The Northern Oregon Tour - WordPress.com...THE NORTHERN OREGON TOUR 4 down to the village of Lowell...

1 THE NORTHERN OREGON TOUR

The Northern Oregon Tour began with two dreams: tocycle the famous Historic Columbia River Highwayand to explore some roads in the Cascade Mountains,in particular, McKenzie Pass and the AufderheideForest Drive. Both of these worthy goals had beensimmering away on a back burner for years before Ifinally sat down with a pile of maps—and a great dealof web surfing—to hammer out the route that wouldpull those notions together into a manageable, closed-loop tour.

A trip to Oregon to drive the route and sort out thedetails followed. The result is what you have here:seven stages, almost 600 miles, and 34,000' of eleva-tion gain.

Beginning and ending near Eugene, the NorthernOregon Tour follows a counterclockwise loop: firsttwo days moving from west to east, up and over theheart of the Cascade mountain range; then two daysheading north through the dry, austere beauty ofCentral Oregon, east of the Cascades; one fabulousstage riding downstream in the Columbia RiverGorge; and finally two days heading south amidst thewooded foothills, farmlands, and rivers on the westside of the mountains.

A quick glance at the specs for the stages will reveal

that this is a long tour. The shortest stage is 70 milesand the longest 96. I didn’t set out to make the stageslong on purpose. I had hoped they would work out toabout 65-70 miles each. But by the time I had strungtogether what I hope are all the best roads, the mileshad added up, in particular on the final two stages,working south from east of Portland to east of Eu-gene. To cover that distance on Interstate-5 mighttake less than 120 miles, but meandering about onthe cycle-friendly back roads in the foothills tookalmost 190 miles...93 miles on Stage 6 and 96 onStage 7 (or only 85 on Stage 7 if one makes use of theproposed shortcuts).

However, having made this disclaimer about thelength of the stages, I must add that, overall, I don’tthink it’s going to be all that tough a tour. There areformidable challenges every day, but given an evenbreak on the unknowns—headwinds, heat, rain,Murphy’s Law—I think the tour will be quite mellow.If you come to it with a decent level of fitness and agood attitude about logging those longer miles, you’llend up having a positive experience. In fact, with apositive attitude, you can embrace all those extramiles as simply more miles of fun and adventure...more miles of rolling entertainment and eye-openingscenery.

The Northern Oregon Tour570 miles • 34,000’

2THE NORTHERN OREGON TOUR

And for sure, this tour has cycling entertainment andwonderful scenery around almost every bend. We mayconcede that a few of those many miles are merelyconnector miles—what tour doesn’t have a few ofthose?—but the ho-hum miles are minimal. Most ofwhat you will encounter along the way is best-qualitybiking, and the best of the best is as good as it getsanywhere.

One of the greatest challenges in cobbling together agood tour route is finding appropriate accommoda-tions along the way...good places to stay that fallwithin reasonable distances to make the stages work.While our traditional tours are supposed to be camp-

ground-based, in this case we had to make use of innson three of our eight overnights. Two of those are inthe same motel at our start-finish venue in Spring-field, east of Eugene. The other is at the end of Stage5, and we’ll discuss that one when we get there.

The Village Inn in Springfield (above) is a genericmotel, just slightly better than average for a typicaloff-ramp inn. Its chief virtues lie in being where weneed it to be to make the stages work and in themanager being willing to let us park our car pool fleetthere for the week while we’re off cycling. We’ll driveto Springfield on a Saturday. The drive will takeapproximately nine hours, depending on time spenton lunch stops, etc. There are numerous excellentrestaurants in Eugene where we can forage for dinner,and there is a decent little restaurant right at themotel that can serve up the usual sort of breakfastchow.

Stage 1: Springfield to Frissell Crossing

76 miles, 3500' up, 1450' down

The mid-sized city of Springfield has nothing ofspecial merit to interest a cyclist. Although the localboosters might take exception to this assessment, theconventional notion is that it is Eugene’s hard-working stepsister, taking care of all the less glamor-ous tasks and messes so the more up-scale, sophisti-cated university town across the river doesn’t have todeal with that untidy, scruffy stuff.

This would certainly appear to be the case for the fewmiles we’ll see as we’re working our way out of town,

heading for the country. For the fourmiles it takes to leave the city behind,we’ll pass through a messy mix ofindustrial and commercial clutter, plusa sprawl of modest residential neigh-borhoods. One mile of it might be doneon a bike path overlooking theMcKenzie River, if one chooses to makethe effort to cross the road—the path ison the left side of the road as we travelsouth—and then cross back at the endof the mile. I think it’s worth it tomake that effort, but riding along theroad works too. That section of theMcKenzie is dominated by an enor-mous Weyerhauser lumber mill, sodon’t expect the riverfront to be apristine wilderness experience.

At 3.7 miles, we bend left around aroundabout and leave town on JasperRoad, heading for the little crossroads

of Jasper. The four miles on Jasper Road will likely besomewhat busier than is ideal, probably about likeriding along River Road. We can hope that it will besomewhat less busy early on a Sunday morning whenwe set out.

The countryside is pleasant enough: mostly woodsmade up of a mix of conifers and broadleafs, withoccasional glimpses of the Middle Fork of theWillamette through the trees. The Willamette will beour companion throughout most of Stage 1, all theway up to its headwaters near the end of the stage. Afew scattered businesses let us know we’re still near ametropolitan area, but mostly it’s open countryside.

At mile 8, the town of Jasper seems mostly to consistof a mini-mart and not much else. What it means forus is that the busier road bears right across the river,and we bear left onto quieter Jasper-Lowell Road,which will be our home, through several twists and


turns, for the next 11 miles. It may not seem like thesame road though. In four miles, we make a distinctleft turn onto what looks as if it ought to be a newroad with a new name. But it’s still Jasper-LowellRoad, while the straight-ahead continuation takes thename Pengra Road. It’s especially puzzling becausewhile Jasper-Lowell Road is meandering about in thewoods, Pengra Road is proceeding directly fromJasper to Lowell. Go figure. Maybe Jasper-Lowell isthe old road and Pengra is the new, faster bypass. Wesee that sort of thing all the time.

But we always prefer meandering about in the woodson the old road to taking the modern, direct route,right? In any event, this turn at mile 12 makes a goodspot for a quick stop, for just to the right after we turnleft is the first of our scenic attractions on the tour:the historic Pengra covered bridge spanning FallCreek (above).

Covered bridges. We might as well talk about themnow and get it done with for the duration. We’re inLane County at this point, and Lane County andneighboring Linn County to the north (which we willvisit on Stage 7) have probably the highest concentra-tion of historic covered bridges of any counties in theUnited States. Would you have guessed that? I know Ididn’t. I assumed such a distinction must belong tosome rural county back east. But this is it: coveredbridge central. We will pass or cross four today andone tomorrow, and there are at least another sevennot far off our route. On Stage 7, we’ll pass or crosssix covered bridges, with several more nearby. Thelocal bike club out of Corvalis puts on a century ridethat does nothing but cross covered bridges, frombeginning to end.

I don’t know much about the history of thebridges, beyond what I’ve picked up off theinternet in doing research for this tour. I wassurprised to find that most do not date fromthe horse-and-buggy 19th century, at least notin their current embodiments. Most seem tohave dates on them from the 1930’s. Perhapsthey were constructed—or reconstructed—asmake-work projects in the Depression. Theycertainly look 19th-century, with their wonder-ful post-and-beam structures and woodendecks, and although some are now merelyhistoric artifacts, closed to traffic, most are stillopen and functioning as they have since theywere built. The local authorities recognize thatthey are of great merit to the community, andthey spend the money to keep them in tip-topshape. You may not all find them as interstingas I do, but I’m guessing most of you will find

them to be of at least passing interest...which is good,as we’ll be passing them over and over again.

Pengra Bridge’s particular claim to fame is that itslower chords (beams) are the largest single timbersever milled in Oregon: 16 x 18 by 120 feet long. Tryrunning that through your table saw...

This section of Jasper-Lowell Road leaves theWillamette momentarily to follow Fall Creek toanother little no-place—Fall Creek—where, at mile14, it makes another distinct turn without changingits name. This time Fall Creek Road goes straightahead and we turn right. A little over two miles later,we meet our second covered bridge: Unity Bridge.(The old bridges all have names.) Unlike Pengra,which we passed by, Unity is right on our route andwe cross it, rumbling along on the wooden planking.

Scenery remains unchanged throughout this section:more mixed woodlands and pastures with streams orrivers always nearby. One might almost call it theessential Oregon landscape, were it not for the factthat we will be seeing so many different landscapes inthe days ahead that this one will hardly seem typical.At any rate, it is the essential Willamette Valleylandscape, and as that is the Oregon most peopleknow, it’s the one most people see in their mind’s eyewhen they think of the state.

As we are heading upstream throughout the bulk oftoday’s stage, the elevation profile shows a definiteuphill trend. But in this section at least, that climbingis so slight as to be almost undetectable, even to themost sensitive of legs. It really is damn near level, andactually tilts downhill slightly after Unity Bridge,


down to the village of Lowell on the shore of DexterLake (below), one of two reservoirs along this stretchof the Willamette.

Lowell, at mile 18, is more than a mini-mart. It’s areal town, with residential streets spilling down to thelake and a few commercial enterprises. We crossDexter Lake on a long causeway, heading south forHwy 58. Almost on the far shore of the lake, we passLowell Bridge, our third covered bridge, sitting out inthe waters of the lake, looking a bit out of place,almost like a big houseboat floating on the water. Thebridge used to span the Willamette at this site, butwhen Dexter Dam was completed in 1953, both thebridge and the causeway were raised six feet to stayabove the rising waters of the new lake. In 1981, anew bypass was constructed right next to the bridgeto carry heavier traffic than the old bridge couldaccommodate, and the bridge was put out to pasture,so to speak. It now serves as a scenic wayside. There isa pull-out off the causeway for visiting the bridge, andat mile 19, that might make a good spot for a regroupwith a sag.

The causeway over the lake tees into Hwy 58, and weturn left on the bigger, busier highway and follow iteast into the Cascades for the next 18 miles. Justupstream from Dexter Lake is large, imposing Look-out Point Dam, and behind the dam, the long LookoutPoint Reservoir. The highway runs along the southshore of the big lake for a dozen miles. There is aquiet, pretty road winding along the north shore ofthe lake as well. I wish we could use that instead ofthe state highway on the south bank. Unfortunately,substantial sections of it are unpaved, and localcyclists tell me it’s not really feasible to ride it all theway through. So it’s the highway for us. It’s really

quite a nice highway, with big shoulders, smoothpavement, and a lovely view of the lake, mile aftermile. The only fly in the ointment might be traffic.

This is a fairly busy arterial, connectingI-5 and US-97 on the far side of themountains. Perhaps Sunday morningwill be our ally again, keeping thetraffic load light...fewer log trucks and18-wheelers. We can hope!

After a very brief climb to the level ofthe dam, the road rolls along on anearly level grade for all of its miles toour next junction. As long as theshoulder is wide enough and the trafficis light enough, you couldn’t imagine abetter spot for a big, rotating paceline.After 18 miles of this almost flatcruising, our smooth paceline arrivesat the turnoff for Westfir. The road wewant is officially the Old Willamette

Highway, but the signs will be directing us to Westfir.Turn left off Hwy 58, cross the river, and turn left onWestfir Road. This is at mile 38. You’re halfwaythrough the stage, and in essence, you won’t have tomake another turn until you get to camp.

Westfir Road, not too surprisingly, leads to the littletown of Westfir, where we encounter our last but byno means least covered bridge of the day. This wouldbe the Office covered bridge, so called because itconnected a big lumber mill on the far side of theWillamette with the mill’s offices on this side. It’sunique in three ways that I can think of. First, it’spainted barn red, whereas most of the other coveredbridges in the area are white. Second, it’s the longestcovered bridge in the region and possibly in the entirenation. Third, it has a one-of-a-kind covered pedes-trian walkway adjacent to the main roadbed. All in all,it’s a very impressive piece of work. The route doesn’tcross it, but it goes within 20 feet of it and you can’tmiss it. It’s huge. It’s definitely worth turning left androlling back and forth across it.

Westfir, bridge and all, is the gateway to theAufderheide Forest Drive. But you wouldn’t know itfrom the signs nearby, nor from most maps. I haveheard from other cyclists for years about what a greatroad this is. It has a well-deserved reputation as one ofthe crown jewels in the local cycling scene out ofEugene. It also carries the US Forest Service NationalScenic Byway designation, a sure sign that it’s some-thing special. And yet there are no signs that I couldfind that tell you where it is or how to get to it. Thesigns off Hwy 58 point to Westfir, and in Westfir, the


signs leading on out the other side of town direct youto North Fork Road (as in the North Fork of theMiddle Fork of the Willamette). The signs also pointto Kiahanie campground. Why that camp in particu-lar, I don’t know. It’s just one of several campgroundsalong the river. Nowhere on this end of the road doesit say anything about the Aufderheide.

Well...whatever! All you need to know isthat you go straight through Westfir—after checking out the Office Bridge(above)—and continue on North ForkRoad, which at some point out in themiddle of nowhere—unremarked byany signs—becomes the Aufderheide.It’s virtually impossible to get lost. Ifyou didn’t stop to admire the bridge,you could pedal in one side of Westfirand out the other in less than a minute.It’s dinky. The bridge is probably thebiggest structure in town, unless someof the old mill buildings remain on theother bank.

Anyway, on to the Aufderheide ForestDrive (right), which, just to makethings as clear as mud, is somtimes

also identified as the Aufderheide Memorial Highway.Whatever it’s called, and however it is or isn’t signed,it’s a wonderful road. It’s never knock-your-socks-offspectacular. It doesn’t do monster, epic ups and downsor have eye-popping panoramas to blow you away. It’sjust a long run of nearly perfect back road, with nextto no traffic, always excellent pavement, and alwayspleasant scenery. It’s all wooded, typically the samemix of firs and deciduous trees we’ve been seeing allday. The river is never far away, and at this point it’sbecoming less the stately Willamette of Portland andthe broad valley, and more of a frisky, whitewateryoungster. Sometimes it spreads out and riffles overgravel beds; sometimes it squeezes between high rockwalls and thrashes about in a frenzy. Always it looksdelightful.

The road follows the river upstream...always tiltinguphill. In the 30 miles after Westfir, we gain around2200' of elevation. That works out to an average ofless that 1.5%. It’s not quite that consistent. It’salmost level for the first ten miles, then ramps up to awicked 3% for about seven miles, then tapers offagain...but still keeps going up. Finally, with three orso miles to go to 3748' Box Canyon summit, theuphill decides to get serious. It knocks off the final800' in just three miles, for a gradient of a whopping5%. That may not seem like much of a grade—and it’snot, really—but after the 30 miles of gradual climbthat preceded it, it will probably seem like it’s gone onaltogether too long. (I hope you realize I’m usingwords like “wicked” and “whopping” with tonguefirmly planted in cheek. This is never a difficult climb.It’s just a long one.)


Eventually, it does end. There isn’t any big reward atthe summit. No big vistas. No mountain chaletserving hot mulled cider or capuccino. Just a widespot in the road and a turnoff to a horse camp.Oh...there is the descent off the other side. That’s areward, and a darn nice one, all in all. It isn’t 30-plusmiles long, like the climb. But still, it’s a very tasty bitof gravity candy: almost five miles of slinky, kinkyexcitement, twisting and turning down themountainside, all on best quality pavement. It’s thegenuine article...pegs the dial on your fun-o-meter allthe way over.

Once over the summit, you’ve left the WillametteRiver watershed behind. You’re now descending intothe McKenzie basin. Interesting: we rodealongside the McKenzie in Springfield atmile 2 on the day, then skipped over tothe Willamette in a matter of half a dozenmiles. Now, at the very end of the stage,the process is reversed. We leave theWillamette, more or less at its headwa-ters, hop over the ridge, and drop rightdown to the headwaters of the McKenzie.

Frissell Crossing (right) is the campwhere the road crosses the McKenzie, oractually a little stream that is just aboutto dump into the McKenzie. It’s a classicForest Service camp. Primitive: pit toiletsand water from a hand-pumped well. Butit’s very pretty and very quiet, with thechuckling river the loudest thing you’relikely to hear (assuming no obnoxiousneighboring campers).

Stage 2: Frissell Crossing to

Sisters

70 miles, 5000' up, 4400' down

The shortest stage, but the biggestclimb. This is an epic day, highlightedby the giant climb to McKenzie Pass andthe long descent off the eastern side ofthe mountain. McKenzie Pass is one ofthe best and most dramatic of all thehigh mountain passes in the west, and isoften featured in local pro road races.The road is tiny and twisty in theextreme, and because of that, most carsand trucks avoid it, preferring the wider,more heavily engineered Santiam Pass,just to the north. As a result, thebeautiful curves and cliffs and canyonsof this great road are left mostly traffic-free, the happy habitat of cyclists

looking for that special walk on the wild side.

