*Motorcycle Roads NorthWest

This is a nice little road that’s on the back way home from work. It winds along the Green River in amongst the trees, and provides a nice getaway from the aggressive freeway traffic.

There’s no photos here, as the road doesn’t have much in the way of a view. It follows the river for the most part, but it’s rarely so close that there’s no trees in the way of a good view. Perhaps I might take a photo of this road from the Route 18 freeway on the other side of the river, which is farther up the ridgeline and has a rather nice view of this road.

This road dovetails rather nicely with some other roads in the area, including Hobart-Issaquah Road down into Ravensdale which if you continue south eventually takes you down into Black Diamond and just a few blocks from this road. If you take this road from East to West, it also has the intersection for Green Valley Road near the Route 18 exit.

• Road Name: Auburn-Black Diamond Road
• Counties: King
• Length: 12 miles
• Towns: Auburn, Black Diamond, Morganville, Wynaco

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This a classic forest road in the rural backwoods of Western Washington. Nestled within the glacial river valleys that once drained Puget Sound down to Grays Harbor, this road is bracketed throughout its entire 24 mile length by ridges, ponds and hillsides.

Just as you would expect from geography and location, the road is tree-lined pretty much from end to end. And just as you would expect from such a rural thoroughfare, you have the spectre of the dreaded hooved rat.

I had one very-close encounter of the antlered-kind, and two wherein deer were fleeing up the hillside by the time I got there. One of those deer in the middle section of the road was so confident that it stood in ground in the middle of the road until I was almost to a full stop.

This road is one of the older routes between Shelton and Elma. It’s been superseded by newer roads, and its state of maintenance is apparent. It still has mileage markers telling you where you are on the road, but it no longer has the smooth surface of a modern highway.

Much of the road on the extreme ends are still made up of the original concrete slab roadway as well. Obviously, the surface is extremely bumpy and rides much like Interstate 5 South near Tukwila. In between, where the deer are, is a much more enjoyable smooth asphalt surface with excellently-radiused curves.

I really like this road. While it definitely has a high deer quotient, it’s rather rewarding of smaller motors like the V-Strom where keeping the motor perking is the answer rather than monster torque.

• Counties: Mason, Grays Harbor
• Length: 24 miles
• Towns: Elma, Shelton

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For those not from Western Washington, State Route 503 may need a bit of explanation. This road starts over at Interstate 5 and heads East to the village of Yale, then turns to the South and down towards Vancouver, Washington. While the West Leg of 503 is a nice little road, it’s becoming increasingly urbanized and widened and is not a topic for today. For our purposes, we’ll discuss the South Leg of Washington State Route 503.

South of Yale, 503 twists around in a surprisingly delightful fashion much like FS25 or FS90. To get curves this nice, one generally has to go to Idaho, as even the forest service roads have far worse pavement quality. The countryside up on the north end is a mix of heavy woods and semi-cleared scrubland, all overpoweringly green.

Once across the Lewis River, it settles down more into what one expects out of a Western Washington rural state highway. The curves are more “sweeper” than “twisty” with a few notable 90-degree exceptions. The countryside is vastly different too, with more open farmlands and more people.

Ultimately, of course, this road ends down in Vancouver. Pretty much straight down at that end, it’s busy and suburban. But if you’re heading north and you can put up with that for a mile or two, it’s a road that’s well worth the trip.

• County: Clark & Cowlitz Counties, Washington
• Length: 30 miles (and another 5 miles up to Cougar & FS90)
• Towns: Yale, Chelatchie, Amboy, Fargher Lake, Brush Prairie, Union

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The scene is set in the late Spring of 2007. A year not known for summery weather at best, it was decided that a trip out of Hurricane Ridge was in order. My wife has been demanding such a visit for years, and I was in no position to argue over such a visit.

None of the names of the roads leading up there really convey the sense of the trip. It certainly has curvy bits and quite excellent ones, for sure. It also ascends 5200 feet in about 21 miles, right from absolute sea level at the shore of the Strait of Juan de Fuca to over 5200 feet at the Hurrican Ridge Visitor Center. I’m not entirely sure, because my GPS lost tracking at one point in the middle of a cloud, but the altimeter read around 6,000 at one point.

I would also be on a sharp lookout for hooved rats, you know: Deer. Those foul vermin that attack motorcycles: They’re everywhere up there in the park, probably because they know they can’t be hunted up there.

