Unofficial Dam Tour - Western Oregon

Day 1

I decided to do the Unofficial Dam Tour this year and it was a good choice. Dam tour often takes you to road along river and rivers are twisty. Need I say more?

The point of this trip from June 18 and 19 is to celebrate solstice and bag the remaining dams in Western Oreeeegun!

The route of day one.

The photo fest begins.

Mt. Adams



I-84 along the Columbia River Gorge










Then it was to the Rowena Crest along Oregon Hwy 30 just south of I-34 near The Dalles. The the view point you will see this:







And what it looked like from the crest on this day:





Highway 35 views of Mt. Hood - nice clouds.



Snaggle Tooth aka Mt. Hood



After picking up Timothy Lake dam I head down FS 42 and this is a goat trail.  It is baaaaad.





After forest service road 42 and 46 I am riding along state highway 22 happy to see a road with 3 painted lines again.



Sahalie Falls



Lake at the dam..... dam I forgot what lake. Smith Lake.....



End of Day 1

Day 2

I stayed the night in Corvallis Oregon which set me up to ride Hwy 34 today. In Alsea I stopped at Debbie's Restaurant (http://www.eatatdebs.com/) to bag a great breakfast - the pancakes are highly recommended.
The cook, I imagine it was Debbie, recommended taking the Alsea-Deadwood Hwy and Lobster Valley Roads and connect with Highway 34 and not miss many of the good twisties. The advice fell far short of the excellent breakfast. The analogy is giving up a great road for hogs eating swill. I missed 20 miles of Hwy 34 and the best 20 too. Dam!

Here is the route for Day 2.

Hwy 101 bridge at Newport Oregon.

Ollala Reservoir



After bagging Ollala Reservoir Dam I more than made up for the bad advice by riding Hwy 229 see the Oregon Motorcyclist for a great description this fun!

I like these out of focus shot as they give the allusion of motion.


 

Speaking of motion forward progress was mostly impeded from here to just north of Vancouver Washington.  It was between 12:30 and 2:30 and traffic was no fun.  So I stopped at Drift Creek Covered Bridge to get of the drone of traffic along Hwy 18.

The sign says the bridge was demolished in 1997 and rebuilt in 2001. This is a historical structure? It was built in 2001 after being demolished. Rubbish I say. This is like taking a board track motorcycle from 1915, destroying it and appropriating a new motorcycle as a board track racer.



I road home a most uninspiring route - slabbing it home. Yuck. Nice trip otherwise.

Silver City NM to Seattle

Day 7

This is the ride report for the group ride on Friday May 30th.

There was a lot of riders with AJ leading. It was a dark stormy night, oops wrong story.

Anyway I assumed the sweep and finally joined up with Don Stanley. The day before I came down Hwy 191 and today we were going up instead. Al right!

Hwy 191 the darned long twisty road I have every been on. Some say the Tail of the Dragon would be zit on this 90 mile twist fest. They'd likely be right too.

Hwy 191



Jes Saying Enough Said



The African plains in eastern AZ.





Don





Notice the cut in the top right of the photo. The road goes there.



It was a great ride. 

End of Day 7

Day 8

Off bike day. Did not ride except to get gas. Nice day spent in town having lunch with a friend from the forum.

End of Day 8

Day 9

Did not sleep well - nuts. On the road at 4:00am Central time and road to Redland CA via the freeway. I was up riding at 4:00 to beat the heat or as much of it as I could. It was going to be 105 or so in the Phoenix area.

Here are a couple of photos. The scenery is typical of every mile I road that day.





It was hot when I got to Indio. How hot was it? This hot and this was moving at 70 mph.



Made it to Redlands at 12:45 Pacific time and enjoyed a couple of beers.

Day 10

The goal today was ride some of the twisty roads in the Big Bear and Lake Arrowhead area and work our way from the east to west. I am using Butler Maps of Southern California. This is a good resource though I wish the author's of Destination Highways would at least publish the Destination Highways So Cal map. Over the last few years all they have done is promise the So Cal book and map and so far it is vaporware. They are publish app crap of existing product I already own.

Today's route.



A profile of our elevation gain and loss..... Crazy.



With such elevation gain or loss like this you'd expect roads like this. And there are. We started on Hwy 38 then to Hwy 18.

Hwy 38



I suspect this was a landslide at one time. Makes for a nice photo.



Put a bit of foreground interest into the photo and it is even better.



Darn lanyard got in the way along Hwy 18.



Hwy 18 loses about 3000 feet in 5 miles. Wow! We ride down to the valley floor then back up.



A dry lake.



After riding up Hwy 18 heading into Big Bear where we found a lot of congestion. Still we found a few nice places for relaxing and some photos:











My FJR



Rim of The World Hwy (rather conceited to give it this name if you ask me - still it is a nice road - there was so much pollution in the valley it could have been the rim of a toilet bowl   )

After this we changed up the ride due to congestion and fear of following school buses so we headed down Hwy 138. Nice pavement greeted us and and only a few cars. Nice. We liked it so much we ran down then back up then down again. I got some photos of George the second time down.











For Tyler!



Silverwood Lake





Must be the home of an ex-politician.



End of Day 10

Today we road Angels Crest Hwy, Angels Forest Highway, the Little and Big Tujunga Canyon Roads and Hwy 33. What a day! Our Route

The day before we go all hung up in Bear Valley traffic. Today was completely opposite - no traffic at all and we started out by riding the Angeles Crest Highway east to west so the sun was at our back. As it turn out the pavement is best on the east side by a small margin too! 