But I’m getting ahead of myself here. Just because thePass is the Big Dawg on the day, that doesn’t meanthere aren’t other points of interest along the way. Solet’s go back to Frissell Crossing and begin at thebeginning.

For starters, we get an encore performance from ourold friend, Mr. Aufderheide. And not just a littlereprise, either: the first 21 miles are all on the ScenicByway, and every one of them is at least as nice aswhat we enjoyed on yesterday’s stage. What’s more,almost all of those miles are downhill. There is onelittle climb after crossing a bridge, but the rest is all


descending, and the best of it is big fun: not so steepas to be hairball; just enough for a good head ofsteam, all curled up into snaky bends and slithers,with the river never far away. More of the sameexcellent pavement. Cycling paradise.

About 15 miles into this lovely run, we cruise outonto the west bank of Cougar Reservoir (above). Theroad borders the big lake until we get to the dam atthe north end, which makes a reasonable spot to stopand regroup. The lake is attractive—by reservoirstandards—with rock cliffs rising up above the dam,especially on the side where our road is. In fact, forawhile, the road clings to a narrow ledge in a ratherdramatic way...sheer cliffs above and below, fallingaway into the canyon of the McKenzie. Dropping intothe canyon below the dam is fun: nearly three miles ofswift, busy descending on a grade ofabout 4%.

When we roll out at the bottom, wearrive at a junction. This is East SideRoad, although there isn’t any signto tell you so. The only sign pointsleft and says, “Delta: 1/4 mile; Hwy126: 1/2 mile.” We’re going to go theother way: right. We’re only on EastSide for a bit less than half a mile.Then we turn left onto little KingRoad and start on a seven-mile backroad bypass of Hwy 126. King Roadand Horse Creek Road are two quietlittle lanes that wind through thehills and keep us off the busierhighway for awhile. Nothing toospecial about them, but they’re bothpleasant and car-free. King Road is

mostly a gentle uphill and, after a left turn,Horse Creek is a gentle downhill. A mile anda half into King, we pass Belknap Bridge, thelast of our historic covered bridges untilStage 7. It’s as nice as any of the others we’veseen, and if you haven’t maxxed out on thesequaint bridges already, it’s worth a look. Thesetting, crossing the McKenzie, is especiallyattractive.

A little past mile 28, we pop out onto Hwy126. It’s a busy state highway, but theshoulders are wide and the scenery is niceand we’re only on it for a bit over four miles.Midway along this section, we pass a bigranger station and visitor center. If you’remore interested in sightseeing than ham-mering, you might stop in here and look

around. They have a really nice topographic model ofthe mountains ahead, and you can trace your route upand over McKenzie Pass. Gee, it doesn’t look like sucha hard climb in the model...

Well, we’ll see about that! After the four miles on Hwy126, our route veers right onto Hwy 242, theMcKenzie Highway (below). The climbing actuallybegan as soon as we turned onto Hwy 126, but thefirst seven miles—miles 28 to 35—are very easy. Thenthe real challenge begins: about 3100' up in the next11 miles. That’s an average grade of over 5%, whichmay not seem too tough, but it really is a substantialbody of work. The grade is fairly constant, but it doesramp up now and then to probably 8% or maybe even10% for short pitches. The one thing that’s going to


make it all bearable is that the scenery along the wayis absolutely sensational. This pass comes closer tolooking like a classic Alpine pass than almost any-thing else I’ve seen in the western US. Mostly we’re inand out of fir and pine forest, with lots of places wherethe tree cover opens up to meadows and vast moun-tain vistas. Aside from a few mountain cabins, there’snot much in the way of development to blemish thebeautiful wilderness scenery.

The climbing doesn’t end after that 11-mile grinder,but it eases off into a series of flats and smaller uphillsand even a few little dips...essentially four stairstepscovering about nine miles to the summit, gaining atotal of around 800' over that span. This is mucheasier than what preceded it, and thatshould allow you plenty of leisure tolook around and soak up the views.This part of the climb no longer lookslike an alpine col. It’s a stark, strangemoonscape of raw, black lava. It looksmore like the crumpled aa flows we seein Hawaii than anything else, excepthere it’s pines instead of palms growingup out of the black clinker.

The black rock extravaganza reaches itszenith at the summit (above), whereyou will find the Dee Wright Observa-tory, a rather bizarre little castleconstructed out of the native black lavarock. (Dee Wright was a Forest Servicepacker in the early years of the 20thCentury, a true mountain man whogrew up with the Molalla Indians.)

Point of trivia: all maps I have seen showMcKenzie Pass as 5324', but the sign atthe summit says 5325'. The views fromthe observatory are awe-inspiring.Jagged peaks in every direction...theThree Sisters, Belknap Crater, themineret of Mt. Washington (below)...onand on. This is a special place.

Now, before we plunge off the far side ofthe mountain on the descent to Sisters,a brief disclaimer: when I was scoutingthe route, the pass was closed because ofa vast smoke plume blowing off a nearbyforest fire on the eastern side of themountains. I was able to drive up thewestern approach—our climb—almostto the summit. Then I had to turnaround and drive back to Hwy 126,north over Santiam Pass, and then come

up the east side as far as they would let me go. In theend, I was able to check out most of the road, exceptfor the bulk of the east side, which will be our de-scent... several miles. Our mapping software has themiles correct, but I wasn’t able to see exactly how thedescent goes about getting from the top to thebottom...whether there are any saddles or bumpsalong the way. So I asked Elizabeth Renner, a bikingfriend in Sisters, for her local knowledge of thissection. Here is what she had to say...

“Coming up from the west there is a steep grade ofless than a mile right before the summit at theobservatory. Heading down to the east from theobservatory there is a steep drop of about a half-mile


between the narrow rocks and there is often pittedpavement due to falling rocks. Then for the next twomiles you have lovely descending rollers through thelava flow. The road climbs a little to Windy Point (thewind can be truely fierce here) where you leave thelava. Windy Point is about 2.5 miles east of DeeWright. It’s well marked as an observation point andworth a pause to read about the lava flow and thecraters in the distance. The ensuing 1200' descent isgradual over the next nine miles, except for two steepplaces, one of which is an invigorating ‘S’ turn(above). The last 300' of descent are very gradual andtake you into Sisters. The numbers are approximatebut in proportion. So, in general, it is all downhillexcept for the rollers between DeeWright and Windy Point...a great wayto end the day. Watch for retireesdriving RVs who don’t realize until toolate that they should not be on thisroad. Single file is important becauseof the speed of the descent and thetourist traffic. Keep your turns tightand watch for the crazy quail whoattacks near the snow gate on the eastside (no kidding). Proxy Falls (on thewest side) is worth the short walk.”

Thanks, Elizabeth. I might also addthis observation: once over the top ofthe Cascades and down the easternside, the landscape changes quite a bit(right). The mountains act as a veryeffective rain fence, blocking much ofthe moisture from reaching this farinland. As a result, this portion of the

state is much drier and more austere than thelush jungle on the western side of the range.This region is frequently referred to as HighDesert. It’s not like any desert you wouldenvision in the Sahara or even in the Mojave orSonora. There are rivers and streams and lakesseemingly everywhere you look...no shortage ofwater. Nevertheless, the ecologists insist it’s adesert environment, and who am I to arguewith the experts?

But for sure, you do notice a difference overhere. There is more exposed rock, more emptyspace, fewer plants, and not nearly as manybroadleaf trees. And you can feel the aridity too.The plentiful rivers and lakes are recharged bysnowmelt, not by constant, year-round rainfall.In fact, the local tourism bureaus over hereboast that the sun shines something like 350days a year. That may be a bit of heliotropic

hyperbole, but it definitely seems brighter, crisper,and drier, and the country through which we’ll beriding for the next two days will look and feel muchdifferent than what we experienced over the first twostages.

The town of Sisters is a pleasant place. It has theusual ration of roadside clutter, but overall it managesto look quite charming and interesting, in an oldwest, pioneer way, crossed with a substantial dose ofyuppie, up-scale trendiness and commercial touristtrimmings. I have laid out a route along some resi-dential side streets to get from the west side of townto the east side, where our camp is. It’s easy to followand is quite enjoyable. I chose this route to avoid the


busier highway through the center of town. But themain drag (Hwy 20/126) is not all that awful, and ifyou’re curious about the town’s tourist attractions—shops and food and drink emporiums—there is noreason why you can’t dive right into the stew andcheck it all out. However, it’s all within walkingdistance of our camp, so you can come back later inthe day in street shoes to browse.

We are camping in Sisters City Park, right in thetown. It’s a pretty park and should work well for us.They do not have showers, but we are working to setup an arrangement with a health club in town for theuse of their facilities.

Stage 3: Sisters to Kah-Nee-Ta Hot Springs

76 miles, 3500' up, 4800' down

Stage 3 is sort of a cycle-touring sampler pack: a littleof this, a little of that...lots of variety, all day long. Ifyou were inclined to put a negative spin on it, youmight call it a hodge podge of odds and ends. If youwere more positive, you’d say, “Never a dull moment!”

Perhaps this is because it’s something of a transitionalstage, moving from the green, forested mountains outinto the open sweep of the so-called highdesert...rolling grasslands and rugged mesas; yawninggorges and towering rock spires. By the time wearrive at the finish, the piney woods around Sisterswill seem like a distant memory.

Empty, wide open spaces? Yes...but let’s reserve thoseterms for tomorrow’s really uncluttered horizon.Today, we actually pass quite near several medium-sized towns which sprawl along their highways withall the messy clutter of any modern American suburb.Bend, Redmond, Madras, Culver,Terrebonne...mostly strung out in aragged straggle of fast food franchisesalong Hwy 97. Fortunately, our routedoes a decent job of dodging aroundthe worst of this crud. But the outly-ing homes and ranches of the folkswho work and shop in those townswill line our back roads with rural-residential regularity. It’s definitelycountry, but you can feel that thedubious benefits of contemporarycivilization are never far away.

We entered Sisters City Park on oneside yesterday. We go out the otherside today...east, out onto Hwy 20.But we go left on Hwy 20 for only

about a hundred yards before turning right onto Hwy126. As state numbered highways go, this one is fairlyquiet and cycle-friendly. The bulk of the traffic will beon 20.

My same local friend Elizabeth advised me on theroute today. Her house is right on the route at aroundmile 7, and she provides the kind of local knowledgethat puts us on roads (and semi-roads) we would bevery unlikely to find on our own, as you will discoverin the miles ahead.

We’re on Hwy 126 for a bit over four, slightly downhillmiles. (Almost everything is slightly downhill for thefirst 20 miles, although the grade is very nearlyflat...not too many pitches where you won’t be pedal-ing.) Just before mile 5, we turn left onto Goodrich,the first of a series of small roads meandering throughthe countyside, past those rural-residentialranchettes. Some of the roads are straight and nearlyflat, with 90° section-line corners from one road tothe next; some are a little more winding and up-&-down. The difference probably depends on whetherthe roads are traversing the flattish mesas or aredipping into or climbing out of creek or river cuts. Inparticular, we descend to and then cross theDeschutes River at mile 20, providing us with ourfirst, small climb of the day. This is an especiallypretty spot (below), with the river looking verypicturesque as it snakes through a little gorge.

We are, in general, moving either east or north mostof the day. When traveling east, the Cascade range isat our backs. When we turn north—and once or twicewest—we will have many opportunities to admire themajestic mountains off on the western horizon. Thebeautiful form of Mt. Jefferson dominates, but is only


one of many handsome peaks that will be visible. Butother scenic attractions are closer at hand, and soonyou’ll be spending more of your time looking downthan looking up. The Crooked River Gorge lies ahead.

But hang on a sec...before we get to the Gorge, andwhile still in the scenic attractions vein, let memention a potential side trip for those who want moremiles and more adventure on the day. That would beSmith Rock State Park. When we crossed theDeschutes at around mile 20, we were heading east onLower Bridge Way. At mile 23.5, the official routeturns north toward theCrooked River. If you wereto stay straight on LowerBridge, you would cometo Hwy 97 and the town ofTerrebonne in two miles.Go through town, follow-ing the signs to SmithRock, and in another fourmiles you will arrive atthe park. Getting back oncourse will take approxi-mately the same distance,although you’d be cuttingout a chunk of the officialroute by doing otherroads parallel to it, soyour net gain on thewhole deal would only beabout nine miles, most ofthem flat or close to it.That adds up to an 85-mile stage.

On a tour that’s alreadyrather long, I’m not surehow many people aregoing to want to bulktheir miles this way, but the park is there, quitenearby, and we at least ought to look at that option,for those who might have the legs and the interest forit. So what’s so special about Smith Rock State Park?

This entire region is no stranger to rugged rockformations...deep gorges and buttes and boulders. Butthe great mass of Smith Rock stands out from all therest of the rocky rubble as something really unique.The Crooked River, living up to its name, has carved aseries of convoluted S-bends here, leaving behind acongregation of towering stone ramparts of the mostfabulous sculptural splendor (above). I don’t know mygeology well enough to put names to these forma-tions, but to my untutored eye, they looks exactly like

what you would see in Zion or Capitol Reef in South-ern Utah. Sheer, smooth cliffs and monolithic spiresin that soft sepia palette. This is a popular spot forrock climbers, and on almost any nice day you will seebold folks clinging to the vertical walls like littlespiders.

There is a nice network of trails throughout the park.That’s both the good news and the bad news. Ridingout to the park only gets you to the trailhead over-looking the river and the magnificent rock pallisadeson the other bank. The view is fine, to be sure, but

that hardly scratches thesurface of the Smith Rockexperience. To reallyappreciate it, you wouldneed to devote a couple ofhours to hiking at least alittle of the region (andyou’d need real hikingshoes to do it...not justwalkable bike shoes).Coupled with the 85-mileride, this is beginning tolook like an all-daysucker! In all fairness, Iwill concede that justriding to the trailhead andadmiring the view mightbe enough to say you’ddone the Smith Rockthing, but hiking throughit, at least a little, wouldbe better.

If you’re up for it, it’s agrand adventure. It’s oneof the most spectacularplaces you would visit onthis entire tour. If you’ve

seen my slide show of this tour, you will have seen afew images of it. If you haven’t, go to Google Images,type in “Smith Rock State Park,” and you’ll pull up agallery of eye-popping photos that will do a better jobthan my words can of letting you know what’s there.If it looks too good to miss, then you’ll just have tofigure out how to cram it all into one day. If there isenough support for the side trip, we’ll send over a sagwith a box of hiking shoes.

One final thought: overall, this is a relatively easystage, even at a base of 76 miles, so adding the milesand even some hiking won’t turn it into a killerproposition for reasonably fit folks. If you want it, it’sthere and it’s doable.


Now, back to the basic route. From Lower Bridge Waywe turn left (north) on 43rd Street. 43rd Street? Whatis a numbered city street doing out here in the back ofbeyond? Beats me. It really does look remote, but asnoted once or twice before, those towns along Hwy 97are never far away, and perhaps the little burg ofTerrebonne has delusions of grandeur about its sphereof influence. Anyway, a left on 43rd and a right on IceAvenue bring us to a road with a great name: WimpWay. This is our route, but it is by no means a wimpyway to go. For one thing, turning left, as we are to do,the sign says “Dead End,” but we’re going that wayanyway...at least the bikes are. The sags will have toturn right, which will lead quite promptly to a left(north) on Hwy 97. A brief squirt up 97 and a rightturn into the Peter Skene Ogden Scenic Wayside willbring the sags back to the bikes.

The cyclists, meanwhile, will have gone north onWimp Way to its dead end...a little turnaroundarea in the absolute middle of nowhere. Nowwhat? Here’s where Elizabeth’s local knowl-edge becomes so much fun. At about twoo’clock off the turnaround, a footpath leadsfor about a hundred feet through the sagebrush and then dumps out into thewesternmost end of that very same OgdenScenic Wayside. A determined rider with goodoff-road skills might be able to ride this bit,but walking the bike probably makes moresense for most people.

Once into the Wayside, you quickly discoverwhat the word Scenic means in this case: youhave arrived at the heart of the Crooked River

Gorge, and a paved path (suitable forriding) runs all along the edge of thegorge. And when I say edge, I mean it:on the other side of the rock wall nextto the path, the cliff face drops 300'straight down to the river. Not sort of,kind of straight down. Really, trulystraight down, like if you dropped arock, it would drop and drop and...Anyone with a fear of heights shouldapproach the edge with a good grip onthemselves. It’s quite dramatic. Andone brief note of warning about that“suitable for riding” comment: thewall is only waist-height, so it’s atleast theoretically possible for acareless cyclist to topple over it. Thiswould be a very unfortunate thing todo. A fatal error, almost certainly.

Walking the bike along the path might be the betterchoice. Anyway, the sags will be here and restroomsare here as well, and at mile 28, it’s an obvious placeto stop, regroup, and leave the bikes alone for a fewminutes. Besides, no one would want to zip past thisastonishing view without stopping. It really is amaz-ing. 300' straight down may not sound like a lot, butit sure feels like a lot when you’re standing right onthe edge of it.

