*Motorcycle Roads NorthWest

Up in the far reaches of Northern Washington, nearly bumping into Canada even, is a wonderful little backroad perfect for sport-touring.

Why, you might ask would you go all the way up there to ride good roads? One fine reason is there’s hardly any other traffic on them. 37 miles of rural 2-lane with only the occasional farm truck and a couple dozen deer to dodge.

Most of the time at least, that is the case.

Unfortunately, when I went through they’d torn out the middle 10 miles of the road down to the bedrock. I was rather glad that I had opted to keep the quasi-dual-sport tires on the strom as the clay-ey soil would not have been fun on sportbike tires like the previous summer’s Conti Road Attacks.

And it is a good road, don’t get me wrong. I had a lot of fun on it, but the locals don’t look too fondly upon riders going much over the 40-ish mph speed limit. And the deer really are plentiful and fearless.

And even better, contrary to some reports from various mapping solutions, this road is (or will be) completely paved from end to end once construction on that center section is done.

Fuel is a bit spotty on the north end of the highway, but there’s food, lodgings, and fuel in Colville.

And this ride is quite fantastic when paired with its natural counterpart of riding Route 25 up into Northport. In fact, it’s quite the hillclimb getting out of Northport on Aladdin Road. Very steep incline that will have smaller motors working overtime, but very cool tight corners in that stretch too.

County: Stevens County, Washington
Length: 37 miles
Towns: Spirit, Northport, Colville, Aladdin

Google Map:

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When one is asked to envision a place with jaw-dropping scenery and fantastic twisty roads, the Klickitat River Canyon is generally not the first thing on anybody’s mind. It’s set back in a little nook between the Cascade and the Simcoe Mountain north of Goldendale. The Klickitat has carved an impressive channel down through “The Plateau” as the local call it, and the view is simply incredible.

View down the Klickitat River Canyon:

While sections of the road are a bit mind-numbing in their straight-ness, the canyon corners completely redeem this road. Yes, there’s one spot where you can see in a straight line for 2 miles on the way into Glenwood. But the corners coming down off the plateau into the canyon are like driving down the side of a corrugated cardboard box. Back & forth. Back & forth.

I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one that likes this one. Somebody marked their spot in the middle of one corner with a full-circle burnout.

View down the Klickitat River Canyon:

If you’re coming up from the end of SR142, don’t give up on it too easily. There’s some straight bit with 90-degree farm corners on the way in. Your patience WILL be rewarded.

And west of Glenwood, you have a pair of nice choices: BZ-Glenwood Highway or Trout Lake-Glenwood Road. Not bad either way.

GPS Exchange Format Track for Glenwood-Goldendale Road

• County: Klickitat
• Length: 24 miles
• Town: Glenwood

Google Map:

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Note: Google Maps and the other Navitech based online maps show that at least one routing of Willow Creek Road rolls right into downtown Heppner on Hager Street and the routing software really latches onto that direct route. This is not the case. From what I could see, that road has been on the bottom of the Willow Creek Reservoir for quite awhile now and the new route is on the south side of the creek and town.

Flood Control Dam at Heppner:

If you’re coming down out of the forest there’s no real way to get lost. Just roll down the pavement and enjoy the ride.

South of Heppner on Willow Creek Road is the Willow Creek Campground. At least while I was there the RV spots were 1/3 full with rather friendly elderly folks. Where I stayed in the tent section ($6/night), the ground was pretty rocky and unpleasant. But I had the tent area to myself and nobody bothered it through several days of leaving my saddlebags in the tent while I went riding for 8 hours/day.

Willow Creek Reservoir:

Halfway down the road not far into the serious ascent is the Cutsforth County Park. It’s a nice little campground nestled in amongst the trees. It’s a bit high up in the air for this flatlander-Seattleite to sleep in, but it look quite nice from the road.

