*Motorcycle Roads NorthWest

This road is a fun little stretch of highway that zips across the Deschutes River Valley (via Tygh Valley) south of Tygh Ridge. The road intersects with US 197 about 7-8 miles north of Maupin’s sweet twisties and heads back to the Deschutes River and its own set of twisties.

There’s fuel and food in Maupin, whose location down in the narrow river valley is really quite interesting. The speed limits are low in town, but that still doesn’t prevent you from scriping pegs on the south side of the valley or leaning over on the sharper curves going up the hill on the north side.

The twisty bits themselves in the Deschutes River Valley are like a mini-Rattlesnake Grade. Just like WA 129/Oregon Route 3, you go down from a ridgetop through an impressive set of twisties and cross a reiver before heading back up the other side.

Deschutes River Valley from atop the East side of the ridge:

Deschutes River just upstream from Sherar’s Bridge:

Photo by Glenn Williams (CC: Attribution)

• Road Name: Oregon Route 216 (Tygh Valley-Buckley)
• Counties: Wasco
• Length: 17
• Towns: Buckley, Fargher, Sherar Grabe, Tygh Valley

Download the Streets and Trips file for Oregon Route 216 (Tygh Valley-Buckley, OR)

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Google Map for Oregon Route 216:

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I did this road in July 2008. While not exactly a stellar summer by even Puget Sounds standards, Northern Idaho seems to have been blessed with much nicer weather. No trace of rain to speak of while I was there, even though Seattle was getting a mid-July drenching.

Halfway through this ride, I dubbed it “The Long Way Around the Lake”. And while this a good description on paper, the whimsical title would completely ignore the somewhat intense reality of this extremely tight and somewhat hazardous roadway.

I have not in my entire life seem so many construction zones, new houses, boat slips, blind corners, and scenic overlooks packed into one place. The road ascends from lake level on either end up to the top of the bluff near Powderhorn Bay. In between these three points, it precariously hugs the side of the ridge with a steep uphill slope on one side and a nasty drop-off on the other in many places.

It’s also very busy as one might expect of such a scenic road in close proximity to Coeur d’ Alene too. The road is rapidly filling up with fancy houses, and in a few years this road will probably have to be pulled from the last no longer being suitable for anything beyond blue-hair riding speeds.

One thing it’s got in spades is scenery.

West across Wolf Lodge Bay:

North across the Lake from atop the bluff at Powderhorn Bay:

No chance of crappy scenery here. No sirree.

The south end of the lake is a little less intense but still moderately curvy. And as long as you don’t get behind a logging truck, you’ll enjoy Idaho 3 down into St. Maries.

• County: Kootenai, Benewah
• Length: 48 miles
• Towns: Beatty, Eddyville, Harrison

Google Map:

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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 doney 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:

Once you’re east of Tonasket, this road takes on that Old West feeling that I mentioned before. The landscape is brown with a few resinous pine trees along the roadside. I spent the morning out around Wauconda and Republic, all by myself. There streets of Republic were almost deserted. I saw several cars parked along the side of the street, but almost nobody was stirring even at 11am on Sunday.

The only “major” town along the route is Kettle Falls/Colville. You can get all the usual items there and Google reports that there’s a couple motorcycle shops in town. Not surprising really, in that this entire area is a dual-sport paradise. Dirt roads everywhere once you’re off the main highway.

As far as the road itself, well, it’s simply incredible. It’s one of the best stretches of roadway I’ve ever ridden. You can do 30-40 miles of awesome sweepers at a stretch. Then all the sudden you get a few miles of gentler sweepers and cross a river, and you’re back into some of the most incredible touring twisties this side of the California state line.

• Counties: Okanogan, Ferry, Stevens, Pend Oreille (pron. Pond O’Ray)
• Length: 157 miles
• Towns: Okanogan, Riverside, Tonasket, Wauconda, Republic, Kettle Falls, Colville, Ione

A lovely view of one of the waterfalls along the route: Crystal Falls

Google Maps:

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This is a nice little road that’s on the back way home from work. It winds along the Green River in amongst the trees, and provides a nice getaway from the aggressive freeway traffic.

There’s no photos here, as the road doesn’t have much in the way of a view. It follows the river for the most part, but it’s rarely so close that there’s no trees in the way of a good view. Perhaps I might take a photo of this road from the Route 18 freeway on the other side of the river, which is farther up the ridgeline and has a rather nice view of this road.

This road dovetails rather nicely with some other roads in the area, including Hobart-Issaquah Road down into Ravensdale which if you continue south eventually takes you down into Black Diamond and just a few blocks from this road. If you take this road from East to West, it also has the intersection for Green Valley Road near the Route 18 exit.

• Road Name: Auburn-Black Diamond Road
• Counties: King
• Length: 12 miles
• Towns: Auburn, Black Diamond, Morganville, Wynaco

Download the Streets and Trips file for Auburn-Black Diamond Road

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Google Map of Auburn-Black Diamond Road:

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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

A few hours further into that day and you probably could’ve seen Mt. Adams and maybe even Mt. St. Helens.