There are three bridges spanning the gorge within theWayside. There is a railroad bridge (above) almostwhere we did our cyclo-cross bit coming off WimpWay. There is the new bridge for Hwy 97. And there isthe old bridge left over when the new bridge was built.The old bridge is now for bikers and hikers. If youdidn’t think the drop into the gorge was excitingenough from the edge, try it from the middle of thebridge (below), as many a bungee jumper has done.


Once off the north end of the bridge, we have to dosome more of Elizabeth’s guerilla biking. First wecross Hwy 97. This is just a bit shy of being a freewayright here: wide and fast, but fortunately without toomuch traffic. You will find safe gaps in the flow to getacross. When you get to the east side of the highway,look for a metal gate in a fence with a road on theother side. Lift the bike over the fence, climb over,and continue north on Culver Highway, which endsby that gate with a little turnaround much like theone at the end of Wimp Way. (I took a photo of thisgate and will circulate it at our rider meeting so youwill know exactly what to look for.) Sags will have tocontinue north on 97 until they can cut over to ourroute on Park Lane.

Culver Highway is a quiet farm road running parallelto the busier Hwy 97. Perhaps, once upon a time, itwas the main road, but all the traffic is now on 97,and this sleepy lane is free ofcars and comfortable forbikes. It consists of foursmall climbs, each followedby a small descent, all amidstan empty landscape of sheepranches, sagebrush, and dry,rocky chapparal. The lastdescent would be a prettygood ripper except it isforced to a screeching halt,mid-rip, by having to recross Hwy 97. It continues onthe other side all the way to the town of Culver, but Iveer the route off onto another series of meanderinglanes that dodge the town, all still rolling gentlydownhill, toward Lake Billy Chinook. Do what your

route slip tells you to do and you’ll muddlethrough this little zigzagging maze.

The one really important note: when you geton Jordan Road, pointing toward the lake,do not go down the hill to the lake. Turnright onto Mountain View Drive, just beforeJordan starts to really tilt downhill. There isno sign saying Mountain View Drive at thejunction though. The only sign points to“Round Butte Overlook Park.” Just remem-ber: don’t go downhill on Jordan. If you do,it will be a long, long way back up.

Once on Mountain View Drive, take aminute to check out Lake Billy Chinook(left). Although the lake appears—on themap—to be almost alongside the road, itwill remain elusively out of sight if you stayright on the road. Pull into the first vistapoint on the left that you come to, and once

up to the edge, you’ll understand why the lake isn’tvisible from even a few feet back from the edge: we’reat the top of a steep cliff and the immense lake is waydown below the rim in the bottom of the canyon. TheDeschutes and Crooked Rivers join forces here and allof their combined flow is backed up in this reservoir.If you’ve seen Lake Powell on the Colorado, you’llhave the general idea. Not quite as grand as the GrandCanyon, perhaps, but still an impressivepanorama...but you have to turn into the vista pointor you won’t see a thing.

Mountain View Drive and the roads that follow it rollalong the rim of the canyon for 11 miles. Most of thatis nearly level, although there is one steep little uphillwall at mile 49 that will use up all the gears youbrought. Just past mile 50, we turn left and headdownhill on Elk Drive. The downhill is mild for threemiles and even levels off at the end of that run. But

hold on...the road is about to plunge off the rim of thecanyon, right down the cliff face to the water (above).Elizabeth tells me the local cyclists painted this onthe road at the top of the descent: “Slow down or die!”Good advice in this instance. The road drops 800' in


about a mile and a half. It’s narrow and twisty, techni-cal and steep. It deserves your respect.

Picky readers might point out that I said you couldn’tsee the lake from the road, and now here we are,flying off the rim of the canyon...surely the lake mustbe visible now? Yes it is. But it’s not the same view asbefore. It’s not even the same lake. There are twodams and two reservoirs here, back to back. RoundButte Dam makes Lake Billy Chinook and thenfurther downstream, Pelton Dam makes LakeSimtustus. That’s the one that borders our road now,and there is a fine view of it if you can spare it a lookon this white-knuckle descent. At the bottom, wecross the tributary of Willow Creek, adding its trickleto the lake. Then we climb a little hill and descendright to Pelton Dam.

Have you noticed the theme of dams on this tour sofar? We had Dexter Lake and Lookout Point Dam andReservoir on Day 1; Cougar Dam and Reservoir onDay 2; and now two dams and two lakes on Day 3. Butwait: you ain’t seen nothing yet! Wait until we get tothe Columbia tomorrow...

From Pelton Dam, our road climbs quite gently untilit tees into Hwy 26. This is a new highway for us, butit looks and acts like the other state highways we’veseen: moderately heavy traffic but with big shoulders.We turn left onto it and descend for a mile and a half,cross the Deschutes—now downstream from itsdams—and after a brief flat stretch, we start climbing.Climbing will now be the name of the game forawhile, first on 26 and then after we turn right ontoBIA 3. That stands for Bureau of Indian Affairs. We’renow on the huge Warm Springs Indian Reservation

(left) and we will be spending the nightat their resort.

The sign at BIA 3 on Hwy 26 directs usto Kah-Nee-Ta and Indian Head Casino,which are two separate parts of thesame resort complex. We’ll be staying atKah-Nee-Ta. I’m not too keen oncasinos, so I’m happy that the actualgambling facilities are a mile or so awayfrom where we will be, but if you wantto take a flutter on the games of chance,you can get there on a shuttle bus.

But first we have to get to the end of thestage, and the hardest work we’ll do allday is right in front of us now. The firstclimb is about two miles, partly on 26and partly on BIA 3, also known asAgency-Hot Springs Road. After adescent of two miles, a second climb of

three miles caps off the day’s challenge. The first gains300' and the second 600'. Two miles and three milesand not too steep? Doesn’t sound too bad, right? Itisn’t too bad, except that they come rather late in thestage—between miles 63 and 70—and because they’retotally exposed out on the barren, sunbaked hillside. Ifit’s at all hot, which it probably will be, they couldseem a lot more challenging than their numberswould indicate.

The second summit is followed by two small descentsand two further little climbs—these are very small—and then finally by a screaming descent of a mile ortwo to a junction with BIA 8, where more signs willdirect us to turn right for Kah-Nee-Ta. We’re almostthere.

The resort is interesting. It was first developed back inthe 60’s, I think. I remember coming here for a familyweekend when I was still young enough to thinkgoing somewhere with the parents was fun. The mainattraction was the enormous swimming pool builtaround their natural hot springs. It was, as far as Iknow, one of the first projects of its kind to be under-taken by an indian tribe. Now they have the casino aswell, and the obligatory golf course. My understand-ing is that the resort is a little too remort out here forthe tribe to be absolutely minting money, but it hasbeen functioning now for nearly half a century, and itall seems quite prosperous and well kept.

This will be a bit of a different overnight for us...sortof a cross between camping and staying indoors. Theyhave an RV park here, but no tent camping. What theydo have is teepees. Hey, it’s an indian reservation. This


is how they want to do it. The teepees are very largeand are built on circular concrete slabs. They do nothave beds or bedding inside. You bring your own.That’s where our camping gear fits in. Supposedlyeach teepee sleeps eight, but we’ll try to lock upenough of them so that we’re only six to a “room.” It’sgoing to be different and perhaps not what we’re usedto, but we don’t really have a choice. There is nothingelse out here. On the bright side, you won’t have tohassle with your tent, and then there is the pool andthe showers and all the other goodies that come withit. And not just a motel-sized pool, either. This baby ishuge, and even features a medium-sized water slide(above). After those hot, exposed climbs, this mayseem like heaven.

Stage 4: Kah-Nee-Ta to The Dalles

80 miles, 4500' up, 5800' down

Did you notice the use of the word“barren” to describe the landscape at theend of the last stage? Did you fasten onthat word with a little frisson ofdread...a red flag of alarm about desolateroads from hell? Yeah, well, get used toit! Or better yet, get over it. There aremany spots on today’s stage that mightbe described as barren...places that areempty of people and traffic and develop-ment and also empty of trees and creeksand pretty much everything else.

But desolate? No way. Roads from hell?Not a chance. This is actually a beautifularea. It’s just doesn’t conform to that

archetype of beauty, the classical Englishlandscape painting. It is beauty marchingto a different drummer. For people whosenotion of a scenic landscape only embracesthat green-valleys-and-shade-trees sort ofsetting, these wide open spaces can seemforbidding and austere, but they have theirown story to tell, if you’re willing to payattention.

The first chapter in today’s story is aboutclimbing: a long slog from mile 1.5 to mile7.6...1300' in just over six miles (below).This is back on BIA 3. South of the BIA 8junction, it’s known as Simnasho-HotSprings Road. Simnasho is the next widespot in the road at about mile 15. This isn’ta brutal climb, but it’s long enough andsteep enough to seem like a substantialundertaking. Once over that first big

summit, we get a piddly little downhill for ourtrouble, then about five more miles of gentle, rollinguphill, and finally a bigger descent of a couple of milesto Simnasho. Beautiful, downtown Simnasho adds upto one reservation trading post and not a lot else.Blink and you’ll miss it. Beyond Simnasho, the roadname changes to Wapinitia Road, which is the nextlittle settlement over the next little hill.

That next little hill consists of about seven miles ofupwardly trending bumps—three short climbs withrolling breaks in between—that eventually take usright back up to the same elevation as the first sum-mit (around 2700'). And after this second summit, wereally do get a tasty descent: around 800' down over


five squiggly miles, just to the outskirts of Wapinitia,which, if it didn’t have outskirts, wouldn’t have noskirts at all (to paraphase the old song). It’s biggerthan Simnasho, but not by much. Just at the bottomof that five-mile downhill, we leave the Warm SpringsIndian Reservation. So naturally, at that point theroad name changes to Revervation Road. None ofthese name changes should really affect us. It’s all thesame road.

Scenery throughout this section is all of it much thesame too, and all of it can plead guilty to the crime ofappearing barren: empty, austere, arid, sparse. Rollinghillsides of dry grass. Wheat fields sometimes. (Or isthat hay? What do I know...do I look like a farmer?Amber waves of something.) Grazing lands of whatmust be a rather low productivity...not too manysteers or sheep per acre on that forage. Loads of rockof the lava and basalt sort, sometimes lyingaround loose and sometimes piled up intomassive geological confections. Things dogrow here, besides the grasses. Scrappylittle pines eke out a living all across thehillsides. Give them half a chance—meaning a little reliable water—and theygrow to respectable size. A few cotton-woods in the bottoms. Lots of shrubs forwhich I do not have names. In short, it’s afairly busy environment, with all sorts offlora managing to stay alive. It’s justnot...lush.

The only time I find this land becomingboring (barren of interest) is when theroads are straight and flat and the sceneryconsists mostly of flat, empty fields. Andthat is exactly what we get for the dozen orso miles beyond Wapinitia...between miles27 and 39. If my bike ride today were avideo, I’d be tempted to hit fast forward through thisstretch. But a dozen miles is not much, and it willsoon be past and we’ll be on to more intersting things.And more challenging things too. For starters, whenwe turn from Jericho Flat Road onto Hwy 197/216, wealmost immediately leave the flats behind and enjoy asnappy little downhill, losing about 600' in two and ahalf miles...an uncomplicated, grab-a-tuck-and-flysort of descent.

We have just dropped into Tygh Valley, with the lovelyWhite River running through it. The little village ofTygh Valley sits off the highway on an old bypass(probably the original highway). Initially I hadplanned to run us off the main highway onto thissmaller, older road. But in the end, I gave it a miss.

The left turn off the highway comes up while we’restill bombing down the hill, which could be tricky,cutting across oncoming traffic at high speed. Plus wedon’t really need the extra miles (hold that thought).And finally, the little town, which I thought would bereally cute, isn’t. It’s rather ordinary. Not worth thebother. So roll out that descent and carry whatevermomentum you can across the flat valley floor. Notthat it will do you much good with what’s coming...

What’s coming is a seven-mile, 1700' climb. When yousee it, you won’t be thanking me for bringing you thisway. Believe me, I tried to avoid it. The Wasco CountyAAA map shows another road winding back throughthe hills that might have been better, but the map lies:it’s not really there...one of those mythical roads AAAincludes to mess with our heads. No, there’s noescaping this bad boy.

There is however a way of postponing it. Rememberthat thought about not really needing any extra milestoday? Well forget about that...how about a few extramiles after all? Here’s the deal: just at the base of thisbig climb, Highways 197 and 216 diverge. Our climbis north on 197, but 216 turns right and travels east,following the White River, which we have just crossed.In a little less than five miles, it passes White RiverFalls State Park, which, as the name implies, containssome noteworthy waterfalls. We did this out-&-backon our tour and it was one of those good-news-bad-news deals. The good news is that the miles to andfrom the park are mellow and pleasant. The bad newsis that the really spectacular waterfalls--the set knownas Celestial Falls--is not easily accessible in bike shoes


from the park trailhead. The falls that are immediatelyon display are shown in the photo on page 16. They’repretty impressive, and the park setting at the fallsmakes a nice spot for a break from biking...shady treeson a lawn. Is it worth the extra miles? That probablydepends on how much energy you’ve got and howmuch you like waterfalls.

Personally, unless I’m having a bad day, I could easilybe persuaded to bump my stage up from 80 to 89miles to check out this hidden gem. Everything aboutit appears wonderful, and it’s soooo close to our route.

Eventually though, we have to come back to Hwy 197and face the music: that big climb is still there,waiting for us. 1700' up in seven miles works out toabout 5%, and that feels about right to me. It is afairly steady gradient, and while it’s not wickedlysteep, it looks like a monster because you can scan upthe hill and see most of it at once. That always looksso daunting! And this one is all out in the open,scrawled across the long rock cliff face, mile aftermile. If there is any saving grace to this climb—andit’s a slim consolation at best—it’s that there is adecent vista off the right side of the road, down into arather pretty canyon.

After six miles, we do get the variety of turning offHwy 197 onto Dufur Gap Road. One more mile ofclimbing remains, but it’s both easier (not as steep)and more pleasant (a smaller, quieter, more scenicback road).

Once we hit 2697' Tygh Ridge summit at mile 50, Iwould like to be able to say it’s all downhill from here.But I can’t, not quite. There are still a few small

climbs—at least four of them, totalingabout five miles—scattered over the route.But the other 25 miles are down, andmany of those miles are serious fun. Westart with exactly ten miles of gravitycandy from the Tygh Ridge summit onDufur Gap, down and down on the old,winding road and then continuing downfor a brief spell back on Hwy 197. We lose1400' over that very entertaining run,most of it on the wild wiggles of dinkyDufur Gap.

The first of our little climbs comes nextwhen we turn off Hwy 197 onto a bypasscalled Boyd Loop Road. No reason to dothis one except to get off the ho-humhighway and onto the less traveled sideroad. (By the way, the little town of Dufuris just left off Hwy 197 in the opposite

direction from Boyd Loop. I was pressed for timewhen I came through here, so I didn’t get to exploreit. But I have read some cycle-tour accounts that rateit as a rather quaint and charming little village. If youhave the time and energy and interest, it’s quite closeby and might be worth a look.) Boyd Loop climbsgently for about a mile, opening up some nice vistasas it rises, then descends for two frisky miles to an oldbridge crossing Fifteenmile Creek. If you’re notzipping down the hill too fast, check out the canyon ofthe little creek under the bridge (above): on displayare substantial formations of columnar basalt (a laDevil’s Postpile). After the bridge and the basalt, thesecond of our little climbs returns us to another twomiles on 197, again going downhill.

The downhill this time may be a bit of a problem, asour next turn off the highway comes up at high speedon this descent, and it would be easy to overshoot it.This is a right turn onto Old Highway. It’s wellmarked, so if you’re paying attention, you should beable to haul on the binders and get the bike sloweddown in time to make the turn. Old Highway contin-ues our descent for a mile. Then we veer just slightlyto the left—still descending—on Eightmile Road.This is a wonderful road, slinking back and forthdown the rocky, wooded canyon of Eightmile Creekfor—you guessed it!—eight miles. It’s never verysteep, but is probably a better descent because of it.You can hammer it as hard as you want and not getyourself into too much trouble. This is really one ofthe nicest sections of road on the tour for the simplepleasure of being on a bike. It just feels right...thespeed and the gradient and the curves...everything is


scaled perfectly for bike travel. All of that is assumingyou don’t get nailed--as we did--by brutal headwindsblowing uphill from the river.

Take these eight delightful miles, add over two milesof decending on Hwy 197 at the start, then a mile onEmerson Loop, and you have 11.5 miles of purest fun.And that’s in addition to the ten-mile drop on DufurGap and the two-mile plunge on Boyd Loop...it startsadding up to a whole lot of downhill dancing. Try toremember this when you’re toiling up that hot, bleakseven-mile climb: it will end, and when it does, it willbe followed by miles and miles of pleasant cruising.

