*Motorcycle Roads NorthWest

Wikipedia has an excellent description of Oregon Route 218.

OR 218 is a fairly short rural highway. Its western terminus is in Wasco County, in the ghost town of Shaniko at U.S. Route 97. The road is very windy and hilly over its entire 43-mile (69 km) length and is a popular destination for motorcyclists. It runs through the small town of Antelope (population 50) and has a junction with OR 293 on the south end of town.

More mountainous terrain follows, and the highway crosses the John Day River into Wheeler County at Clarno. Just east of Clarno is the Clarno Unit of the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument. Between Clarno and Fossil (the largest town on the route, with a population of about 475), the road has several sharp curves, with a posted speed limit of 15 miles per hour (24 km/h) in several places. The eastern terminus is in Fossil at the junction of Washington Street and Seventh Street (OR 19).

This indeed does cover the bases. The raw facts if you will. It doesn’t even begin to cover the sheer exhilaration of roaring out of the tight corners with your knees skimming the pavement after having endured what’s most likely 50+ miles of WIDE US 97 sweepers with that obnoxious 50mph speed limit.

The views are simply astounding and the highway is just completely freaking empty.

View from the edge of the plateau looking down past the hairpins.

Now, I’ll freely admit that the road lulls you into a brief sense of complacency with a ho-hum straight SE out of Shaniko to the edge of the Cascade Highlands. It doesn’t last long though before it pretty much chucks you off the side of the ridge right down into a pair of 15mph hairpins and through a slot canyon into Antelope.

Running off the east side of that plateau takes you down into Antelope. If you’ve hit the day-of-the-week lottery (Wednesday through Sunday), you’ll be able to get regular fuel in Antelope. If not, you can even get a bottle of Gatorade in that town.

Clarno Palisades

View of the Valley from the Clarno Palisades

Route 218 was also the first place where I encountered the Central Oregon habit of marking and entire set of as many as 8 curves with 1 single sign marked with the speed of the slowest and tightest of the bunch. More than a little harrows when the first five corners are 45 right angles and for #6 you are confronted with a super tight hairpin with gravel in the apex. Might need an clothes iron at the end of the day to get those puckers out of the seat fabric.

And while for the most part the corners do open up into regular mid-speed sweepers East of Antelope (just 1 more hairpin set East of Clarno), it’s not like it’s the end of the fun. Those curves stay entertaining all the way until you’re a just a few tenths of a mile outside of Fossil. It beats the everliving daylights out of droning down US97 after all.

One interesting oddity about this part of Oregon is the number of old stagecoach stops and farming hamlets that used to have a few homes or houses and have all been abandoned. Some of these have reported as ‘ghost towns’ by various websites, but it seems rather amusing to me to roll by old farmhouses that are specifically listed as part of a ‘ghost town’ and see satellite mini-dishes bolt onto the side of a 100-year-old supposedly abandoned hamlet.

A few other pointers:

• I haven’t been there, but I’ve heard good reviews of Big Timber Restaurant in Fossil
• Shaniko and Antelope have lots of abandoned commercial buildings to wander around and look at if you need to stretch your legs or are waiting for someone to come bring you premium fuel.
• There’s tons of deer in Antelope and around Fossil.
• Slow down when crossing the John Day River. There’s a nice old girder bridge spanning the river there by Clarno.

Barn near Fossil off Route 218

Slot Canyon and Corners

• Counties: Wheeler, Wasco
• Length: 42 miles
• Towns: Shaniko, Antelope, Clarno, Fossil

Google Map for Oregon State Route 218:

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Now, don’t act all surprised that I’ve posted yet another old highway alignment. This one however is rather nice and much twistier than the parallel Interstate 90 a few miles to the south.

This one is quite a bit of fun, actually. It winds along the valleys that lead down to the Columbia River and passes some rock quarries and a large windmill installation on the north side of the road.

