Four State Northwest Tour

By: Phil Wong

It was time for another end of summer, well, mid September, road trip. It was also to be the last chance to ride before having elbow surgery and being off the bike for a while. So out came the maps and after a couple of phone calls to my friend Mike and his son, we were off. Last year we rode to Northern CA, this year NE Oregon and on into Montana.

I left Seattle and met Mike and Ian in Gig Harbor Friday afternoon. But first, I checked the tires, no sense in repeating last years episode of riding a thousand miles with nails in the back. Nothing this time. Also a change from last year was that the weather was perfect. We were an eclectic assortment with a Beemer RT, a Kawasaki ZR 7S and me on the SV. We buzzed down I-5 and hung a left at the Columbia River. The Washington side of the river is a fun two lane with scenery to boot once you leave the Vancouver area. The Oregon side is I-84 with triple truck trailer combinations. We stayed over in Hood River, Oregon, a 200 mile start to the weekend.

We zipped up 84 early Saturday to breakfast in Biggs. The path we took next wasn’t the most obvious on the map. We looked for the crooked backroads in the general direction of where we wanted to go. What we found were among the best roads that any of us had ever ridden.

The route led south out of Biggs, then Hiway 206 to Heppner winding atop a plateau in northern Oregon. The scenery in the early morning was mostly rolling fields punctuated by towering rows of wind turbines which made us look like ants moving among giant fans. There were no cars and the road was smooth and fast with sweepers and short straights.

Willow Creek Road to Ukiah cut through the Umatilla National Forest and set a very, very high standard for roads- great surface, no cars, high speed sweepers one after another, nice scenery. You couldn’t look around too much as the next curve was just moments ahead. Some curves were so long you felt you were riding in a circle. At one point riding in the back, I could see the others on the road ahead of me, but each of us on a different curve weaving back and forth.

Hiway 244 to LaGrande was another section of fast winding two lane that was nearly as nice. Many smiles per mile. We ended up in Joseph, Oregon mid afternoon and stayed in a cabin alongside the creek feeding Wallowa Lake. Joseph is neat little town at the end of the road and made a nice place to stop, relax and look back at the perfect day.

We got up early the next morning with Montana on our minds. We rode over the Rattlesnake Grade going north into Washington, an amazing piece of road with tight technical switchbacks. Scenery and lots of fun except for the gravel occasionally lurking in the curves. Not a real fast piece of road but great for running through the gears and working up an appetite for breakfast in Lewiston, Idaho.

After breakfast we headed for Highway 12 and Lolo Pass. One of the highlights was anticipating the sign that says “winding road, next 67 miles.” The road was everything that it promised, following a beautiful trout stream across the skinny part of Idaho. But one problem with a winding mountain road is that the opportunities to pass are fewer and this road has an unfortunate population of four and 18 wheeled pylons. We would pop around after a while and quickly ride some fast wide open sweepers before we would eventually stack up on another convoy of slow moving cars and trucks. We chose to ride as a group and it was a little tougher to get us all around cautiously. A few cars pulled over in lieu of watching motorcycles in the rear view mirror. The pylons wasted some good miles, but I would ride the road again in a heartbeat.

The unfortunate cost of all the magnificent twisties of the past three days and ending up in Montana at this point was that we had to take I-90 back to Seattle to get home on time. There was some thought of again taking some lesser traveled roads home but I was already stretching a long weekend pretty far. We really needed one more day. We stayed in Spokane that Sunday night and buzzed home on the freeway the next morning. I ended up with1400 more miles on the odometer and the lasting memories of the some great roads.