The descending finally ends around mile 75, when wecross the creek and the road bends uphill again. Ataround mile 76, we turn left onto Fremont Street(also known as Columbia View Drive) and continue toa point, at the top of a wickedly steep little climb,where the name of this road becomesmore than just a name. Quite suddenly,we are presented with a very grand viewof the Columbia, spread out before us ina panoramic sweep. This is by no meansthe only view we will have of the mag-nificent river. Tomorrow’s stage willoffer up one vista point after another, allday long, until our brains are fried fromthe sheer out-of-scale grandeur of it all.But this is our first view of the river, andas such, it is quite special. After a stagethat has been marked by vast tracts ofemptiness, it comes as a bit of shock tocrest that last rise and see such a busyvista before us.

We have arrived at the eastern fringe ofThe City of The Dalles (above). With a

population of over 12,000, it’s thebiggest burg we will have visitedsince Springfield. Thanks partly toluck and partly to planning, we entertown on a road almost entirely freeof the scabrous crud that messes upthe fringe of most American cities.We’re tooling along on a rural backroad, and then, suddenly, we’re upon a bluff overlooking the town andthe river, with nice, upscale homesperched on the hill around us. Nogas stations, no fast food joints, nobig box outlet malls. Just a quietneighborhood and a big panorama.

Front and center in the panorama isnot only the big river but also The

Dalles Dam (seen below from the Washington shore).This is the best overlook for looking over the sprawl-ing hydroelectric colossus. It makes all the otherdams we’ve seen on the previous stages look likechildren’s toys. Not only is it big, it’s hugely complex,with all sorts of technical stuff going on everywhereyou look, from all the power generation infrastructureto spillways to locks to fish ladders to bridges.

This is just one of the many dams on the Columbia.It’s upstream from Bonneville Dam (which we will seetomorrow) and downstream from John Day Dam. Iread somewhere that there are or have been no fewerthan 192 dams on the Columbia River drainage. Intimes before the white man brought his busy industryto the task of taming and harnessing the river, it ranfree over numerous cascades and cataracts, allthrough the gorge. It is these magnificent spills of


water that inspired explorer and naturalist DavidDouglas—he of the Douglas Fir—to name the wholemountain range the Cascades. Now, with theslackwater impoundment for one dam backing up allthe way to the next dam upstream, the mighty river isreally just a series of long lakes.

Construction began on the Dalles Dam in 1952 andwas completed in 1957. The water behind the damflooded an immense cascade of whitewater known asCelilo Falls (now known as Celilo Lake). This vasttract of wild water was a gauntlet that spawningsalmon had to negotiate, and that salmon run was thelife’s blood of the Cascade and Chinook tribes forthousands of years. In fact, this bountiful, reliableharvest of fish made this spot a very stable commu-nity, and it is thought that this may be the longestcontinuously occupied village in America. Carbondating of midden heaps indicates people have livedhere steadily for at least 10,000 years, and possibly2000 more than that. It was the same at every cas-cade, all the way downstream through the gorge:villages where the salmon was the mainstay of theeconomy, and a very good, durable economy at that.

The salmon would rest in vast, dense schools in theeddies and pools below the falls, gathering strengthfor the next set of rapids. A fisherman could prettymuch throw in his spear without aiming and pull outa 20-pound fish. One man in a day could easily pullout a ton of salmon. And yet their numbers werenever depleted. Think about that: for over 10,000years, the tribes all along the Columbia made it theirmain occupation to catch salmon, and yet somehow

the salmon population remained stable andthe harvest sustainable. But in just over 100years, the European “immigrants”—with theirindustrial fish factories, dams, and logging—managed to drive the salmon to the brink ofextinction.

As a young boy, I was fortunate to see CeliloFalls before the dam was completed... to seethe men of the tribe balancing precariouslyover the raging waters on flimsy woodencatwalks, hauling in the fish (left). All that isgone now. The falls no longer fall, the river-side tribal villages are underwater, and theirpeople have been relocated to modern subur-ban subdivisions. As for the salmon, they’renot quite gone yet, but it will take a lot morework and a lot less greed to bring them back.

Well...this is a bigger story that can becrammed into the space of this bike tour

narrative. If you’re interested, you can find more onthe subject with a quick search on the internet. Butfor now, we must move on, into the town itself, whereour destination is The Dalles High School. Our routethrough town is actually quite nice, allowing us tocontinue to miss the clutter we usually expect inurban settings. From our overlook up on the bluff, wedrop for about a mile back to Hwy 197 and cross thehighway to Fremont Street. We climb briefly and thenturn right onto Old Dufur Road, then right again onto10th Street, which flows gently downhill throughquiet neighborhoods to the center of town. Not thecommercial business center, but the older, matureresidential heart of town: handsome old homes onwell-kept plots along shady streets. The old highschool campus is right in the middle of it all, and weare going to make use of their back lawn for our littletent city.

I feel very fortunate to have been able to set up thisarrangement with the school. It has that importantelement we all appreciate: showers. Plus it’s a nicespot; very quiet and pleasant, in spite of being right inthe middle of town. Furthermore, if we couldn’t camphere, we’d be in a real pickle, because there are nopublic or private campsites anywhere near here...notanywhere close enough to be even remotely viable forgetting the miles right for today’s and tomorrow’sstages. And it almost didn’t happen. I had failedrepeatedly in making the right connections withanyone in The Dalles who could help me. I felt I hadrun out of options, and the whole trip was in jeopardy.(Lose one link in your chain of overnights, and thewhole tour falls apart.) But I stopped by the campus


late one afternoon and just happened to bump intoJerry Christensen—hanging out at soccer practice—the very school administrator who could give me theauthorization to proceed. Good luck or good timingor just desperate persistence...whatever was respon-sible, it worked out.

One final note about our “campsite.” Just up the hillfrom the back lawn of the high school campus,sticking up right in the middle of an otherwiseconventional 12th Street, is a large pillar of rock. Thisis called Pulpit Rock. For hundreds of years, it servedas a sort of stage for tribal leaders when they wishedto speak to their people. Later, in the days of the whiteman’s missionary work, it became a “pulpit” forpreaching to the heathen. Eventually, as the town

grew, the rock was surrounded by new development.But out of respect for history, it was never blown upor leveled or paved over. It remained, an oddly out-of-place monolith in the middle of the road. The creep-ing tide of asphalt has risen around its flanks over thecourse of numerous street repavings, so it doesn’tstand quite as tall as it used to. But it’s still there, asmall reminder of earlier times.

Stage 5: The Dalles to Troutdale

77 miles, 4000' up, 4200' down

Doing the famous Historic Columbia River Highway(also known as Hwy 30 or just HCRH) was really thekeystone in putting this tour together. I grew up inPortland, and Sunday drives out into the Gorge were a

staple of my childhood. We visited the many waterfallsand played on the river beaches and hiked up thegreen, mossy side canyons. And we drove the old road.Even as a kid, I could appreciate that this road wassomething special. As the years have gone by and somany other old roads have been “improved” bywidening and straightening and grading, the fact thatthis little highway has remained mostly in its originalform just makes it all that much more special.

Of course it doesn’t hurt that the road is runningthrough the Columbia River Gorge, one of the mostdramatic and iconic landscapes in America. The Gorgewas officially designated as a National Scenic Area in1986, and the only odd thing about that is why it tookthem so long to make it official. The old highway itself

has had all sorts of officialaccolades bestowed upon it:All-American Road; NationalScenic Byway; NationalHistoric Civil EngineeringLandmark; National HistoricLandmark. All of those honorsand the protections andpampering that come withthem came just in the nick oftime. For years, the old roadwas just that: old. Not thatmany people appreciated it forwhat it was. The implacablebulldozer of progress wasalways nearby, nibbling awayat the quaint curves andartisan-built walls. Interstate-84, running parallel to Hwy30, wiped substantial chunksof the old road off the map.

Other sections fell into disrepair. But Oregonians havea history of being moderately enlightened about theenvironment and about parks and natural aesthetics,and finally, enough people made enough of a fuss, andthe road came under all sorts of protections and hadall sorts of creative energy and money thrown at thechallenge of preserving it.

One of the key components in its rehabilitation hasbeen the bicycle. There are sections you will ridetoday that are closed to cars. They were deemed tooold-fashioned for modern motoring, so were simplyturned into bike trails. What a concept! Brrrilliant!Now a whole niche market in the local tourismindustry is built around biking the old highway, andthere are websites where one can view and downloadvery pretty pages detailing the entire journey.


All of the above has been simmering away in the backof my mind for years as an incentive to tour here. Ittook awhile to put the pieces together; to create a tourthat would include the Gorge and still be easilyaccessible from California and work as a loop. And ithas taken us a few days to ride to this point. But now,here we are in The Dalles, the eastern gateway to theHistoric Columbia River Highway. Let’s go see whatall the hype is about...

First we have to get out of The Dalles. That’s easy. Wehead west from the high school, gently downhillthrough more of the same old neighborhood, back on10th Street. As we head west, the old neighborhoodgives way to newer subdivisions and some lightindustrial areas, but all in all, it’s not bad. At aboutthree miles, we head north on Chenowith Loop Road,then west again on 6th. This flows directly onto theHCHR at the edge of town. Just under four miles intothe stage, and we’re out into the country (right).

But wait! Before we actually rollout onto the highway, let’s put afoot down for a moment andabsorb a little background aboutthe region and the road. Insimplest terms, this is the classicstory of rock vs water. You knowthat the Cascades are part of theRing of Fire, that line of volcanossputtering up out of the riftsbetween tectonic plates, allaround the Pacific Rim. 20 millionyears ago, massive volcanicactivity generated a 2000' thicklayer of lava that became basalt(sometimes in columnar form, aswe saw at Fifteenmile Creek). Themore recent volcanos that weknow so well—from Lassen and Shasta in California,all the way up through Oregon and on into Washing-ton—have added their own latter-day lava layering tothe rocky blanket, and, as we know from Mt StHelens, they are still at it. Still sputtering and spew-ing and laying down more lava.

Through it all the river has continued to drain a vastwatershed stretching far up into British Columbia andMontana and encompassing large chunks of Washing-ton, Idaho, and of course Oregon. Many a time a lavaflow or massive landslide has blocked the river chan-nel. But the river never sleeps (except perhaps inslackwater lakes behind dams). Those billions of cubicfeet of water never stop looking for a way to headdownstream. So effective has this mighty river been in

carving a channel for itself, that it has far outrun itslittle tributary streams, leaving them plunging downthe sheer sides of the basalt cliffs and giving us themagnificent waterfalls we see today.

One other important aspect about this region: howthe land and the weather interact. West of the Cas-cades is a coastal environment: moist, with moderatetemperatures. East of the mountains is an inland,continental climate: much more arid and with moreextreme temperatures, both higher and lower. Con-sider these numbers: The Dalles, at mile 1 on today’sroute, records 14 inches of rain a year. Hood River, atmile 25, logs 30 inches a year. Cascade Locks, at mile45, is soaked by 75 inches annually. This extremelyrapid transition from one climate to the other, withthe gorge offering an open portal to any meterologicalmischief going upstream or down, creates someexciting weather. Most notably, it creates wind. Lots ofit. (We’ll talk a bit more about the wind when we get

to Hood River.) It is more likely to blow from west toeast—a headwind for us—but that is by no means asure thing. It can blow just as hard or even harderfrom east to west. When I scouted this trip, it wasblowing half a gale downstream...our direction.

Now, after the geology and the hydraulics and theweather, and after the ancient history of the salmonruns and the native peoples, there is just one morething to talk about in general overview: the road.

A scenic highway up the gorge from Portland was firstplanned in 1909, but only a few miles were builtbefore the project ran out of steam. Then a wealthySeattle lawyer and railroad tycoon named Sam Hilltook it on as his personal crusade to see thingscompleted. He spent years lobbying and boostering


and barnstorming to make it happen, and between1913 and 1922, most of the highway was completed.From the very beginning the goal was always to makethis “the most beautiful highway in the world.” ChiefEngineer on the project was a man named SamLancaster, and he put his heart and soul and everywaking moment into getting everything just right. Hehad been inspired by highways he had seen in Switzer-land and Germany, and was especially taken with theirfine old masonry walls. He vowed to replicate thatstyle here. But he also vowed to harm as few trees andferns and creeks as possible with the construction. Toan astonishing degree, he succeeded. This was thefirst paved highway in the western United States...amarvel in its day and still a marvel today.

Okay...enough background. Let’s get moving. The oldhighway shows its true colors almost from itsfirst few yards. It takes no time at all before weare riding along next to the HCRH’s signaturewhite, wooden railings (above). These hand-some railings seem to appear interchangeablywith the grand old stone walls that line somany miles of the road. I don’t know whatdictates which railing goes where, but bothstyles are attractive. There are also someclassic early deco concrete railings to be foundhere and there. I know for a fact that those incharge of maintaining the historic road todayare fully dedicated to adhering to the oldstandards of craftsmanship while repairing theroad. I was held up for several minutes on myscout trip while workers painstakingly ce-mented a large boulder into place as part ofanother decorative railing, carefully matching

their new stone to the old stonesaround it. And one other item of goodnews in the maintenance and repairdept: many miles of old pavementwere replaced in 2006 by new asphaltlaid down to the highest standards ofthe paver’s trade. These new sec-tions—still with their quaint oldwalls and narrow, twisting con-tours—are now as smooth as blacksatin.

Aside from the road itself, which isdelightfully scenic every inch of theway, the first really marquee scenicattraction we encounter on the day isRowena Crest. This is also the first ofour climbs today (below). The roadssnakes back and forth in severalelegant loops as it gently rises up the

face of the big basalt cliff. It really couldn’t be muchmore attractive...but shoot, I am going to becomevery redundant if I say that for every one of thesewonderful sections of road. Let’s just take it as a giventhat the road—from here on—is as pretty as you canpossibly imagine a road could be, unless I tell youotherwise.

After the enjoyable and by no means difficult climb,we roll out into the vista point on top of RowenaCrest. I don’t see stopping here as at all optional. It’s amust. The route slip has provided for a turn into thewayside and goes all the way around the big circle atthe top before returning to the highway. Please takethe time to stop here, even though it’s only mile 12.We will have lovely vistas over the river all day long,


but none of them will be any more impressive thanthis first one (above).

Once back on the road west, it’s mostly downhill allthe way to the town of Mosier. Okay, there is a littleclimb near a pretty spot called Rowena Dell, but asidefrom that, it’s a nifty descent of three or four miles.Mosier is a little wide spot in the road at 19 miles.There is a cute roadside cafe here, although it may bea little early for lunch. But the main thing Mosiermeans for us is that it’s the beginning—thetrailhead—for the first of the no-cars, bikes-only trailsections of old road. Just follow the signs uphillthrough town and soon you’ll berolling along a well paved road withnary a “car back!” to be heard. Thissection of trail lasts for over fourmiles. It includes two narrow tunnelsthat would be dicey if cars were in themix. But with just bikes, it’s all part ofthe fun (right).

The closed trail ends one mile east ofthe city of Hood River. Between thetrailhead and town, the old road staystrue to form: beautiful and interest-ing. It drops quite dramatically downthe hillside in several sinuous hair-pins, ending up at a bridge across theHood River. Once over the river andinto town, things get a bit compli-cated.

First, that further word about the windthat I promised earlier. It is windy here,more or less always. Out in the middle ofthe river, away from the cliffs and trees, itis even windier. There’s nothing newabout this. What is new, relativelyspeaking, is the sport of windsurfing andspin-offs like kite-sailing. When thedevotees of this new sport discovered theconstant winds of the gorge, it was likesurfers discovering the north shore ofOahu. Almost overnight, the town ofHood River became ground zero in aphenomenal transformation of theregion from a sleepy agricultural backwa-ter—known mostly for its apple or-chards—into a trendy mecca for yuppieadventurers.

Mind you, the town had a lot going for itbesides an inexhaustible supply of wind.The basic town site is appealing: the land

rises abruptly from the river, so that the streets andstructures scramble steeply up and up, rather like atiny, wooded slice of San Francisco. (Nearly everyhome has a splendid view of the river.) The place iscrammed with lovely Victorian houses and old-townbusiness buildings which were prime candidates forrestoration and remodeling... what I call the moneymassage. Add in the fact that it’s only an hour’s drivefrom Portland, that hotbed of trendy new urbanism. Itall adds up, and folks looking for the next new thingwere all over it. Within a very few years in the 80’s and90’s, the town was reinvented as one of the cooler


places to live in the Northwest. Chic shops and edgyrestaurants abound. Brew pubs and bistros; surf shopsand bike stores...it’s all happening in Hood River(above). I knew about all that before I got here, but Iwas surprised at how much I liked the place. This is avery cool town.

