Seattle riders that it’s not uncommon that WSP will time groups of sport-riders between Randle and Morton and write up the whole lot of them for their average speed. Not too difficult since some of those folks average about 80-90mph between those towns.

    Morton PD is very much like Twisp PD and just about every other Washington small town. You need to make sure you’re going 1-2 under the limit when you go through.

    Thankfully, gas pricing has gotten a little more reasonable priced there when I went through yesterday. It was about the same pricing as Eatonville and Orting and only 6-7 cents more per gallon than Sumner.

    The Mexican restaurant by the highway (Plaza Jalisco) is still pretty good too.

    I’ll see if I can get this article updated. It’s been quite awhile since I wrote that and while the road hasn’t changed, some nicer photos would be good.

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