*Motorcycle Roads NorthWest

Please note: I did this road in June of 2009. Much has changed in Central Oregon since then and some services are no longer available.

During my week in Central Oregon last summer, I’d met and spoken with many riders who’d ridden up US 395 and come up through John Day. They were looking for many of the things that I was. Quiet roads with smooth pavement and light traffic being one of the most frequently expressed desire. A most common and fervent wish that I have to agree with.

Central Oregon provides hundreds of miles of some of the best pavement on earth. Not a lot of people on the roads if you stay off the US highways, and those people that you do encounter generally seem to be very good folks. Perhaps it’s my Midwestern childhood coming to the fore, but I felt a real kinship with these people. Scratching out a living, and a rather hard life at that, in the wide open high country.

And as far as scratching? Well, those Oregon roads sure have the traction to spare. They’re mostly jagged chipseal that hasn’t had enough traffic to wear the surface down. They may chew your tires up faster than expected, but even hard-compound touring tires have above-normal grip when these roads are dry. I’d worn quite a flat spot in the 6 weeks of commuting leading up to my trip to Oregon and 4 days of serious riding through the Oregon countryside has rounding the profile right back to normal.

As far as the Route 410 “Bull Run to Baker Road”? First off, it’s not actually marked as such on the highway. If anything, it’s more likely to be marked as “This way to Forest Service 73″ which lean up into the hills to the ski resorts around the Anthony Lakes Highways.

And while I was there in June 2009, there was even high-octane fuel in Sumpter. I’ve since received reports that the ‘Stage Stop’ gas station and supply store was closed after a very poor tourist turnout in 2009. I’m not sure if it’s being reopened for 2010 though since it’s still listed on Sumpter’s website. I’m hoping it’s still there, the proprietress is good people.

Most of the road has the trees just about this close. Watch out for deer. Photo by Cecil Reniche-Smith (Creative Commons: AT, NC, NoDerivs)

Once you’ve (hopefully) gassed up at Sumpter, you’re heading west up into the mountains. The roads get progressively tighter as you go higher, and the turns get better. The scenic views are decent, but nothing that’s really photogenic. It IS very impressive just how far you can see through the clear air though.

Just watch out for the deer and the elk! I had 24 close encounters with deer and elk in my 7 days down there, including several that nearly intercepted me from the off corner and one that nearly walked right into me while I was standing NEXT to my bike at the gas pump. No joke. Just like any cager with his cell phone, the deer was looking over his shoulder behind him and nearly walked into me.

Routing Note: This route is sometimes listed of Route 220. This is incorrect since Oregon Route Numbers and Oregon Highway Numbers are not necessarily the same thing. The Oregon Route 410 is how maps will show it, but the “internal accounting designation” for this road is “Highway 220″ and may include more of less of this route than the Route 410 designation. If you’re confused, go look Oregon Highways up in Wikipedia. It makes my head hurt just keeping this stuff straight.

I also recall that up at the county line is a Ski Resort. There’s probably more of those around that I didn’t see, and there are definitely some campgrounds, so you do have to keep an eye out for the occasional cagers. It’s really for the best anyway. If you’re not watching out enough to see the cagers, you’re not going to see the deer until too late anyway.

• Counties: Grant, Baker
• Length: 19 miles
• Towns: Granite, Sumpter

The map below gives the impression that this is an “out and back” road. It is not. I simply chose the arbitrary end point at Granite from which this road continues on up to either Ukiah, Route 244 into LaGrande, or off to the Northeast via Anthony Lakes depending on which or whether you turn off at the top of the plateau.

Google Maps for State Route 410 ‘Bull Run to Baker Road’:

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Located just outside of Culdesac Idaho is one of the neat little roads tucked away up on the hilltops of northern Idaho.

It’s an amazing old road, with emphasis on Old and a double word bonus of Narrow. The road is barely the width of one and a half lanes of a modern roadway, and this one doesn’t have anything that I’d call a shoulder.