It would have been nice for this to be an overnight forus, where we could have gone out on the town for abrew pub crawl. But alas, it comes only a third of theway into our stage, and we have many a mile to rideand many a sight to see before we can call it a day. Idid spend the night in Hood River on my scoutingtrip, and after dinner and an IPA in one of those brewpubs, I spent an exciting evening driving up and downthe side streets of town, searching out the best bikeroute through the urban clutter. The route you seehere is my best guess at how to accomplish this. Likeour routes through Sisters and The Dalles, it avoidsthe busiest downtown core and spends most of itstime on quieter residential streets nearby. Actually, itdoes cut right through the heart of the busy, trendyold-town core, but only briefly, where the routecrosses the main drag through town. That briefintersection with the heart of things does give you theopportunity to check out the cutting edge of HoodRiver chic, should that interest you.

Once out the west side of town, we come to a decid-edly different part of our journey. From riding on thecharming old historic highway, we are now forced toride along the shoulder of the modern interstate(right). What the...? How did this come to pass? Howit came to pass is that the folks who built the originalhighway put a few bits of it right down next to theriver (and not up on the cliff), and in some of thoseplaces, there wasn’t room for both the old road andthe new road...Interstate-84. At some point back inthe dark ages of the mid-20th century, when prioritieswere skewed toward Bigger and Faster, the value ofthe old highway didn’t count for much, and so some

of it was simply erased from existence bythe freeway.

What can’t be cured must be endured,and so we now ride along the shoulder ofthe interstate for a few miles to get toour next section of back road. This is thelongest section of freeway riding we’ll do:11 miles. All in all, it’s not all thatdreadful and cyclists do it all the time.For one thing, I-84 is rather low-trafficfor an interstate, at least this far awayfrom Portland. For another thing, thescenery is much the same as it has been

all day: wonderful. Finally, there are big shoulders...mostly.

That last “mostly” covers a pet peeve of mine. Theshoulders are set off from the two lanes of traffic by arumble strip scored into the pavement. I understandthe reason it’s there, and I certainly would be thrilledif some dozing motorist were awakened by hitting thestrip moments before plowing into me at 70-mph. Allwell and good. However, just before we get to our off-ramp from this freeway run, the shoulder suddendlydwindles away from eight feet to four feet to two feet.Nothing left between the guard rail and the trafficlane but the rumble strip and a sliver of pavement toonarrow to ride. So where is the cyclist supposed to go?


The cyclist has to jump the strip and ride in the rightlane of the interstate. Now, this strikes me as anunpardonably bad piece of planning on someone’spart. Here the powers that be have gone to greatlengths to promote the Columbia Gorge experience asa perfect bike adventure. And it certainly is that. Butright in the middle of it all is this unavoidable boobytrap that has at least the potential for a very badaccident. And it could have been avoided if they hadsimply turned the damn rumble strip cutter off for thefew hundred yards where the shoulder narrows down.That would have left a ridable strip of 18” next to theguard rail. Ah well...they had the best of intentionswhen they put in the rumble strip, but you knowabout roads paved with good intentions.

This insterstate run is just about dead flat or maybeslightly downhill. We get off at the Wyeth exit at mile38, nip under the freeway, and turn right (west) onHerman Creek Road. I don’t believe this road was partof the original highway. We’re still in a section wherethe highway was buried under the freeway, but it justhappens that this nice little back road was here to fillin for the missing original. It doesn’t have any ofthose pretty rock walls or railings, nor any panoramicviews over the river. It just wanders off into the woodson the south side of the gorge, up against the hillside.

In fact, it climbs up the hillside ratherambitiously...almost 500' up in a couple of miles, andthen down the other side just as briskly. It’s as sharp aspike on the elevation profile as we’ll see today. Somemaps I have seen—including the official HCRHguide—list this road as Wyeth Bench Road, andpresumably this short climb is up and over the WyethBench. But the signs on the corner say HermanCreek, so that’s what I’m using on the map and routeslip. I believe the name Wyeth Bench now applies onlyto the little underpass beneath the interstate.

Once down to river level again, we finish withHerman Creek and pick up a frontage road along thesouth side of the interstate. We roll west for a mile,then pass over the freeway on Forest Lane, whichcarries us into the scattered residential fringe of thetown of Cascade Locks. At mile 45, we hit the centerof town where Forest tees into Wa-Na-Pa Street, themain drag through town. Cascade Locks is not muchof a place. A straggly scatter of businesses along themain street, and a few side streets of modest homes.All of the sleek and chic newness and quaint charm ofHood River seem to have passed Cascade Locks by. It’snot awful...just very ordinary.

Indian legend has it that a great natural arch used tocross the river here. No credible evidence of this hasever been discovered, but there was a massive land-slide here less than 10,000 years ago—within the spanof time that the native peoples have lived here—thatprobably completely blocked the river channel. For atime, as the water backed up into a great lake behindthis temporary dam, it may have been possible to walkto the other side. But as it has always done, the riversoon reclaimed its channel. Now however, a greatbridge crosses the river here, and it is named after thelegendary arch: Bridge of the Gods.

The only thing this bridge means for us—besidesbeing impressive to look at—is that we will find thetrailhead for our next section of bike path (the Colum-bia River State Trail) right at the foot of the bridge inMarine Park. We used the route slip created for one ofthe recent CycleOregon Tours to navigate this section.For the most part it worked well, but in the end, wemust have missed a turn somewhere because we roderight off the end of a section of trail and into a thicketof ferns. Not quite sure what we did wrong, but a fewhundred yards of backtracking got us back on course.

It includes one interesting feature: a stairway fromone level to another, which has supposedly been mademore bike-friendly with the addition of little rampsnext to the stairs for rolling your bike up (our direc-tion) or down.


All of the twists and turns of this bike path section addup to about four miles. Then we have to hop backonto I-84 for another two miles. This time we exit thefreeway at a place so much in the middle of nowherethat it is only identified as Exit 37. It actually providesaccess to a settlement called Warrendale, but there’snot much in the way of anything right at the off-ramp. Again we nip under the freeway and turn right(west) along the southern frontage road, passing thetiny hamlet of Dodson along the way. (If you have aninexhaustible thirst for scenic waterfalls, you mightwant to turn left on this frontage road and ride off-course a short distance east to the center of John B.Yeon State Park, where lovely Elowah Falls works itsmagic. But with all the other waterfalls you’ll pass injust a few miles, this may be overspill overkill.) In alittle over a mile and a half, our little frontage roadtees into Hwy 30 in the middle of a mildly compli-cated interchange where the old highway and theinterstate are spliced together. We go west on 30 andthen almost immediately left again onto the HCRH,following the signs to Multnomah Falls.

This begins one of the most beautiful and best pre-served sections of the old road. This is where I foundthe road crews carefully placing their boulders andlaying down that silky blacktop (left). Over the courseof the next seven miles, we will pass seven namedwaterfalls, including all the biggest, most famous,most visited, most photographed ones: Horsetail,Multnomah, Bridal Veil, Latourel. Some of these areright smack up against the road, and you don’t needto do anything more than stop and put a foot down tocheck them out. Others require a little off-the-bikeexertion (hiking) to fully appreciate their charms.

Multnomah Falls (below) is the mainevent. It’s the tallest waterfall inOregon and would be justifiablypopular as a roadside attraction on itsown merits. But it also has a nice trailup to an elegant old footbridge thatspans the falls and the grotto below it,and it has the grand old stone lodgeat the foot of the falls, designed andbuilt in harmony with the falls andthe road, in that lovely, ruggednational-parks-lodge style.

Topography over this section ismostly level, but there is one shortclimb of about 100' in the middle.The nearby topography is of courseanything but level, with the massivecliffs looming up hundreds of feethigh on the south side of the road.

Every inch that isn’t soaring black cliffs or plummet-ing waterfalls is green, green, and greener. Broadleaftrees and firs intermingled, with a lush, dense under-story of ferns and shrubs, mosses and lichens. Thinkback to the rather arid, open landscape near TheDalles and Rowena Crest, and compare that to thisrain forest canopy—just 50 miles apart—and those


earlier notes about the dramatic shift in climate comeinto focus.

At around mile 60, the road tilts uphill for the longestascent of the day: 800' up in around eight-plus miles.This is never hard climbing, and the scenery along theway is so sublime you won’t mind the uphill effort abit. This is the climb to Crown Point, where the VistaHouse holds center stage (above). It comes up ataround mile 67, and there is no way you can pedalpast the spot without stopping. It can’t be done. Thepanoramic splendor on all sides is overwhelming.Food for the soul.

The little Vista House is worth a few minutes as well.It has been here as long as the road has. It was herethat the road was officially opened in 1916, withWoodrow Wilson pushing a button in Washingtonthat unfurled a flag on the pole here. Like much ofthe highway, it had fallen on hard times in the waningyears of the 20th Century, but dedicated volunteersand workers have restored it to its original glory, andit now looks as it must have on that bright day ofpromise in 1916.

This isn’t quite the top of the climb, but the grade

eases off now—not that it was ever all that steep—andthe remaining mile or so to the summit at the town ofCorbett is almost a level traverse through the woods.From Crown Point onward, although the old highwayis still known as the HCRH, it is now also—some-times—known as the Crown Point Highway. Youmight see some signs on street corners with thislatter name, but it’s still our same highway.

Before leaving the Corbett neighborhood, one lastsightseeing item. We will pass a little state park on theright with a funny name: The Portland Women’sForum State Park. (Many of the beauty spots in theGorge were named after individuals or organizationswho pledged funds for their preservation during thebuilding of the road. I don’t know for sure, but I betthis is one of those “sponsored” sites.) The reason youshould care about this little park is because it con-tains our last scenic vista point of the day, and it justmight be the best one of all (photo on page 1). Thewhole Gorge is laid out at our feet—we’re now at ourhighest point above it—with Crown Point and itslittle jewel-like Vista House off in the very picturesquemiddle distance. This is by far the most photographedview on the river, the one you are most likely to haveseen ten or a hundred times. It is the essential Colum-bia Gorge image, and when you stand there and takeit all in, you’ll have that strange, deja vu feeling weget when we see something in reality that has been apart of our cultural heritage forever, rather like seeingYosemite Valley or Bryce Canyon or Niagara Falls forthe first time.

After the vista point, we are treated to a very sweetdownhill slither of about three miles...much steeperand faster than the climb before it, but still not sosteep as to be nasty. Just good fun. At the bottom ofthe descent, we pass through another small town,Springdale. It’s not much more than a school and astore or two, but it marks a turn for us, off the his-toric highway and onto a side road...and up a hill.

In theory, the simplest way to get to our finish inTroutdale would be to stay on the historic highway, allthe way. But from Springdale on, we’re essentially onan out-&-back: we will be riding on the highway backto Springdale first thing tomorrow morning beforeheading south onto new roads. So, to vary the scenerya bit, and to leave no good road unridden, I have usleave the old highway in Springdale for a right ontoWoodard Road. This begins with a short, sharp climbof about 150' in a mile. At the top, the road turns hardleft at a four-way junction, like it’s a new road, andplunges back down the hill in a frisky descent ofmaybe 400' in a mile-plus. Although this is the easiest


day for climbing on the whole tour, it’s possible youwill balk at doing one more climb when a perfectlylevel or even slightly downhill road is available:staying on the HCRH. If so, please feel free to skipWoodard and stick to the lowland option.

When the descent ends—rather abruptly—we haveteed back into the historic highway, now on its finalleg...just two miles to go. We turn right on thehighway, then follow it left as it crosses the SandyRiver and rolls into the town of Troutdale. (Note:when the HCRH turns left across the Sandy Riverbridge, Crown Point Highway continues straightahead, north. Don’t go that way.) Troutdale wasprobably a free-standing country town not that manyyears ago, but the suburbs of eastern Portland havesprawled out to meet it, so now it pretty much feelslike just another belt of subdivisions. The locals havetried hard to retain something of asmall-town feel for the place, and themain street is moderately attractive.And the tract neighborhoods have notquite gobbled up every square foot ofland. There are still quite a few bigparcels left with crops growing onthem. Still a few patches of forest andmeadow. And then there is the 30-acreparcel that contains our overnightdestination: Edgefield Resort (right).

What to say about this place? First alittle background: the McMenaminbrothers have been buying up oldproperties and renovating them intorestaurants, brew pubs, hotels, and

other forms of public space for severalyears now. They began in Portland andnow have an amazing number ofinteresting facilities in their empire,scattered throughout the northwest.(You can check them out atMcMenamins.com.)

Many people credit them with creatingthe microbrewery and brew pubphenonomenon that has Portland as itsepicenter. They lobbied to change thelaws to allow sales of beer on the samepremises where it was being brewed.Seems like an age-old, no-brainerconcept now, with brew pubs on everyother corner, but apparently it wasn’talways this way. And from what I’veread—in articles in Sunset and Via—these are the guys who first pushed the

idea out into the mainstream.

Here is the official, short history of Edgefield, copiedoff their website...

“Edgefield, built in 1911, served for several decades asthe Multnomah County Poor Farm. Residents oper-ated a self-sufficient environment, raising hogs,poultry, growing a variety of fruits and vegetables,operating a dairy, cannery, and meat packing plant aswell as working in the laundry, kitchen and hospital.

“In 1947, it was renamed the Multnomah CountyHome and Farm and in the late fifties the farmoperation was eliminated. In 1962, the facility wasrenamed Edgefield Manor and for the last two decadesof operation, functioned as a nursing home andeventually closed in 1982.

“McMenamins purchased the property from


Multnomah County in 1990. In phases lasting overfour years, the condemned buildings and land weretransformed into a unique European-style village,including lodging, a pub, a movie theater, fine dining,a winery, a brewery, distillery, golf course, gardens,vineyards, artwork, and meeting, wedding, andbanquet spaces.”

What I would like to add to that is a comment abouthow they do their renovations. These guys are won-derfully quirky and whimsical in their sense of what aspace should look like. They first of all select interest-ing old properties for their projects—often con-demned or derelict structures—and then they fillthem with off-beat, eclectic, antique furnishings andaccessories scavenged from all over the world. Andthey keep a staff of artisan craftsmen employed fulltime creating murals and sculptures and graphicembellishments that decorate every nook and crannyof their environments.

The brothers, who have been described as a couple ofold Deadheads, are certainly not corporate,establisment types. There is a statue of Jerry Garcia inthe garden at Edgefield, and there is one tiny barcalled Jerry’s Ice House where the Grateful Dead arealways playing on the big videoscreen. (There are plenty of otherpubs on the property for those whowould rather do without the Dead.)But being unreconstructed hippiesdoesn’t mean their inns and diningrooms are messy old crash pads.Everything is best quality. The roomsare lovely, and each is as individualand charming as all of the otherspaces at the resort. In keeping withtheir retrograde, anti-establishmentethos: no TVs and no internet connec-tions in the rooms.

It really is a place apart. It’s loads offun, and I expect you will find theirold-fashioned, craftsman-builtambience will be the perfect comple-ment to your day of riding along theold-fashioned, craftsmen-builthighway.

Stage 6: Troutdale to Silver

Falls State Park

93 miles, 9000' up, 7500' down

At the beginning of this write-up, Iclaimed that the stages on this tour,

although long, would not be especially difficult. Thisstage is the only one on the tour for which that claimmight not hold up. On paper at least, it has themakings of a very challenging piece of work. Lookingover the elevation profiles for the tour, one is immedi-ately drawn to the great, gaudy spikes of Box Canyonsummit on Day 1 and McKenzie Pass on Day 2. Theylook intimidating in the way that all big mountainpasses do in profiles, with over three or four thousandfeet of climing in one big wall, many miles long. (ButI still believe they won’t be brutal.) In contrast,today’s profile looks rather insignificant, with just abunch of little sawtooth spikes running raggedlyacross its 93-mile distance. The 93-mile figure is thefirst hint that this might be a challenging day, but thereal kicker lies in all those little saw teeth in theprofile. None of them is particularily big, but there areso many of them, and so many of them are steep...

There are at least 60 places in 93 miles where theprofile tilts from downhill to uphill. That’s 60 timeswe’ll be throwing it down into our little chain rings.Many of those may be just glorified rollers, but thetoughest ones are fierce. One or two miles long maynot seem like much, but when the grade is double


digit steep, it starts to take its toll, one little wall afteranother. I have added up all the little uphills on theprofile, and bearing in mind my history of underesti-mating elevation gain, I have rounded up my total,then rounded up again. At this point, I can’t imaginethat my estimated 9000' of gain on the day is still toolow. Perhaps finally, I will have estimated high, andwe’ll come in below that figure. We shall see.

In any event, expect it to be a hard day. Wake up witha warrior mindset. Pack in a hearty breakfast at theBlack Rabbit Restaurant at Edgefield, then hit theroad ready for anything. If it turns out to be not thatbad after all, we’ll all be delighted.

