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.