This road is also slightly tough to classify. It definitely has some sweepers on it, especially in the lower half of the mountains. The curves at the top are rather nice, but they’re not exactly on par with the squiggles of St. Helens FS99 either. I’m going to make another trip up there when the weather is not so completely miserable (38F at the visitor center in late May), and we’ll see how it goes.

Some pictures from my 2007 visit:

View back along Heart o’ the Hills Road from the Hurricane Ridge Visitors Center.

A view into the real Heart of the Olympic Range.

A bit of hiking trail on the south side of the road, around 4000′.

A viewpoint about 1/3 of the way to the top. You can see the Dungeness Spit in Sequim from one of these pullouts.

• County:
• Length: 18 miles
• Towns: Port Angeles

Microsoft Streets & Trips File for Heart o’ the Hills Road & Hurricane Ridge

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Another favorite of Seattle area motorcyclists, this is an nice backroad that gets you off the main routes and away from most of the cagers. Like much of the area, it’s starting to suburbanize and has far more luxury houses than it did 5 years ago.

• Towns: Granite Falls, Monroe
• Length: 20 miles
• County: Snohomish

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This little stretch of sweepers is quite a bit of fun and a nice way to skirt a large section of Interstate 5. While it’s 35 mile per hour speed limit causes it to be a rather leisurely way to cover this distance, it is also fairly empty and doesn’t appear to be heavily patrolled.

South Military Road route is veritably lined with evergreen trees. I estimate there is at most an eight foot buffer between the road and the forest in most sections. The buffer does help quite a bit in spotting the numerous deer that line the road. If the deer are hiding in the tree line in preparation for their kamikaze dash in front of your bike, you’re going to have very little response time before impact.

One note of caution for those looking to blast down this road at wildly extra-legal speeds, I’ve never seen any evidence of repaving in the years that I’ve been riding this road down to Portland. It looks like a very old alignment of US 99 that has been asphalted over, tar-snaked as needed, and otherwise left to slowly rot in place.

Like Jackson Highway, this road is another great means to avoid the thundering herd on 5 and take a more relaxed 4th-gear approach to traveling. This scenery isn’t spectacular and the service sparse, but your blood pressure will likely be much lower on this road. Just look out for the deer.

As you arrive east of Vader, things are a little different. Starting where Military Road crosses over Route 507, the road changes its name to Westside Highway and is still a state highway in this area. This road is maintained much better, and is far more frequently traveled. Obviously, it has less curves and wider lanes, but is still a pretty good way to avoid the lunacy that is
Interstate 5 in the late afternoon.

As you get to the terminus of SR411 at Kelso, you’ll need to head back east on SR4 to get across the river and back to I-5. If you’re heading south, you can go straight at SR4 and continue skirting around Longview and cross over the Columbia to Oregon via SR433.

• Towns: Napavine, Vader, Longview, Castle Rock, Winlock
• Length: 33 miles
• Counties: Lewis, Cowlitz

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State Route 9 is one of Washington State’s finer examples of a rural highway. The curves are well-engineered and most of the curves have very good visibility. The pavement is very hig-quality, to the point of being in a shockingly well-maintained state from the viewpoint of this jaded Seattle moto-commuter.

There’s also no lack of scenery along SR9. All along this route you can simply turn your head to the east and take in the farmlands and ridges with the Cascade Range peaks as their backdrop.

Mt. Baker in the distance

North of Sedro Wooley, SR9 is a very fine road tailor-made for tearing up curves and covering ground. The curves are often linked 3-4 deep with gentle banking and neutral radius. Even more delightful is the 50mph speed limit outside the villages. The State Patrol often seems to place all of their emphasis on the parallel Interstate 5 freeway 15 miles away.

Speaking of high-quality road surface, the pavement is not only very smooth but also very grippy. It’s quite obviously been re-paved in the past year or two, as the road hasn’t been covered up with any tar snakes or become polished by traffic or numerous hot/cold cycles.

A brief straightaway south of Acme.

I’ve ridden this road on a couple different bikes now as well. This road is quite well-suited to sporting standards such as the FZ6 and the DL650 V-strom. While still quite enjoyable on larger/heavier bikes such as my old v4 Sabre 1100, the abrupt nature of some of the corner entries require a slightly more relaxed pace from less sporting machine.

