Quartzville Road / Santiam FS 11

I’ve heard absolutely phenomenal things about this road. Fantastic Cascade mountain vistas, beautiful lakes, a lively rapids-strewn river, and tight twisty bits too.

  • Road Name: Forest Road 11 / Quartzville Rd / N. River Rd
  • Counties: Linn
  • Length: 54
  • Towns: Lone Star, Sweet Home

Streets and Trips file for Quartzville Road (Santiam FS 11)

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Adventure, Eastern Oregon, Twisties | July 1st, 2007
1 Comment

One Comment

  1. Bandit.pdx Says:
    August 3rd, 2009 at 12:06 AM

    I got a chance to try NF11 out today, (Aug. 2, 2009).  I started on the east end which is almost exactly 20 miles south from Detroit, OR on OR 22.  The road is marked as the Quartzville Back Country Byway.   After turning off from OR22 the road quickly turns (about 3 miles in?) to a single-lane full of twists and switch-backs for about 50 miles.  There are barely any straight-aways here. On the east end, this is not a high speed byway.  I urge some caution, nearly every stretch that passed along a cliff face had stone and gravel debris on the road surface.  Also the road is riddled with frost heaves.
     
    It goes up and up for while then it seems to go down and down forever.  The turns can be tight in both directions. More towards the west end it reaches the ‘valley floor’ near Green Peter reservoir.  Here the road opens back to two lanes with more open corners and higher speeds.
     
    However there are campers.  The east end is more sparse, but the west end has campers, RV’s and the sort.  The campsites are along the road since that is really the only level ground in most areas.  Again high speed is not recommended.
     
    I drove the length averaging about 40 MPH, but definitely had spots as slow as 10-15 MPH to navigate through the debris.

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