I have been wanting to ride this road since 2007 - it was closed then. Another item checked off my bucket list. What a road. Easy sweeping corner for 50 miles with exceptional scenery. This should be a must on every motorcyclist wish list.

Let the photo’s begin.....





More sweepers - wonderful!





This is is not a sweeper.





A double tunnel.



The we went back to pickup the Angeles Forest Highway road. 





The cactus were in full bloom.



The road is below - nice view point.





Nuts to where we are it is about where we are going and that is the Big and Little Tujunga Canyon roads for more big sweepers.



And a hairpin.



And a view.



Then onto Ojii to ride Hwy 33



Where you get some flowers with your twisty road.



And some views:



End of Day 11 - a magnificent day.

Day 12

No roads for old FJRs (or new ones) or the story of an goat road, a wicked downhill descent and a goat road.

We bit of more than we could chew and using Butler maps exclusively may lead you to roads you’d rather skip. With Destination Highways the book has great prose describing the road in great detail so you know if it is a goat road or a well paved asphalt. Now if the authors at Destinations Highways had released the Southern Cal book an maps we would have skipped two goat road and a downhill descent of a a road we should have road up.

Here is the route.

The first goat road was had patches of cow manure from a recent cattle drive. I was thinking of George’s clean FJR was we dodged cow poo. I wasn’t sure if it was cow dung or scatt but it added another dimension to the poor pavement surface. At least it was not crowded and we made pretty good time plus we gained elevation escaping the heat in the valley.

The tree lined road kept views to a minimum. So not too many photos of goat road one.





The goat road joins California Hwy 190 and it is a 18 miles of steep down hill twisty pavement that is in marginal shape. Not easy but more scenic than goat road one.

Try to photo a harpin turn like Tyler without a wide angle lens.













Next it was one to goat road two where we were tailed by the police and had no idea of the speed limit. When the road got real bad we were able to slowly put some space between us and the law. Now that is a bad road. My advice is to stay away from the Yokohl Valley Road.

We stopped for lunch and realized we needed to change the route and headed to a posh casino resort for some well deserved relaxation.

End of Day 12.

Day 13

The reason to stay the night at the Chukchansi Gold Resort Casino was to save coin compared to the hotels in Oakhurst California, to have everything we needed for the night in one building and to be near the entrance to Yosemite. It was great! 

The route for today is Tioga and Sonora Passes and spend the next night in Sonora making this a very doable 240 miles. And we will be on good pavement compared to the day before. Yes!

So let’s start the photo gallery for this ride.

Our first stop was near Yosemite Valley.



I was here in June 2003 on my 1988 BMW R1000RT.







Bridalveil Falls



Did not take the time to get the name of this monolith.





On the road to Tioga Pass









Half Dome



Guess Who



Tuolumne Meadow



Not bad for a behind the back shot!



Sonora Pass my favorite!



Dig this crazy road.



For Tyler





In June 2003 I took this photo at this very spot and below it up to a 20x24 photo and framed it. Today the photos sits above the fireplace in my home. I compared the 2003 and 2014 photos. Very little has changed.




End of Day 13.

Day 14

We decide to make significant northward progress to get out of the heat in the Central Valley which are around 93 to 100F. A bit much for a couple of slugs from Washington State.

The route.

We started with a roller coaster ride on Hwy 49 driving for an hour or so until we stop for breakfast at the Old Well Cafe in Drytown. The patrons and owner where very un-PC. The owner and cook was wearing PJ bottoms. It was like comedy show with your meal. A couple walks in and the lady says oh isn’t this place quaint. The cook went off sarcastically saying the place is quaint, the food is quaint, the people are quaint. What a hoot. 



The highlight of the day was riding the Oroville to Quincy highway a wonderfully twisty road paved with asphalt my favorite surface - I hate cheap seal. Time to haul ass and we did.



I was enjoying myself so much and riding well I didn’t take a lot of photos. This is a must ride road.



Next we are off to Mt. Lassen where I take a few more photos.



The cloud caught my attention.





The lake near the summit at Mt. Lassen was just thawing out.





We find a hotel in Ashland Oregon to end the day.

End of Day 14.


Day 15

My mother in law had fallen dislocating her shoulder so my wife was in Yakima. Rather than riding home to an empty house I decide to ride to Yakima and help out. The meant I was be going alone after Ashland but I could pickup a couple of dams along the way.

I left --G and Ashland at 5:00am to ride this route.

My route take me north of Crater Lake. Along the way I cross a bridge and take a photo of this reservoir at sunrise.



Dam Tour is a great way to get off the beaten path and in this case the beaten path is Hwy 97. My route takes me to the Prineville reservoir where you will be on this road.







Mt. Jefferson



The small tree provide some foreground interest so this is a better photo.



Mt. Hood - I call it Snaggle Tooth.



End of Day 15.

Day 16

I leave Yakima and take Hwy 410 home to ride over Chinook Pass. Been here and done that. This ride is in my backyard.

Approaching Chinook Pass from east to west.



Tipsoo Lake near the crest of Chinook Pass at 5430 feet is not quite thawed from it’s winter slumber




End of Day 16.

Side out, ride over, the end, period.

Thanks for following the posts.