The day may prove difficult in another respect as well.The navigation is going to be complex andprobably confusing. There are nearly 40 roadchanges, which works out to something newneeding to be figured out almost every twomiles, all day long. It isn’t that consistent ofcourse. There are places where we’ll be onone road for seven or eight miles. But thereare many spots that will be tricky, with onescrewy turn after another. Imagine trying tofind your way around the dense network oflittle roads west of Sebastopol without anyprior experience of the area. That’s what itwill be like. Come to think of it, the climb-ing will be like the west county too. We’llfeel right at home.

Okay, enough with the disclaimers. Let’s getrolling and see what all the fuss is about. Webegin by retracing those suburban miles

through Troutdale and back across thebridge over the Sandy River (above).Once past our junction with WoodardRoad, we’ll be on a new bit of the oldhighway for a few miles. We get a littleencore performance of four more milesof the HCRH...not nearly as spectacularas the cliffhanging, stonewalling sec-tions of yesterday, but not all thatshabby either. The Sandy River is fillingin for the mighty Columbia as ourroadside companion in this section(below), and it looks very pretty in itsown modest way. Meanwhile, on the leftside of the road, great cliffs rise updramatically, and tall trees crowd thepavement, leaving us in dappled shade.Once over the river from Troutdale, the’burbs are left behind, and this feels likereal country, with just the occasional

riverside lodge breaking up the walls of trees. This lastsection of the HCRH is nearly flat...one of the very fewflat roads we will see all day.

At six miles, we return to the village of Springdale andbriefly retrace a little of yesterday’s route. Then weturn right onto new roads to new places. The generalprogram today is to work our way south amid thewestern foothills of the Cascades, doing our best tostay on bike-friendly side roads and off busier high-ways. To say that the Cascades are on our left and theWillamette Valley is on our right would be correct,but a gross oversimplification. It will be a rare mo-ment today when we can look to our right—or toanywhere else—and see anything resembling a wide,


flat valley. Mostly we’ll be scrambling up hill anddown dale, lost in an extremely rumpled landscape ofsharply creased ridges and deeply cut canyons.

Our topsy turvy journey begins with a moderate, two-mile climb on Hurlburt Road. Then we turn rightonto Gordon Creek Road, do a couple of little bumps,and—whoa!—down we go, down the rabbit hole on ashort but very steep drop. This wiggly free fallthrough dense forest is followed immediately by avery steep uphill grunt of just about the same dimen-sions as the descent that preceded it: 400' in less thana mile. Less than a mile? How hard can that be? Well,not hard enough to snap your chain, but still a wickedlittle wall. The climb on Gordon Creek doesn’t endthere, but it eases off enough for us to catch ourbreath. After a very brief, nearly level shelf, things tiltup again and stay that way for another four miles orso, on a steady, medium-steep grade.

All of these early miles, and in fact mostof the miles for the whole stage, runthrough thick forest. We’re back intothat mix of broadleafs and conifers wesaw when we were in the foothills onDay 1. There will be a smattering ofmeadows and pastures as the day goesalong, plus a few small towns, but ingeneral, we’ll be under tree cover. If itturns out to be hot, at least it will beshady.

After rereading the paragraph aboveabout steep downhills and steeperuphills, it occurs to me that if I spellout every one of those 60 little ups anddowns on the day, this is going tobecome awfully repetetive, like men-

tioning every one of the scenic overlooksalong the Columbia River. So I’m goingto try and skate lightly over the minutiaeand just give you the bigger picture.

So let’s take Hurlburt, Gordon Creek,Bull Run, and Ten Eyck Roads as awhole: those are the four roads betweenSpringdale and the town of Sandy.They’re all essentially the same. Up anddown, early and often. All in the woods.All very pretty, mostly quite challenging.The Sandy River comes and goes as theroads drop off the ridges and plunge backto the bridges. There is a nice little parkand pond that might make a good spotfor a regroup at mile 19, when we turnfrom Bull Run onto Ten Eyck. Aside from

that wayside, there’s not much out here but countryhomes and a whole lot of timber.

One final, short-but-steep climb, and Ten Eyck popsout very suddenly into the commercial clutter of thetown of Sandy, strung out along the Mt Hood High-way (Hwy 26...yes, the same Hwy 26 we were on whenwe crossed the Deschutes River on Day 3). We’regoing to cut across 26 and kiss Sandy goodbye withhardly a backward glance. It may have some goodqualities as a place to live, but they won’t be apparentto us from the little slice of main street we’ll see.

Unfortunately, leaving the town behind doesn’t meanwe get to return to lovely, bike-friendly back roadsright away. We now have to bite the bullet and doprobably the least enjoyable road of the whole tour.This is Hwy 211, the Eagle Creek-Sandy Highway. It’sbusy and doesn’t have nearly as much shoulder as we


would like in a road with this much traffic. We’re on itfor exactly six miles, and the good news is most ofthose miles are downhill, so the ordeal will pass fairlyquickly. The bad news is there are at least seven littleuphill bumps mixed into the downhill, and some ofthem at least are big enough to need some work to getover their tops, delaying the eventual escape from thispedaling purgatory. I wish we could have avoided thisrun of busy highway, but there simply aren’t anyreasonable alternatives.

There’s a road like this on every tour we do. Ninetimes out of ten, when we get there, we luck out andsneak through without any unpleasant encounterswith big trucks or the RV from hell. We get to theother end and wonder what all the worry was about.Let’s hope that proves to be the case this time. How-ever, if you really have a phobia about swimming withthe sharks—riding in traffic—you might considerusing one of our sags to taxi down to the little town ofEstacada, 12 miles ahead. It would shorten up the rideto a more manageable length, and it would surgicallyremove this less-than-great section. If there is ademand for it, we will place a sag (or two) in Sandy todo the shuttle.

Twelve miles? Didn’t I just say this bad section wasonly six miles? I did. But the road that follows—EagleCreek—is not such a hot road either. Not that it’s toobusy or too narrow. It’s not. Riding on it is fine. It’sjust sort of blah...a straight run down the valley past amix of farms and rural commercial enterprise: feedstores, tractor sales, corner country mini-marts. Onthe bright side, it’s one of the few more-or-less levelsections all day, and in fact tilts slightly downhill overmost of its six miles to the town of Estacada. If you’reriding, you’ll be delighted to get off Hwy 211 and will

find this road a big improvement. Ifyou’re in a sag, you might as well stayin the sag until you get back to reallynice back roads on the south side of thenext town.

We ride right through the heart ofEstacada, along the pretty ClackamasRiver (above). When I was growing upon the southwestern edge of Portland,my high school was in a league withthe schools from all the little townswe’ll visit or bypass today...Sandy,Estacada, Molalla, Canby, Silverton. Inthose long-ago days—the early 60’s—these were remote little farm towns,and we surburban sophisticates fromPortland thought this was the back of

beyond, and that the kids from these hokey littleburgs were hayseeds and yokels, one and all. Rightlyor wrongly, that was then; this is now. My how timeshave changed. All of these little towns, well withincommuting distance of the wide belt of corporateparks surrounding Portland and Salem, have becomebedroom communities and back-to-the-land havensfor hordes of up-scale worker bees. While there arestill plenty of kids here who belong to 4-H and FFA,we’re just as likely to notice signs for aroma therapy,holistic healing, boutique produce, and gourmetbistros. Once again, a comparison to West SonomaCounty is not inaccurate.

Estacada fronts on the Clackamas River. We drop tothe river, cross over to the south bank, and followHwy 211 out of town. This time though, we’re only onthe highway for a minute before escaping onto betterback roads, beginning with a left onto Day Hill.Eventually, we’re going to have to do a few more mileson 211, but down here, for whatever reason, it’s anicer road to ride than coming out of Sandy. But forthe moment, we manage to dodge it for a bit longerwith a five-mile up-and-down meander on Day Hilland Springwater Roads. Finally, at mile 39, we have tojump onto the busier highway. We begin a nicedescent on Springwater and continue it on 211,altogether about three miles long. Except for the stopsign where the former merges into the latter, itshould all be smooth and fast. We climb for a coupleof miles, then descend to our next turn at mile 45.This could be an easy corner to miss: a left onto alittle lane buried in the trees on a moderately fastdescent...Grays Hill Road.

Another road with “Hill” in the name. Yep...moreclimbing ahead, but also more descending. After an


initial climb, Grays Hill features a series of very fastdownhill rollers. Whoopdeedoos, you might call them.Straight ahead and a lot like the big dippers on aroller coaster.

This section represents one of the most confusingparts of today’s route from a navigation standpoint.Over the course of the 15 miles beginning with GraysHill, we are on nine different roads. There’s really nopoint in my trying to describe all those changes.You’re going to have to rely on your route slip...andon staying awake. No mindless hammering! When indoubt, put a foot down and puzzle it out. This is allfarm country...a hobbity sort of landscape, with loadsof dinky roads forking off inall directions. You couldvery easily get off course,and once off, might find itvery hard to figure out howto get back on the route.

At least these roads havestreet signs at their cornersso you have a fightingchance of sorting it out. Weare coming up on a coupleof turns that do not havesigns, so I’m going to tryand be more specific aboutthem. At mile 55.2, wecome to a little junctioncalled Dickie Prairie. This isa real place, with a dot onthe map, although all itconsists of is one cornerstore (and all those hobbityfarm dwellings clusteredround about). We go left(south) on Dickie PrairieRoad—which does have asign—and go nearly fourmiles on this road. This isone of the longer stretchesbetween turns on the whole stage. It’s also one of theflattest roads, as it runs alongside the pretty MolallaRiver (below) in a gently upstream direction.

We’re looking for a right turn on a bridge across theriver. It comes up at mile 58.9. This is Upper MolallaRoad, but as far as I could see, there is no sign to tellyou so. The bridge however is signed as Glen AvonBridge. (No, it’s not a covered bridge, but it still getsan official name.) It’s the first and only bridge you’llsee since leaving Dickie Prairie.

Upper Molalla Road is also known as the SouthMolalla River Recreational Corridor, which is someregional parklands designation. It really is a lovelyroad, with beautiful pavement and pristine, wildernessscenery along the river. I know it’s lovely because Idrove many miles of it after missing our next turn,which wasn’t marked and which I mistook for aprivate driveway when I first passed it. After drivingseveral very pleasant miles, I finally, reluctantlydecided I was off-course, turned around, and wentback to look at that “driveway” a little more carefully.It is in fact our road, and it’s called Trout Creek Road.When I first surveyed the course, there was no street

sign of any sort at thiscorner, making it veryeasy to miss. When wecame back on our tour,the public works folkshad put up a brandnew sign saying TroutCreek Road.

This is one of thehardest, steepestascents of the day. Itclimbs 800' in 1.7miles, which works outto an average of 9%.For comparison, thedreaded RancheriaWall on the TerribleTwo gains 900' in 1.7miles. So this is notquite that bad, but it’sclose. All of it is in thedeep, shady woods andis very quiet andattractive, if you’re notsuffering too much tonotice. Once over thatfirst, steep pitch, thereare two more smaller

climbs with little dips in between. These will addanother 200' of elevation before we finally arrive atthe left turn from Trout Creek onto Sawtell Road.

Now we’re up on a ridge of sorts. There are manyrolling ups and downs, and we eventually top out at1600'. Then we get quite a nice run of downhill,mostly on Maple Grove Road. My notes from the scouttrip put the right turn from Sawtell onto Maple Groveat mile 66.2, but the mapping software corrected thatto 64.5. That’s a big difference, and I don’t knowwhich is correct. What with missing the turn onto


Trout Creek and having to backtrack, my field notes gota little sketchy, so I’m going with the software for ourroute slip. Whichever is correct, we will simply need tobe attentive, once again, keeping our eyes peeled for theright turn onto Maple Grove, which is marked. Accord-ing to the AAA map, there is a settlement at this junc-tion called Kokel Corner, but I don’t recall anythingother than scattered farm buildings.

Whenever we finally get onto Maple Grove, it will proveto have been worth the wait. Or worth the work ofclimbing up to it. For now we have earned an enter-taining reward. The run on Maple Grove—all onexcellent pavement—is over seven miles, and whilethat is not all uninterrupted downhill, enough of it isto keep most folks happy. We will lose around 800' ina series of rolling, curling descents through forest andmeadow over those miles, and when we’re done withthis delightful road, we’ll be right back down to thesame elevation we were at when we crossed theMolalla River on Glen Avon Bridge and started climb-ing.

Maple Grove tees into Nowlens Bridge Road at mile72. We turn left and drop directly into the little townof Scotts Mills in just a block or so. Scotts Mills isabout the same size as Dickie Prairie: not much thereat all. We pick up Crooked Finger Road heading outthe other side of town, and this stage being what it is,you won’t be surprised to find that we’re climbingagain. We’ll gain 850' over the next three-plus miles,which works out to about 5%...not too tough all byitself, but as a part of this non-stop hit parade of hills,it starts adding up.

Adding insult to injury, we don’t really get much of apayback out of this climb: no whizbang descent toplay around with. In fact, what we get is the worststretch of road on the entire tour (in terms of surface

quality). Surface? Heck, it’s unpaved!It’s a gravel road. Sheesh! This isMcKillop Road, and boy, was I dismayedwhen I saw it! I quickly whipped out mymap and began searching for an alter-nate route with blacktop on it, butnothing presented itself...nothing thatdidn’t entail a lengthy addition to aroute that’s already longer than wewant it to be.

Well, like riding on the interstate oralong a too-busy arterial, this is justone of the little eggs we have to breakto make this particular omlette. We’veall ridden on worse gravel roads thanthis one, and for longer distances. It’s

slightly downhill for a bit less than half a milethrough the woods. Then the pavement reappearsbriefly in front of an old farm compound and thengoes away again for another tenth of a mile of gravelbeyond the farm. Finally, real pavement returns, justin time for a very hairy descent. Mind you, thispavement isn’t much of an improvement over thegravel that preceded it. It would look right at home on


a backcountry road in Sonoma County: patched andscabbed and with a fair bit of loose gravel shoaledabout in the corners. The road is narrow and tightlykinked up into sharp corners, and it really is steep:600' down in 1.3 miles (8%). It pretty well defines theterm “technical descent.” Caution is advised.

At the bottom—whew!—we tee into Abiqua Road, goright just a few yards, then left on South Abiqua Road,crossing Abiqua Creek on a tiny bridge. Up the otherbank in just a couple of tenths we turn left ontoTimber Trail and—guess what?—another climb. Fromthe low point at the bridge over the creek, we’ll gainabout 300' in a mile, then do a little drop and climbanother 200' in another mile. A 200' descent tees usinto Powers Creek Loop, where we turn right andclimb right back up those 200' in one more steep littlewall. After a couple of small bumps beyond thesummit, we finally get to descend, briefly, to Hwy 214,the Silver Falls Highway. This is at about mile 82.Believe it or not, that last wicked little pitch onPowers Creek was the last wicked little pitch on theroute today! Hoo hah!

But not quite the end of the uphill. Not quite. Thesign on the corner of Hwy 214 points left and says,“Silver Falls 11.” That’s to the Silver Falls State Parkheadquarters, which is where our camp is. We gainover 500' over the next five miles. That works out toabout 2%. It’s really a long, lazy series of mildy uphillrollers. I counted four soft summits at exactly one-

mile intervals, each followed by a shallow saddle.Once we hit the park, we have a series of small upsand downs to mess with before we get to our campin the center of the park.

After that last little summit on Powers Creek, wepopped out of dense forest into open farm fieldsrolling away across a gently undulating landscape.Some of these fields are given over to flowers forthe nursery trade (photos, previous page). Theyhave a tulip festival in the spring not too far fromhere that is spectacular, but even in late summer,we might still see some very colorful fields. Thismore open prospect changes as soon as we reachSilver Falls State Park, which is mostly denseforest of Douglas Fir, Hemlock, and Cedar.

You haven’t read too much in today’s narrativeabout spectacular scenery. That’s because therehasn’t been much of it. With a few notable excep-tions, the miles have all been pleasant or evenbeautiful, but none of them has been eye-poppingly grand, like the magnificent vistas thatfilled yesterday’s run along the Columbia. (Face it:

the Gorge is a hard act to follow.) Our destinationtoday—the park (left)—will attempt to make up forthis lack of knock-out scenery, but it will require atleast a little more effort from you. After such a long,hard ride, this may be asking a lot, but let’s hope youfind some little reserve of energy for doing at least ashort hike. Think of it as a good way to work the kinksout of those tired legs, with some great scenery as acollateral benefit.

The reason the 8700-acre park is here is because of itsmany waterfalls. The same geology and hydrology thatshaped the Columbia River Gorge have been at workhere. The same lava flows left the same strata of blackbasalt, and the various creeks in the park have cutthrough that basalt to form the canyons and falls andgrottos we see today. How many of the waterfalls youget to see depends on how far you want to hike. Thereis a trail called the Ten Falls Trail that hits all the bigones in around eight miles. I certainly don’t expect todo the whole trail, but there are several of the verybest falls within a mile or two of our camp site.

