*Motorcycle Roads NorthWest

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.

Read more

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:

View Larger Map

Way back in the opening decades of the 20th Century, an amazing road was designed by the Oregon State Highway Department and highway engineer Samuel C. Lancaster. An fantastic routing full of viewpoints, waterfalls, tunnels, and curves of all shapes and sizes.

It was described by John Arthur Elliot:

The ideals sought were not the usual economic features and considerations given the location of a trunk highway. Grades, curvature, distance and even expense were sacrificed to reach some scenic vista or to develop a particularly interesting point. All the natural beauty spots were fixed as control points and the location adjusted to include them. Although the highway would have a commercial value in connecting the Coast country with the eastern areas, no consideration was given the commercial over scenic requirements. The one prevailing idea in the location and construction was to make this highway a great scenic boulevard surpassing all other highways of the world.

Read more

Everyone that’s persevered sufficiently to read much of my writing knows that I’ve got a thing for old roads. New roads are fun and they’re fast, but they don’t satisfy me unless they have a bit of history behind them.

This one doesn’t sound spectacular, but it’s a great little road that usually gets you away from the weekender traffic putting along 101 and it’s a twisty little beast of a rural backroad that is the current 101’s great-grandpa.

Between Wheeler/Nehalem and the Seaside/Cannon Beach sections of the coast, this used to be the only way to get there. I can’t imagine how horrible the traffic must have been back then, because this little road is seriously twisty. It flips back and forth and goes right up one river valley and down another, and little more than a handful of places with a couple hundred yards of straight stuff.
Read more

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

Overview Map:

Google Map:

View Larger Map