There’s lot of fun to be had on this expanse of lightly-traveled chipseal, but apparently there’s been a number of accidents as well. Some WSDOT pages I’ve seen indicate that this road has been designated a “Safety Corridor” so it would be wise to keep your speed down to a reasonable level and keep an eye out for other traffic in additional to one’s usual vigilance for law enforcement.

Columbia River Photos, near Vantage:

Photo by Jami Dwyer (CC: AT)

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For riders used to the hustle & bustle of Western Washington, Washington’s Route 20 is prone to inducing a bit of mental dissonance. If you departed on your trip from Seattle, you’ve spent the last couple hundred around lots of cars, motorcycles, and RVs. Well, that pretty much seems to end once you’re east of Okanogan.

Once you cross the Columbia at Tonasket, you’re into a whole different time and place. Riding through the canyon floors of these sparsely-forested hillsides, it’s very easy to believe that you might be riding through the early years of the 20th century and not the 21st. Indeed, I kept half expecting to see some miner on a donkey or a rancher riding down out of the hills every time I came around a corner.

No, there were no cowboys or gold miners, instead I got deer. All over the place they were.

Most of Route 20 is rangeland, mostly fenced thankfully, but rangeland nonetheless. I would see deer near the road or in adjoining fields every 4-5 miles. On many occasions during this 150+ mile ride, I’d see deer grazing alongside big beef cattle as nonchalantly as if they too were completely domesticated.

Finlay Canyon across to the Methow Valley:

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This is another member of the Grangeville Gang. And no, this road is not named after a mountain, at least not directly, but after a town that at one time was more important than Grangeville.

This road is very sparsely travelled as Mount Idaho isn’t exactly a bustling metropolis. The road has a few new houses built along it though as the views are quite nice. Not sure I’d want to live up there in the winter though, as I bet it snows like nobody’s business.

In the summer though, this road is a giggle. I thoroughly enjoyed ripping up it at a good clip, and didn’t see a single vehicle until I was into “downtown” Mt. Idaho and not another one until I was right back into Grangeville.

You also don’t have the impressive vistas that you can get with Harpster or Whitebird. Instead, you have a load of fun on a road that isn’t so challenging that the novice is tired after a run or two. You might need more gas in Grangeville after you’ve done the Harpster-Elk City-Mt. Idaho Loop though. This is some seriously rugged country.

Right in the middle of Mt. Idaho at the curve in the main road you can see the back of a Idaho State Historical Marker, which reads:

In 1862, a noted Western scout, Mose Milner, started Mount Idaho on his gold rush trail to Florence. Camas Prairie’s major early town soon grew up here. But when civic leaders resisted a farm effort to organize a grange there in 1874, Grangeville grew up as a better-located town. Although Mount Idaho became county seat from 1875 to 1902 and had an important Chinese community, Grangeville soon surpassed its older rival. Most of its early buildings have disappeared.

It’s not terribly picturesque, but gives a view of the valley to the south.

• Towns: Mount Idaho
• Length: 9 miles
• County: Idaho County, Idaho

Overview Map:

Google Map:

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The road to Elk City begins about halfway down the Harpster Grade from Grangeville.

The road runs along a small river with a number of very exciting rapids, and some hardy folks have even built footbridges out across the river and park their vehicles along the road.

Idaho 14 is also open rangeland, which is very surprising as its highly abundant in evergreen trees. Not what I would expect for raising cattle. Nevertheless, there are open range signs posted and there was more than once that I came around the corner and got a close-up view of the south end of a north-bound heiffer.

View of SR14 through the trees from atop Harpster Grade. I’ll get a better picture next time.

Otherwise this road is pretty good. Although it’s not as tight as other roads in the area, you do have to watch for falling rocks in certain areas, just as you do with Harpster Grade.

• Road Name: Idaho Route 14
• Counties: Idaho
• Length: 49 miles
• Towns: Elk City, Fall Creek, Golden

Streets and Trips file for Idaho SR14

Overview Map:

Google Map:

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