South Falls (previous page) is the park’s most popularattraction. It’s a very impressive sight, dropping 177'off an undercut basalt ledge into a deep, circular pool.It’s a very short, easy hike from camp headquarters,and I believe there is even a paved bike trail that goesright past our camp and at least part of the way there.At South Falls and at Middle North Falls (above), youcan walk behind the falls...a wonderful experience. I


hope you’ll have the energy to visit at least one or twoof these lovely cascades.

In the case of our group, most folks were so tired afterthe long, hilly day, they had no energy--and preciouslittle daylight--to visit any of the falls. However, manyin the group got up early the next morning andvisited as many as seven out of ten of the falls beforehopping on their bikes for Stage 7.

Stage 7: Silver Falls State Park to Springfield

96 miles, 4000' up, 5100' down

85 miles, 3000' up, 4100' down

After gaping at those big mileage figures, please notethe elevation gain. 4000' over the distance of a cen-tury is next to nothing. No, it isn’t all flat. What funwould that be? But it is very easy, very mellow riding.It is, I suspect, easier than our Wine Country Century,which has over 5000' of gain and is generally thoughtto be an entry-level century. And it is certainlyeasier than yesterday’s stage, with less than halfthe total elevation gain, none of a steep or cruelnature. Well, maybe one itty bitty steep climb, butthat’s it!

And as you see, there is more descending thanclimbing on the day, including the final 22 miles.Admittedly, most of those final miles are so mildlydownhill that we’ll be cranking it over most of thetime, but still, much easier than climbing.

In broadest outline, our route today takes aheading to the south-southwest, although itwanders around like a drunken sailor on its wayfrom A to B. The slight bit of westward trend inthere is significant, as it veers us just slightly

further away from the Cascades and outinto the less rugged foothills and eveninto the valley itself. Today we really willbe able to look to our right (and our left,sometimes) and see wide, flat, or at leastgently rolling meadows and pastures. Nomore mountains for us.

That doesn’t mean the stage is entirelylevel. We have to pick up those 4000'somewhere. All day long, we keep bump-ing into little hills and ridges, a few ofwhich are big enough to provide somechallenge on the climbs and some amuse-ment on the descents. They’re just not aslong as the big mountain passes of theearly tour nor as steep as those ruggedridges of yesterday’s stage.

The navigation won’t get any easier though. There arearound 45 different roads on the route today. That’sabout the same number of roads as we use in theWine Country Century, and most folks manage tomuddle through that maze. Of course, the WCC is awell marked route and this is not. Most of the junc-tions will be fairly obvious no-brainers, but a few havethe potential to spread confusion and dismay far andwide. I’ll do my best to explain the problem spotshere, and on the tour we’ll plan to put sags at thetrickiest junctions.

We begin with another few miles through the statepark, usually beneath that dense forest canopy. Thisreally is a wonderful park...as pretty as any nationalpark you could envision. It is Oregon’s largest statepark, and the winding road visits quite a bit of it.

Topography is generally downhill in the early going,although there are a few small uphill bumps to vary


the fare. Just at the beginning, there is a good sizedclimb of 400' in about a mile and a half. From thesummit of that little hill, we will lose over 1300' inthe next 13 miles. Once we leave the park, the treesfade away, and we’re looking out over quite a pan-orama of distant, open valley. It may not be as spec-tacular as some of the vistas we’ve seen on thisjourney, but it’s not half bad...the rolling foothillssettling out into the broad, fertile farm fields of theWillamette Valley. It has a quiet, pastoral beauty to it.If those wide open, austere horizons over on theeastern side of the mountains seemed “barren” to you,then perhaps this green and settled land will be moreto your liking.

Some of the descending on that 13-mile run will bemoderately exciting. But at mile 12 on the day, mostof that downhill dancing is over, for the moment. Nowwe have a little chore to do: getting through the townof Stayton. This is not a hugely unpleasant chore. It’sjust the transit of a typical Americansmall town...one big enough to have allthe usual commercial clutter strung outalong its main drag, and not much inthe way of urban redecorating yet tomake it all look quaint. But it isn’tawful. We will avoid the main drag bydodging around on residential sideroads. Our side street shuffle in Staytontakes us within a block or two of thefirst of our six covered bridgestoday...the Stayton-Jordan Bridge(above). With so many more coveredbridges on our dance card in just a fewmiles, I didn’t even bother to run theroute immediately past this one. Part of

the reason I gave it a miss was that I didn’trealize it was there at first. But the other partis that it’s in a park, being just an historicalexhibit, rather than being out on a countryroad, still in service. The artificial settingtakes away some of the magic for me. But ifyou’re a fool for the old structures, it wouldadd almost nothing to your route to visit thisone too. It’s in a pretty park and is very wellpreserved.

Stayton sits on the north bank of the SantiamRiver, which can be a gorgeous, wild river inparts of its run, but we won’t get to seeanything special of the river here. We’ll crossit as we leave town, and that will be prettymuch the only time we’ll see it (unless we visitthe Stayton-Jordan covered bridge in its

riverside park).

South of Stayton, we turn east, which means we headback into the hills. From a low point at the bridgeover the Santiam at mile 15, we will climb more-or-less steadily until around mile 20, gaining somethinglike 500' in the process. Nothing too strenuous aboutthis uphill...just a rolling grade up into the lowfoothills and farm fields.

At mile 18, the short route diverges from the longroute. We haven’t talked about the short route yet.There’s not much to say. It’s there and it’s obvious,and it saves miles. Makes sense to list it. The way theshortcuts work is to cut out two winding loops thatmeander off into the hills, primarily for the purpose ofvisiting two more covered bridges. But the two loopsout to the bridges have more to offer than just thosehistoric stream crossings. All of the roads on the loopsare bike-friendly back roads. You might say getting to


the bridges is half the fun and getting back is theother half. The bridges are just an excuse to go offexploring on some dinky, meandering byways.

There are two shortcuts skipping two different loops.The miles listed at the top presuppose skipping bothof them. However, you could choose to skip one andnot the other. Doing the first shortcut would reducethe ride by six miles. The second shortcut would savefive miles. If I had to choose between them, I woulddo the first shortcut and not the second. The firstshortcut saves an extra mile, cuts out some steepclimbing, and has a fairly interesting route of its own(and while it’s not as hilly as the loop it bypasses, ithas its own entertaining ups and downs). The secondshortcut saves less and is less interesting...mostly justone long, straight, flattish road.

Because we’re now at the point where thefirst shortcut takes off, let me describe itnow. It departs Kingston-Jordan Road viaa right on Sandner Road, but quicklyturns left (due south) on Gisler Road. Thislittle farm road features a steep climb ofalmost 300'. Once over the top, it’s prettymuch all downhill back to the point wherethis bypass rejoins the long route. Thedescent starts out mellow enough, butnear its end, it drops steeply down a tight,hairpin kink through the forest. Most of itis out in open, rolling farm fields, exceptfor that last wooded descent. All quiet andlow-traffic.

Back to the long route. Beyond the pointwhere the shortcut diverges, we continueto climb to mile 20, and then get a rathernice descent of about five miles. Not too

technical...just a smooth, fast runthrough the farm fields. At the bottom,we tee into Hwy 226, turn right andcontinue the downhill for another half-mile before turning left onto JordanRoad and crossing Jordan Creek. Thisbegins that one itty bitty climb that Imentioned earlier...the only one on thestage that might accurately be de-scribed as steep. It is steep, but it’s alsoquite short. Less than half a mile. Weroll out, huffing and puffing, onto aflat hilltop where the little town ofJordan gets a dot on the map. Thetown consists mainly of an old churchand a few outbuildings. Beyond thislittle settlement, the road spills back

down the hill and dumps us rather suddenly ontoHannah Bridge (above), spanning Thomas Creek.We’re in Linn County now, which along with LaneCounty to the south, is the native habitat of thehistoric covered bridge. Here’s another one, and avery nice one it is.

Just over the bridge, we tee back into Hwy 226, turnleft, and ride along the highway for a little over a mile.Like all of the numbered highways we’ll see, this oneis a little wider and a little more engineered than theneighboring country roads. But it’s not heavilytraveled and anyway has decent shoulders. It’s okayfor us. Nevertheless, we leave it behind as soon as wecan, turning right onto Shimaneck Bridge Drive, apleasant, nearly level run through woods and mead-ows that takes us to Richardson Gap Road, where the


short-course riders will have poured down their littleswitchback descent to rejoin our route.

The actual Shimaneck Bridge (above) is not on theroad of that name, but just around the corner onRichardson Gap, so all riders will cross it and enjoy it,regardless of which course they’ve chosen. It’s a goodone: a big, well-maintained covered bridge. Althoughit looks old, it’s not: I think it was completed in the1960’s. This is the only other covered bridge in thearea—along with Office Bridge in Westfir (Day 1)—that is not white. It too is painted a bright barn redwith white trim. Very handsome and impressive.

Judging from some comments I read on their website,the local cycling club up here seems to thinkRichardson Gap Road is something special. I can’tquite figure out what they’re seeing. Tome, it looks pretty boring. Once pastthat little wooded descent (on theshortcut), it flattens out and straightensout, and it stays flat and straight for allof its remaining seven miles. Nothingreally terrible about it...just rather dull.Running south along this straightawayconstitutes the bulk of the secondshortcut, plus a couple of little connec-tor roads at the south end. The longroute stays on Richardson Gap for aboutfour miles before veering off in searchof another old bridge.

This time we’re looking for LarwoodBridge (right), so we turn left ontoLarwood Drive, which is a charminglittle lane winding off into the woodsalong Crabtree Creek. In discussing

yesterday’s stage I allowed as how thereweren’t many spectacular scenic vistas orother sensational sights along the route.That is just as true today, and yet almostevery mile of the route is pleasantwithout being breathtakingly gorgeous.Shady woods of broadleaf trees; meadowsand farm fields; handsome old barns (andbridges). The landscape has a quiet,unassuming beauty. It won’t hit you overthe head, but it will grow on you.Larwood Drive is certainly a case inpoint. Good pavement. No traffic.Enough twists and turns to stay interest-ing. One little uphill bump.

Larwood Bridge is not on Larwood Drive.We turn right onto Fish Hatchery Drive

and there it is. A little park adjoins the bridge, and thewhole setting is picture-postcard pretty. Beyond thebridge, we turn left onto Meridian Road, which is justas straight as Richardson Gap, but not nearly as flat.In fact, it climbs for 2.7 miles, gaining almost 300'along the way. At the top we find a dense little clusterof houses identified on the map as the village ofLacomb. We turn right here and schuss downhill fortwo miles on a simple, straight run through thetrees...another medium-speed, non-technical glide.

But stay awake for our left onto Bellinger Scale Road.This is where the second shortcut rejoins the basicroute. Everyone will be on the same course for theduration. We’ll be on Bellinger Scale for about fivemiles, and when we finish with it, we will be about


halfway through the stage. And if you’re keepingtrack, we will have also worked our way throughabout half of our 45 roads at that point.

This area is relatively hilly, and if we had wanted to domore miles, we could have wandered off our route, uponto heavily wooded ridges on either side of the roadand had ourselves a pretty intense workout. But ourroad stays in the valley between the ridges and onlybumps up and down over a few small grades. Over thetop of the biggest of these jumbo rollers, we comeupon a golf course. That’s a clue that we’re sneakingup on another town, in this case Waterloo. FromBellinger Scale, short runs along Berlin and WaterlooRoads drop us into the little town at mile 50, where ashady town park might make a good spot for a re-group. Waterloo is bigger than little no-places likeJordan and Lacomb, but it’s still pretty small. Thereally big towns nearby are Lebanon (pop. 13,000), sixmiles NW of Waterloo, and Sweet Home(pop. 8000), ten miles SE, all of themstrung out along Hwy 20, a major cross-state highway and nearly a freeway at thispoint. (And in case you’re a mappingsmarty-pants and are keepting track, yes,this is the same Hwy 20 that goes overSantiam Pass and that we were on briefly atthe start of Stage 3 out of Sisters.)

Our route does its best to dodge aroundthese areas of moderate urban sprawl, andit also contrives to avoid the busy highway,except to cross it and head out onto morelittle byways. Coming out of little Waterloo,we ride almost up to Hwy 20, then veer offon Old Santiam Road, which runs parallelto the busier highway and eventually

merges onto it. But just before itdoes, we escape again onto FairviewRoad and then Liberty Road, all thetime heading toward Sweet Home ona meandering run more or lessparallel to Hwy 20, but far enoughaway so as not to feel like frontageroads. Scenery is much the same as ithas been all day: farms and woods,but here, near the bigger towns, witha bit more rural-residential develop-ment. Not tract neighborhoods: justcountry homes dotted along thelanes.

Another good reason for a regroup inWaterloo is to gang the riders to-gether to negotiate the next few miles

in a bunch. Scouting this section, I found it a bitconfusing. I never got lost or had to backtrack, but Idid have to stop and double-check my map a fewtimes. This more densely settled rural-residential beltaround Sweet Home makes for a lot of little lanes andintersections, and it’s no place to be on automaticpilot, nor to be on your own, mystified about wherethe next turn is.

Just before mile 59, we turn right from Liberty ontoFern Ridge Road and turn our faces away from nearbySweet Home to head deeper into the back country.Fern Ridge presents us with one of the harder climbsof the day. It isn’t much of a challenge—nothing ontoday’s route is all that hard—but it will get yourattention. Ever since Waterloo at mile 50, we havebeen climbing, but so gently that most folks willhardly have noticed: 400' in nine miles (less than 1%).Now, in a little less than two miles, we gain another


500' (5%). There is a great view from the summit,overlooking hilly farms and woods, and then a verysnappy descent of around 600' in a bit less than threemiles. Unlike those earlier simple, non-technicaldescents, this one is packed with twists and turns. Thepavement is fine, so that’s not an issue, but the curlycorners sure are. This is hot stuff. Bold descenderswill love it.

At the bottom, we turn right on Hwy 228 and keepdescending, but we’re only on the highway for a fewhundred yards before turning off onto another de-lightful back road. This is Crawfordsville Road, andwe’ll be on it for a little over four miles on our way toanother teeny town, Crawfordsville. This quiet roadmeanders along next to the Calapooia River throughthe now familiar woods and farm meadows. It’s goingdownhill, mostly, but the grade is about as gradual asthat early climbing out of Waterloo: negligible.Crawfordsville presents us with yet another coveredbridge, although this old span has beenput out to pasture, now residing in apleasant little wayside park next to Hwy228. We double back on this bit of 228,heading east for a moment, to get toour next turn, a right onto Brush CreekRoad at mile 71.

If you were in a hurry and not reallyinterested in the scenery or in findingthe quiet side roads, you could plowstraight ahead from this point on andnot make another turn until you wereright outside the Village Inn inSpringfield...our destination. BrushCreek becomes Marcola Road when wecross the county line from Linn toLane, but essentially it’s the same

medium-busy highway all the way to thefinish.

However, we aren’t in a hurry, and wedon’t want to spend all of our time onthe busier roads when little roads areclose by. I do appreciate that most ofyou would like this stage to be shorterthan it is, but the assorted scenic sideroads we’ll be exploring over the balanceof this stage do not add significantly tothe overall distance. I doubt all of themtogether add more than one mile totalto the stage, but they do add a great dealof nice riding. If you were in a car andwere willing to break the speed limit,you could get to the end faster on the

main road than on the dinky side roads. But at bikespeed? It hardly matters.

Brush Creek begins with three nearly level milesthrough the fields south of Crawfordsville, and thentilts up into the biggest climb of the day: 800' up in3.6 miles (4%). Picture our classic Graton Road climb.It looks like it and feels like it. In other words, not abig deal. The 1183' summit is unremarkable. The roadsimply rolls over the top of the thickly wooded ridgeand slides on down the other side into Lane County,becoming Marcola Road at the county line (a hillprime and county line sign together!).

The descent will be moderately frisky for the first twomiles—plenty fast if you want to work at it a little—and then it eases off for five more miles of mellowcruising, still at a rather brisk tempo because stilltilting downhill. As noted at the start of this stagepreview, almost all of the miles are downhill from thissummit to the finish. But after the first seven miles, it


might as well be flat. We lose just over 100' in 15miles! This long, mildly downhill run will be alongthe valley of the Mohawk River (below), and our lastcovered bridge of the tour—Earnest Bridge—willcross this pretty stream.

Paschelke Road, the first of our scenic bypasses—tothe left off the main highway—leads to EarnestBridge (above). It’s one of the smaller of the oldbridges, but is as handsome as any of them. It’s almosta pity that we see so many of these fine old bridges insuch a short span. Every one of them is special andworthy of our interest, and yet I suspect we’ll becomejaded with them all...an embarrassment of bridges.Yawn... Earnest Bridge has a special claim to fame: itwas used in the filming of a Civil War epic about theBattle of Shiloh. The fact that this bridge and thislandscape could serve as a plausible stand-in for anhistoric site in the hills of Tennessee tells you a bit

about what this countryside lookslike.