One thing to keep in mind is that section south of Sedro-Wooley down toward Arlington is much more agricultural in nature than the north end. The curves are less-frequently wide sweepers or even twisties, but more in the vein of alternating 90-degree turns from the old farm to markey road that they must have preceded the current roadway. The corners have been smoothed out slightly, but are still 20-25mph 2nd gear turns compared to the 35-45mph twisties and speed-limit restricted 50-ish mph sweepers north of Sedro Wooley.

MS Streets & Trips file for Washington SR9

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Washington State Route 20, the North Cascades Highway, is the northern-most route across the Washington section of the Cascade Range. The first path to be surveyed, it was last to be completed and the most difficult.

Containing several sections of wonderful curves, SR 20 ascends the western foothills of the Cascades to Rainy Pass via the Skagit River, Ross Lake, and Ruby and Granite Creeks. The road winds and curves most delightfully across the width of the Cascades into Omak where SR20 multi-plexes with US97.

A fairly typical sweeper on Route 20.

Near the town of Concrete, SR20 passes within a few miles of Mt. Baker, and Lake Shannon is immediately to the north. Throughout most of its length, SR20 passes through the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest and lands held by various other conservatory agencies.

A view towards the Northern Cascades from a wide sweeper west of Winthrop.

Between Twisp and Washington Pass, SR20 follows the floor of the Methow Valley and the Okanogan National Forest. The area abounds with campgrounds, small lakes, hunting, swimming, even a golf course south-east of Winthrop. While you may not be able to partake in the use of the area’s many boat ramps, they might be good for those looking for a full-feature weekend with an RV, boat, and some dual-sport bikes.

A very steep roadside rock formation at the east end of Route 20 near Diablo. Courtesy of Ted Timmons.

Indeed, many of my friends and acquaintances who hail from this area seem to spend as much if not more of their two-wheeled recreation time on the area’s hundreds of miles of Forest Service roads.

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An interesting side road will take you up into the small town of Mineral. It’s a far more twisty road than SR7 with very short sightlines.

The north end of the road is particularly aggressive with the road making a nearly continuous climb up the north face of the ridge the village of Mineral it sited on. The pavement isn’t in terrible shape, but it’s apparent that large recreational vehicles and trailers frequently go up this road.

The south turnoff is about 13 miles north of US 12, and the north turnoff is less than a mile south of the River Crossing at Elbe. If memory serves, there’s a neat abandoned power station by that turn-off.

• Towns: Elbe (nearby), Mineral, Carlson (abandoned)
• Length: 5 miles
• County: Lewis

Microsoft Streets & Trips file for Mineral Hill Road

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South Skagit Highway and Concrete-Sauk Valley Road provide a very scenic back way from Sedro Wooley to the Mountain Loop Highway and south to Darrington. On the cool September that marked the day ride portion of ‘Pass the Oyster’ 2004, the road was dry and nearly deserted. The auturn leaves lined the trees and the sides of the road, but had been cleared from most of the corners by other traffic. A few corners had lines of gravel outside of the cager wheel lines, but the even these were a mere handful on this recently chip-sealed road as it skirts the Cultus Mountains and Rinker Ridge along the Skagit River.

Old Pastureland along South Skagit Highway

For most of its length, the S. Skagit and Concrete-Sauk Valley Roads follow the Sauk and Skagit Rivers. The rivers provide a very nice scenic backdrop for this spectacular road with its consistent chain of sweepers and sharp corners. Keep an eye out for pedestrains during good fishing weather, and keep an eye out for errant domestic animals tortting along the road. I almost hit a hunting dog of some sort that darted from the side of the road directly at the front wheel of the bike.

View of the Concrete-Sauk Valley Road section from up along Finney Creek Road.

Full services are available each end of the road way. Sedro Wooley is just a mile or so away across the Skagit from the north end. Darrington is about 5 miles from the south end and has a very good gas station, although the air compressor was broken at the Shell when we were there. When we stopped in Darrington, there was a Goldwing group riding through that was duplicating our loop but in the opposite direction: North on 530 to Concrete-Sauk Valley Road and on into Sedro Wooley on S. Skagit Highway. I’m sure it was a much slower pace than we were able to maintain through the nearly-deserted and unpatrolled curves.

• Towns: Clear Lake, Concrete (across river bridge)
• Length: 46
• County: Skagit

Microsoft Streets and Trips file for South Skagit Highway / Concrete-Sauk Valley Road

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