*Motorcycle Roads NorthWest

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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Northwestern Oregon is a treasure trove of fantastic motorcycle roads. Many of the roads are very mountainous in nature with lots of fir trees and log trucks. This one, on the river side of US30 is a bit different. This one runs through a still hilly but far more agricultural and bucolic settings than the more mountainous setting between US26 and US30.

One key difference for me was that the curves were probably a fair bit safer. Less likely to 1) come across an oncoming log truck in my lane or 2) come across an oncoming bull elk in my lane.

There’s some pretty views on this road too. I rather like the little view down to the Columbia from the top of this bluff.

View of the Columbia near Mayger
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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

Google Map of Washington Route 503:

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Washington State Route 504 is the primary route into the St. Helens National Volcanic Monument. A very nice, smooth road that is made up almost entirely of wide sweepers and bridges leaping across various canyons. As there’s no industry inside the National Monument, there’s little tractor-trailer traffic to worry about or break up the pavement.

While there are few trucks, you will need to keep an eye out for tour buses from mid-morning on towards dinner. The buses rather predictably labor up the steeply-inclined roads, and have an irritating habit of popping up in blind downhill corners. The tourists are of course there to see the volcano and stop occasionally at the handful of businesses, viewpoints, and visitor centers along the 50 mile route.

I wrote the following back in 2004:

Within a dozen miles of leaving Interstate 5, you can see the desolation from the 1980 blast. What was once an extremely thick evergreen forest had been leveled completely, and has only started sprouting saplings in the past 5-10 years. Closer to the crater, with the thicker ashfall, there’s still few trees and very few bushes which leaves a strikingly dry lunar impression on the visitors of Johnston Ridge Observatory.

Well, like I said about FS25, it’s not really like that so much anymore. The trees are much more apparent nowadays at the further edge of the blast zone, and even right up on Johnston Ridge there’s a few trees starting to come up through the alpine meadow plants, as can be seen below. (Photo by Colin Faulkingham)

• Towns: Toutle, Kid Valley, Silver Lake, Castle Rock, St. Helens
• Length: 51 miles (102 miles round trip)
• County: Skamania (WA)

Microsoft Streets & Trips file for Washington State Route 504

Overview Map:

Google Map:

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US97 is a dry side road. It wends its way up from the Columbia along the valley floors, scatterings of abandoned pastureland and hardwood pines punctuating the Eastern Cascade scenery. The views are impressive and the highway is as well-paved as it is desolate on our mid-October weekend excursion.

At one fairly flat spot south of Satus Pass, you can stop at a roadside marker where you can see four of the Cascade Range Volcanoes: Hood, St. Helens, Adams, and Rainier further in the distance. A wide vista of the valley floor, all the way up to the Cascade foothills can be enjoyed there. I highly recommend a short visit, as it’s a good spot to turn around if you want to go through the sweepers again.

View of Mt. Adams from the Cascade Volcano Viewpoint along US97. Very pretty, and a nice place to stop on a very lonely road.

Along Satus Creek and across its namesake mountain pass, the roads curve along the walls of the canyon. The sweeper are clean and infrequently traveled, and the revenue enhancement patrols were simply not in evidence on that sleepy weekend. The few State Patrol cruisers we saw were not very interested even in our fairly elevated speed.

Between Toppenish and Satus Pass, US97 passes through the lands of the Yakama Nation. There are relatively few homesteads along the route and a number of side-roads dead-end about an eighth of a mile from 97. The posted speed of the road is quite liberal for a two-lane US route, and ascends several of the large ridges between the Yakima River and the southern Columbia.

US97 up near Satus Pass, much high-altitude greenery

North of Toppenish, US97 is not worth mentioning as it’s an arrow-straight 1960s-era concrete freeway just like any other character-less freeway in the Midwest. North of Union Gap a few miles further, US97 multi-plexes with Interstate 82.

At Maryhill, US97 crosses the Columbia and enters from Oregon, where the average driver isn’t even trusted enough to pump his own gas. Heading west from Maryhill (and where you end up if you miss the left-hand turnoff to cross the Columbia and stay on 97 South) , is Washington SR14. A real gem of a road, and was once a US three-digit route as an alternative to US30/I-82 over on the Oregon side of the river.

This route was largely that taken by Lewis & Clark on their expedition in the very early 1800s, and is known as the Lewis & Clark Highway.

• Towns: Toppenish, Goldendale, Maryhill
• Length: 59
• Counties: Yakima, Klickitat

Microsoft Streets & Trips file for US 97 Maryhill to Toppenish

Overview Map of US97 from Maryhill to Toppenish

Google Map:

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