The curves are very tight and typical of Idaho, the shoulder gravel is the same color as the roadway as it’s paved with local stone. Most of the curves are very tight: most of the outside curves have no guiderail to demarcate the outside edges and the ‘inside corners’ have oncoming traffic is usually coming across the inside of your lane.

It’s a great road though and the vista is well worth the trip, not only from the top but also from many points along the way up.

This is the wide section.

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I know a bunch of folks say these roads are boring. And I can’t argue that if you don’t enjoy open countrysides, the scenery isn’t much to write home about.

One thing this stretch of 206 offers is fast and lonely sweepers. Well, lonely if you don’t count the occasional deer in the fields and the numerable ground squirrels living along the verge of the road. At one point along the plateau a dozen miles SW of Heppner, I was seeing a squirrel scurry in front of me every easily hundred yards.

It’s fast and lonely though. Not hardly another soul on the road to hold things up. And when you do see a car coming the other way, they’re usually waving to you.

Canyon corners between Condon and Heppner:

Most notably, it also offers several sets of fantastic twisties with a canyon-edge hairpins every 10 minutes or so between Heppner and Condon. The curves really are great and there’s so little traffic that the chip-seal doesn’t get polished. The traction was simply amazing on the rural Oregon roads. It has really spoiled me for riding in Washington.

Wind farm just west of Condon:

Yeah, I was too busy strafing the curves to stop for photos in the middle.

Regarding services, it’s better than most roads in Central Oregon. There’s fuel in Heppner, Condon, and all along the I-84 freeway. There’s a little biker-friendly hotel in both Condon and in Heppner, and camping outside of Heppner on Willow Creek Road.

In between? Well, there’s not much but a couple semi-abandoned hamlets, much twisty road, and many deer.

• Counties: Gilliam and Morrow
• Length: 43 miles
• Towns: Heppner, Condon

Google Map for Oregon State Route 206 from Heppner to Condon:

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This road is part of the Hells Canyon Scenic Byway. It wends its way down from Imnaha Highway near Joseph through the Hells Canyon back-country past a number of peaks in the Blue Mountains range before dropping you out east of Halfway.

Obviously, this road isn’t in one of the more populated parts of the lower 48 states. Food, fuel, and water are all important issues for travelers through this area. You can get food (Safeway!) and fuel in Enterprise and Joseph (a tourist town, watch out) and that you can at least get gas and snacks in Halfway most of the time. If you’re travelling through this area in the extreme ends of the riding season, I would recommend keeping an eye out for road closures. It’s often closed through much of its length in the winter and gets officially closed at least from Salt Creek Summit down to Oregon 86 (east of Halfway).

One item of concern with this road is that it is part of the Hells Canyon Scenic Loop. And during the peak times there’s lots of tourists driving around. I needn’t belabor how poorly the weekends tourists drive when they’re in sight-seeing mode, but if you visit during the middle of the week or early in the day you might just have the road to yourself.

I would recommend visiting Hells Canyon Overlook also, it’s got a wonderful view. Several resources have listed a number of horse camps, so be careful not only of horse trailer but equestrian near the roadway.

The road itself is in extremely poor shape throughout much of the length. There were many spots, often mid-hairpin, where the top surface of the road has literally come undone and there’s poorly-bound chipseal stones strewn across the entire lane. The top half of the roadway is a much more recent chipseal effort than the south end, but the lane lines are still just as faded as they barely perceptible ones to the south.

View up the river on the bottom half of Wallowa-Whitman Forest Service Road 39:

Most of the corner between Oregon Route 86 and the Salt Creek Summit @ 6000′ are in the 25-30mph range with occasional 15mph hairpins. It’s one of the better technical roads that I’ve ever done. I just wish it was a little less technical in the off-road dirt & stones sense of dealing with tires sliding from deteriorating pavement. The worst spot in the whole length during my June 2009 visit was about 18 miles up from the south where there were full-on potholes and gravel plumes right in the middle of the lane at the bottom of a decreasing radius hairpin where you’d cross through the pothole and thus into the ditch if you don’t very carefully assiduously late-apex that corner.