The roadway itself is a little rough after Quincy, and indeed after the Quincy turnoff I didn’t see any more sportbikes. Not a thorough-going V-Strom road, but one that requires a bit of care rather than encouragement of peg-scraping angles.

Friendly folks along the road too. I stopped the take the picture above, and the farmer stopped to make sure I didn’t need some assistance.

One really convenient part of that road is that it’s just a dozen or so blocks east of where Oregon 47 comes down out the hills. Just enough distance to stop at the handy gas station and fill up before heading across the river and off towards Quincy.

Note: the photo above was taken near the ‘B’ on the Google Map.

• Counties:
• Length:
• Towns: Quincy, Mayger, Alston

Download the Microsoft Streets & Trips map for Quincy-Mayger Loop

Google Map:

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This road is one of the favorites of the local Portland riders. Rather easy to tell really, since I saw a half-dozen riders on this road in 10 minutes and that was more than I’d seen in the previous 3 hours.

This road starts up at the top near the quasi-hamlet of Pittsburg and comes down out of the Northwestern Oregon evergreen forests. It’s chilly up there in the trees, but if the sun is out you’ll warm up on the way down.

While this road seems to be mostly sweepers, they’re rather nice sweepers that just keep coming for mile after mile. Just keep an eye out for traffic on this road, as its proximity to Portland makes it a little busier than comparable roads.

If you’re careful, you can maintain a really nice pace on S-V Highway. I was passed by a couple riders on sportbikes who were running a somewhat more imprudent pace, but the curves are still quite enjoyable around 40-50 mph.

• Road Name: Scappoose-Vernonia Highway
• Counties: Columbia(OR)
• Length: 20 miles
• Towns: Pittsburg, Scappoose, Spitzenburg

Streets and Trips file for Scappoose-Vernonia Rd

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Note: This isn’t any particular road, but rather a serious of loosely-connected roads that allow one to thread their way through some surprisingly empty country laying between Interstate 90 and WA SR26.

The Inner Passage holds a marked allure for me. Usually, when I am trying to get an event or a function, I’m in a hurry. I want to meet my friends, have supper, and enjoy myself before turning in for a good night’s rest. On the way home, I’m feeling mellow and reminiscent, and that where roads like this one come in.
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One thing that is immediately apparent about Apiary Road is that it’s rural. If you’re coming in from the north end around Rainier or Clatskanie, you have to climb up out of the river valley to get there, and then you go up a set of wonderful uphill esses that take you up onto the plateau.

If there’s no traffic, you can have a significantly fun trip up through those curves and still not be in serious hoodlum territory. Those are some good sweepers.

Unfortunately, that also means that the bicyclists like them too. I had to wait at intersections several times for the bicycle race that was running that weeked that went up through Fern Hill Road and then down Apiary back to US 30.

The south end of this road is more timer country than rural. The trees are thicker and taller, and evergreen instead of deciduous, and the farms don’t have lovely manicured lawns out in front of the house once you’re a few miles past the wide spot in the road that is the hamlet of Apiary itself.

One thing to keep in mind. Get gas in Clatskanie or Rainier before you head Apiary Road. There’s no services along the roadside and services are very scant even further south on the roads this one connects to.

Note: On the Streets & Trips map below, the leg east of the yellow #2 marker is technically not Apiary Road. It is however a section of Old US 30 that I enjoy and leads you right up to Apiary Road.

• Road Name: Apiary Road
• Counties: Columbia(OR)
• Length: 23
• Towns: Apiary, Hudson, Rainier, West Rainier

Download the Streets and Trips file for Apiary Road

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This a classic forest road in the rural backwoods of Western Washington. Nestled within the glacial river valleys that once drained Puget Sound down to Grays Harbor, this road is bracketed throughout its entire 24 mile length by ridges, ponds and hillsides.

Just as you would expect from geography and location, the road is tree-lined pretty much from end to end. And just as you would expect from such a rural thoroughfare, you have the spectre of the dreaded hooved rat.

I had one very-close encounter of the antlered-kind, and two wherein deer were fleeing up the hillside by the time I got there. One of those deer in the middle section of the road was so confident that it stood in ground in the middle of the road until I was almost to a full stop.

This road is one of the older routes between Shelton and Elma. It’s been superseded by newer roads, and its state of maintenance is apparent. It still has mileage markers telling you where you are on the road, but it no longer has the smooth surface of a modern highway.

Much of the road on the extreme ends are still made up of the original concrete slab roadway as well. Obviously, the surface is extremely bumpy and rides much like Interstate 5 South near Tukwila. In between, where the deer are, is a much more enjoyable smooth asphalt surface with excellently-radiused curves.

I really like this road. While it definitely has a high deer quotient, it’s rather rewarding of smaller motors like the V-Strom where keeping the motor perking is the answer rather than monster torque.

• Counties: Mason, Grays Harbor
• Length: 24 miles
• Towns: Elma, Shelton

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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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