One interesting thing to watch out for on FS 53 is the occasional cattle drive. Complete with cowboys on horses and herding dogs. It seriously thought I’d somehow dropped about 100 years into the past. The entire landscape up there looks like something out of a Western around Ukiah. Wide open mile-high pastureland with a cluster of buildings that just happen to be grouped togheter there for no apparent reason. Nice folks though, so be sure you wave.

Speaking of waving, it seems everybody waves to everybody there. The old folks in caddies wave. The farmers wave. When they’re not out raising hell it seems even the teenagers driving around wave. And just about anyone under the age of 14 waves to the motorcycles like their arm is gonna fall off. I think I might be making some more frequent vacation plans down that away.

One other thing to worry about is gas down there. While Heppner seems to have the only commercially-franchised gas station in North-Central Oregon, there’s no other fuel on the road and difficult to find in much of the region. Make sure you know when your gas stops are going to be open when you go through, and I recommend calling ahead a couple weeks before you leave to be sure that the place has fuel or is even still in business. I’ve heard that a lot of mom & pop gas stations have folded this summer due to low tourism.

Mural along the grain elevator. Reportedly the biggest mural west of the Mississippi:

View of Heppner from atop the hill by the dam:

Aside from these standard concerns about riding in North-Central Oregon, it’s great down there. There’s very little traffic to worry about the pavement is quite smooth and ridiculously grippy compared to the billiard-ball smooth Seattle freeways.

If you get a chance, Ukiah has one unique characteristic shared by no other town I’ve ever heard of. The school district there is so huge and so sparsely-settled that it’s probably the only public school distract in the US that is actually a boarding school. Boys and Girls dormitories more or less on the opposite ends of town, of course.

GPX file containing track for Willow Creek Road

• Counties: Morrow, Umatilla
• Length: 44 miles
• Towns: Heppner, Ukiah

Google Map for Umatilla FS 53:

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Sunrise Park Road
Road to Sunrise Ampitheater

The Road to Sunrise Ampitheatre is extremely twisty and challenging. The paving also leaves a lot of be desired with large frost heaves and sunken sections of pavement. Be quite careful when riding this road due to these concerns and the astonishingly heavy tourist traffic in the afternoons.

However, where the paving is smooth, you’ll find a technically-challenging road with several sharp switchbacks and lovely tight curves. The curves are fairly well-planned, but the road has been sorrowfully neglected recently, and doesn’t appear to get much in the way of preventive maintenance.

The Road up to Sunrise Ampitheater

Do be careful of the turns, as there are rather large drop-offs and no shoulder or guide rails in much of the area.

Above: A Map of Sunrise Park Road

Below: A General Map of Mount Rainier National Park

Additional Photos from my August 2008 trip up to the Sunrise Visitor Center:

Google Map:

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This road starts on the south edge of Ukiah and gently wends it way uphill into the heart of the Blue Mountains. Once you’re about 15 minutes in, you’ll start to see signs for various OHV riding and snowmobile areas, and shortly afterwards the road starts to get interesting with much tighter and more frequent S-curves.

Keep following FS52 up into the mountains past a number of USFS trailheads and you’ll come across and intersection of FS51 near the headwaters of the John Day North Fork. You’ll want this road if you’re heading back up to the north. Otherwise continue on south to FS73 which will take you east into Sumpter and eventually down to Oregon Route 7.

I recommend double-checking road conditions before you head out on this road. It’s very high up with a 5600′ / 1700m crest at FS51 and snow starts early and stays late at those elavations. There’s a Forest Service station right there on the west end of Ukiah and they were right helpful last time I was there.

I don’t have a lot in the way of photos of the area. It was rather pretty there and the horizon views were nice, but not jaw-droppingly gorgeous. If you do get a chance to stop at the bottom end of 52, look out to the West and you can see across the plateaus for at least 50 miles or so.

• Counties: Umatilla, Grant
• Length: 39 miles
• Town: Ukiah

Google Maps for Umatilla FS 52:

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