And also while it may not need to be mentioned since it’s one of the most common occurrences in Central & Eastern Oregon, be careful when you approach dirt-road junction that are mid-corner. There’s usually rocks from the side-road all over the pavement.

Signage one the road is rather typically National Park-thin. Most corners are unmarked and this road also follows the Oregon convention of 1 sign for each set of corners with the recommended speed on the sign set for the tightest corner. Of course, that corner is usually at the end.

• Counties: Baker, Wallowa
• Length: 52 miles
• Towns: None. Road has several traveler “rest stations” and runs near both Joseph and Halfway at each end for Services

Google Map:

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Another fantastic Central Oregon route, here we have over 80 miles of nearly unbroken sweepers and hairpins in the Ruggs – Mitchell segment of Oregon Route 207. As this route does one of those strange Oregon multi-plexing things where it forms an ‘X’ across North Central oregon with Route 19, I’ll deal with this in parts.

Landscape north of Mitchell. The road is tucked in amongst the sagebrush here and there’s some hairpins hidden like a Where’s Waldo puzzle.

The northern end of 207 between Spray is an outstanding sport-tourer twisty road. It goes way up into the hills just a half-dozen miles north of the eastern OR19-OR207 split and it’s non-stop twisty bits until you’re almost into Ruggs. When I was up there last, they were doing some roadwork on the choicer twisties, but the road was so quiet that there I waited no more than a minute or two for a pickup-truck “pilot car” to lead me though.

This ‘pilot car’ driver knew how to hussle a truck around a road. We were tearing through the hairpins up around 4000′ at the crest and powering out of the wider sweepers. Even with the “reduced speed” due to construction zone, it was a hoot.

The middle part is the section that multi-plexes with Route 19 and consists more of intermediate sweepers. While many may poo-poo the high speed sweepers, it does give one a bit of a rest and something more important as well.

Sightlines. I know you’re thinking I’m daft now, but it’s quite important because Spray is the home of the stupidest mule deer in the Northwest. I had 4 deer encounters in 2 days in Spray. One riding into town. Twice on the way out of town. And I had one while I was merely standing next to the bike at the gas station! One of the ‘out of town’ ones even had the deer run at me after I’d come to a complete halt. Stupid things would have run right into me if I hadn’t dropped the clutch and scooted out of its way.

Yeah. That stupid.

Strom on the Side of the Road on the Southern Section of 207:

The one reason Spray’s rather important is that it’s the only gas station on this route that is open Monday through Friday during business hours. I don’t think they have Premium fuel though, but it’s called the Lazy Wolf Resort. Nice folks.

The third section is the desolate twisty bits between Service Creek and Mitchell.

There’s no civilization here and it goes right up a steep grade shortly after you make the turn onto 207. It’s all up & down and side to side on this road. My ‘Come Ride with Us’ maps (courtesy of Bill Hutchinson and the advertisers) said this road had 122 curves in that short 22 miles. I don’t doubt it for a moment though as you’re way too busy watching the road, the awesome scenery, and still keeping an eye out for the stupid deer (since you’re only a few miles away from Spray still).

There’s gas in Mitchell on some days of the week, but not on Mondays. Don’t be confused by the gas pump you see across the street from the post office. That’s supposedly been shut down for years. There’s another guy further up the main street from the highway. And there’s no Premium gas at all last I checked.

If you’ve got to have Premium or it’s a Monday, I recommend Dayville even that it’s a fair hike.

One final note after reviewing my last trip diary: The roads within the National Forest are generally not paved as well, but are more technical in nature and more challenging. I’d use these section of road to hone your cornering and curve-reading abilities and use the wider but smoother corners at lower elevations for the high-speed stuff.

• Road Name: Oregon Route 207 (Heppner-Mitchell)
• Counties: Morrow, Wheeler
• Length: 80 miles
• Towns: Hardman, Mitchell, Ruggs, Service Creek, Spray, Spring Valley

Google Map for Oregon Route 207:

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