Once over the bridge, Paschelkewanders off into the woods besidethe river. It tees into Wendling Roadin a mile and a half. Believe it or not,there is yet another covered bridgeon Wendling Road, but it’s just offour course to the left. If you can stillmuster up the interest, it’s there,just around the corner. We turnright on Wendling and continuedownstream along the Mohawk,eventually rejoining Marcola Road inthe village of Marcola (mile 84).Back we go onto the main highwayfor two and a half miles, and then weturn right onto Donna Road, thenext of our scenic side roads. Okay,

in all fairness, the scenery is probably just as scenicon Marcola as it is on Donna and on the two sideroads that follow, Hill Road and Old Mohawk Road.The real difference is that Marcola has that wider,smoother, faster look of a main highway—especiallyas we approach the city of Springfield—while the sideroads are narrow, meandering, and much less wellengineered. And as a result, they carry a small fractionof the traffic load. They just look and feel more likebike roads.

All of them offer up the same pastoral scenery we havecome to know so well by now: the leafy tree cover, thegrassy fields, the nearby foothills, the little creeks andrivers, the barns and farm houses (above). The onlystructure of note between the tiny town of Marcolaand Springfield is the old Mohawk General Store,looking quaint and old-timey, at the corner of Hill andOld Mohawk.


We manage to hide out on the little back roads almostto the edge of Springfield. At mile 94, we finally haveto return to Marcola Road. We turn right, cross theMcKenzie River and hit the city limit sign. Now we’reback to the two miles of town riding we did onMarcola to begin the tour...a flat, straight run throughthe cityscape to our motel, where a very nice swim-ming pool and showers await.

I can imagine that most of us—whether we did theshorter or longer options today—will feel as if wehave had a long day on the bike. My guess is that mostof that feeling will stem not so much from this longstage alone, but from the cumulative effects of theentire long tour.

570 miles and 35,000' is a lot for oneweek. However, I beg you to consider ourSouthern Oregon Tour of 2005, whereinwe logged over 580 miles and over43,000' in a week...and no one com-plained of being totally trashed. In fact, Ithink most of us found it well within ourcomfort zones. I hope this tour will proveto be more of the same.

And you’ll be happy to know that, as wasthe case with the Southern Oregon Tour,there is no camp cooking to deal with atthe end of this final stage. We check intothe motel and hang out by the pool(right) with a cool drink and an amplesupply of munchies while we rehash thetour with our fellow travelers. Then wehead out on the town, looking for a likely

bistro where we can make a valianteffort at replenishing all of the calorieswe have burned up over the course ofthis long and epic journey.

(On our tour, we dined on this finalnight and also on our first, arrivalnight at another property in theMcMeniman empire: the North Bankbrew pub in Eugene. We liked it andrecommend it.)

• • •

[

© SRCC/Bill Oetinger 2007

Finish

Start

d

Oakridge

Village Inn

Hardesty Mtn4273'

t

Box Canyon Summit3748'

FrissellCrossing

National

Forest

Willamette

Eagle’sRest

t

Mt June4616'

t

Mt Zion

t

EagleRock

t

Patterson Mtn

t

Green Mtnt

Tire Mtn

t

Saddle Blanket Mtn 4969'

t

Joe's Peakt

WinberryMtn t

Deer Mtnt

Huckleberry Mtn5549'

t

Eagle Butte

t

Moolack Mtn5489'

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Lowell Mtn 4741' t

Ingram Butte

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Sinker Mtn

t Chucksney Mtn 5761' t

Mule Mtn

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RebelRock t

Pyramid Mtn5600'

t

Elephant Rock2877' t

Tipsoo Butte5135'

t

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Fawn Rock

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Gibraltor Mtn 3596't

Sourgrass Mtn

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Lowell

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See route slip forSpringfield detail

Jasper

Springfield

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Tipsoo Butte5135'

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Sisters

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MacDuff Peak

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The Husband7523'

t

Substitute Point6344'

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2997'

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After crossing bridge,turn R and cross Hwy 97.On east side of highway,

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Bike bridge

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RR bridge

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Sisters3186'

Crooked River Gorge

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Pick up Historic Columbia River State Trailat Marine Park underneath Bridge of the Gods.Follow trail directions west, over and under I-84,for the next five miles.

Columbia RiverWASHINGTON[

Cascade Locks detail

OMt Talapus

3865'

t

Aldrich Butte 1141'

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Pepper Mtn2137'

tWauneka Pt

tNesmith Pt 3880'

tTanner Butte 4500'tLarch Mtn

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Palmer Pk 4010'

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Chinidere Mtn 4673't

Tomlike Mtn 4547't

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Garfield Pk 3422'

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See Day 4 forThe Dalles detail

Mosier

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© SRCC/Bill Oetinger 2007 Finish

McMeniman’sEdgefield Resort

426'

Start

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See Day 5 forTroutdale detail

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DICKIE PRAIRIE RD

SAWTELL RD

TROUT CREEK RD

Sandy

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ScottsMills

Estacada

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967'

Silver Falls State Park

MAPLE GROVE RD

CROOKED FINGER RD

McKILLOP RD(1/2-mile of gravel)

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Bike trail to South Falls

Road toSouth Falls

trailhead

Showers

Northern Oregon Tourreserved campsites

Û

Û

ÛDay 6

Day 7

214

211

211

214

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46

96


Finish

Start

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Stayton detail

Sweet Home 525'

Silver FallsState ParkÛ

Wendling covered bridge

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Keel Mtnt

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Green Peter 3977'

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Greenhorn Hill

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Cassner Peakt

Chandler Mtnt

Chimney Rock 2498't

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Mt Nebo 3407't

Walker Pt 3812'

t

228

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Lone Pine ButtetWashburn Butte 1368't

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Snake Hill t Scott Mtn1233't

Indian Head 1278'

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Hungry Hill

t

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LittleGreen Mtn

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Ernest covered bridge

Horse Rockt

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Lebanon346'

Stayton457'

Larwoodcovered bridge

Shimaneck covered bridgeHannah covered bridge

Springfield456'

Crawfordsvillecovered bridge

548'Sublimity

317'Scio

Crawfordsville

Marcola

See Day 1 for Springfield detail

DONNA RD

MARCOLA RD

HILL RD

OLD MOHAWK RD

WENDLING RD

PASCHELKE RD

Summit 1183'

MARCOLA RD

BRUSHCREEK RD

CRAWFORDSVILLEDR FERN RIDGE RD

LIBERTY RD

FAIRVIEW RD

OLD SANTIAM RDu20

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BELLINGERSCALE RDBERLIN RD

WATERLOO RD

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LARWOOD DRIVE

MERIDIAN RD

FISH HATCHERY DR

KOWITZ RD

GISLER RD

RIDGE DR

CAMP MORRISON DR

JORDAN RDSHIMANECKBRIDGE DR

SANDNER DR

KINGSTON-JORDAN DR

214

214

CARTER RDTRIUMPH RD

BOEDIGHEIMER RDFERN RIDGE RD

O

Mohawk River

McKenzie River

Calapooia River

South ForkSantiam

River

SantiamRiver

BAPTIST CHURCH DR

22

22

226

226

226

228

126

Waterloodetail

South

Santiam

ALBANY& EASTERN RR

WATERLOO

RD

u20

OLD SANTIAM RD

WAT

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ORD

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GROSS STREET

1st STREET Û

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Northern Oregon TourDay 1: Springfield to Frissell Crossing

76 miles, 3500' up, 1450' downR on Mohawk Blvd/19th St, leaving Village Inn............0.0R on Marcola Road (thru city of Springfield) ...............0.1R on 42nd Street..........................................................1.4Separate bike path on left side of this road.L on Jasper Road.........................................................3.7Our first country road, but still rather busy.L on Jasper-Lowell Road (at village of Jasper) ............8.0L on Jasper-Lowell Road ...........................................11.9✯Pengra historic covered bridge on right after turn.

R on Jasper-Lowell Road (at village of Fall Creek) .....14.1Straight on Jasper-Lowell Road .................................16.5✯Cross Unity covered bridge. Follow sign to Hwy 58.L on Jasper-Lowell Road (thru village of Lowell) .......18.0R on Jasper-Lowell Road (AKA Pioneer Street) .........18.6✯Cross Dexter Lake; Lowell covered bridge on right.L on Hwy 58...............................................................19.3Busy highway, but big shoulders.Lookout Point Dam and Reservoir on left.L on Old Willamette Hwy............................................37.5Follow signs to Westfir. Cross Willamette River.L on Westfir Road ......................................................38.0Straight on North Fork Road (in village of Westfir) ....38.8✯Office covered bridge on left.

North Fork Road becomes Auf-derheide Forest Drive.30 miles of easy uphill on the Aufderheide, following the Wil-lamette River to its headwaters, then three miles of steeper climbing to 3748' Box Canyon summit at ........................71.5Downhill to R into Frissell Cross-ing campground at ..........76.1Look for camp road just after crossing McKenzie River bridge at base of descent.

Bike path alongside

42nd Streetin this section.

Springfield detailNot all local streets shown

JASPER

ROAD

42ndSTR

EET

MARCOLA ROAD

BUS.

OLYMPIC STREET

COM

MER

CIA

L STREET

McKENZIE HWY

VIRGINIA ST DAISY STREET

Village Inn

McK

enzie

Rive

r

MOH

AWK

28th STREET

BLVD

19th

ST

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Northern Oregon TourDay 2: Frissell Crossing to Sisters

70 miles, 5000' up, 4400' downLeave camp..................................................................0.0R on Aufderheide Forest Drive .....................................0.1✯Cougar Dam & Reservoir ......................................18.1R on East Side Road ..................................................20.9No sign for road name. Sign at junction points left for “Delta 1/4 mile; Hwy 126 1/2 mile" You go the other way...L on King Road ..........................................................21.3✯Belknap historic covered bridge on left..................22.9L on Horse Creek Road ..............................................26.9R on Hwy 126 ............................................................28.3

R on Hwy 242 ............................................................32.6✯McKenzie Pass National Scenic Byway. Mostly uphill for the next 22 miles...McKenzie Pass summit (5324') .................................54.1✯ Dee Wright Observatory at summit. Big descent ahead!R on W. Hood Ave (in town of Sisters).......................69.0May not have street sign. Should be first stop sign in many miles, obviously in Sisters. One block further is Hwy 126.May say “S. Hood Ave” to the left. You go right...R on S. Pine Street (go two blocks) ...........................69.3L on W. Jefferson Street ............................................69.4R on S. Locust Avenue...............................................69.9L into Sisters City Park...............................................70.1

Only sign at this park entrance says, “Dump Station.”

Sisters detail

20

Finish

Sisters City Park

HWY

20

Squaw

Creek 242McKENZIE HWY

McKENZIE HWYMcKENZIE-BEND HWY

SANTIAM

HOOD AVE

PINE

STRE

ET

JEFFERSON ST

LOCU

ST

Day 3 route

Sisters Athletic Club (showers)

CascadeFitness

172 E. Main(showers)

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Northern Oregon TourDay 3: Sisters to Kah-Nee-Ta

76 miles, 3500' up, 4800' downLeave camp on north side (not the way you came in)..0.0Jog L on Hwy 20 to R on Hwy 126 ..............................0.2L on Goodrich Road.....................................................4.7R on Edmundson Road ................................................6.3Road name changes to Holmes Road ..........................7.3R on Lower Bridge Way .............................................15.0✯Cross Deschutes River ..........................................19.7L on 43rd Street.........................................................23.5Sign points to “Crooked RR” (Crooked River Ranch).R on Ice Avenue.........................................................24.5L on Wimp Way .........................................................26.8Sign says “Dead End.” Go anyway. Sags turn R, then L on Hwy 97 to L into Ogden Scenic Wayside.End of Wimp Way ......................................................28.1✯Ogden Scenic Wayside at Crooked River Gorge.Walk bikes across field from end of Wimp Way into Ogden Scenic Wayside overlooking the Crooked River Gorge. Ride or walk bikes thru wayside to bike/pedestrian bridge over gorge. At north end of bridge, cross Hwy 97 and climb over gate on east side of highway to pick up the route...North on Culver Hwy (beyond gate)...........................28.7Cross Hwy 97, still on Culver Hwy .............................35.7

L on Jericho Lane ......................................................36.5R on Feather Drive .....................................................38.2L on Fisch Lane..........................................................40.8Signs to “The Cove Palisades State Park” and “Tour Route.”R on Frazier Drive ......................................................41.3L on Jordan Road ......................................................41.8Sign to, “L. Billy Chinook.”R on Mountain View Drive .........................................42.1No sign for road name. Follow sign to “Round Butte Overlook Park.” Do NOT go downhill on Jordan Road!✯Turn into first vista point off Mtn View for view of lake.R on Mountain View Drive .........................................46.5This time you do get a street sign.R on Belmont Lane (steep little climb!).....................49.2L on Elk Drive.............................................................50.7Steep, technical descent begins (caution!) ................53.5Bottom of descent; cross Willow Creek .....................54.9Pelton Dam ................................................................57.3L on Hwy 26...............................................................60.2Cross Deschutes River at village of Warm Springs ....61.4R on BIA Route 3 (Agency Hot Springs Road) ...........64.7Signs to “Kah-Nee-Ta” and “Indian Head Casino.”R on BIA Route 8 to Kah-Nee-Ta................................74.9R into The Village at Kah-Nee-Ta................................76.1Finish at center of resort ............................................76.4

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Northern Oregon TourDay 4: Kah-Nee-Ta to The Dalles

80 miles, 4500' up, 5800' downLeave resort .................................................................0.0L on BIA Route 8..........................................................0.3R on BIA Route 3 (Simnasho-Hot Springs Road) ........1.5Begin big climb...Summit (2700') ...........................................................7.6Becomes Wapinitia Rd at (ghost) town of Simnasho.14.8Becomes Reservation Rd as you leave the Warm Springs Indian Reservation .....................................................23.2Town of Wapinitia ......................................................27.0R on Hwy 216 (at village of Walters Corner) ..............28.0L on Juniper Flat Road ...............................................32.3L on Hwy 197/216......................................................39.1Begin big climb (near village of Tygh Valley)..............42.6L on Dufur Gap Road .................................................48.8Tygh Ridge summit (2697') .......................................49.6Lots of descending ahead...L on Hwy 197.............................................................56.5R on Boyd Loop Road (near village of Dufur) ............59.6R on Hwy 197 ............................................................64.3R on Emerson Loop Road (easy turn to miss!)..........66.6Straight on Eight Mile Road .......................................67.8Do NOT bear right–uphill–on Emerson Loop.L on Columbia View Drive..........................................75.8Big panorama ahead...Cross Hwy 197 to Fremont Street (into The Dalles) ...77.7R on Old Dufur Road..................................................78.0R on 10th Street.........................................................78.7L on Union Street (in front of The Dalles HS).............80.4L into playing field at high school ..............................80.5

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Northern Oregon TourDay 5: The Dalles to Troutdale

77 miles, 4000' up, 4200' downLeave high school, west on 11th Street .......................0.0R on Mt. Hood Street ...................................................0.5L on 10th Street ...........................................................0.5R on Chenowith Loop Road .........................................2.9L on 6th Street .............................................................3.3Becomes Hwy 30 (Historic Columbia River Highway)..3.8✯L into Rowena Crest vista point .............................12.0R to continue on highway (after vista point) ..............12.6R on Col. River State Trail (in town of Mosier)...........19.0R into Mark O. Hatfield East Trailhead to pick up the bikes-only section to Hood River.........................................19.8Back onto highway at West Trailhead.........................24.1Cross Hwy 35 into town of Hood River ......................25.0Stay straight on State Street ......................................25.1R on 3rd Street ..........................................................25.3L on Columbia Street > R on Industrial Street............25.4R on Wasco Avenue ...................................................25.7R on Jaymar Road > Becomes Westcliff Drive ...........26.3Jog L at Hwy 30/35 overpassand turn R onto westbound 1-84 on-ramp.................27.3Exit I-84 at Wyeth off-ramp........................................38.1L under !-84 on Wyeth Bench Road...........................38.3

R on Herman Creek Road (uphill) ..............................38.4L on Frontage Road toward Cascade Locks ...............42.1Straight onto Forest Lane (over I-84).........................43.1R on Wa Na Pa Street (Hwy 30) (in Cascade Locks) ..45.0R on Col. River State Trail at Marine Park ..................45.9Up stairway to continue on Trail.................................48.2Cross over I-84 at tunnel ...........................................48.4Exit Trail and cross street to L on Tanner/Moffett Creek bike path ..........................49.5L at ODOT gate > R on I-84 westbound .....................50.4Exit I-84 at Exit 37 > L under freeway ........................52.3L on Hwy 30 (sign to Multnomah Falls) .....................54.4L on Columbia River Historic Highway.......................55.2✯Horsetail Falls ........................................................55.5✯Multnomah Falls (highest falls in Oregon) .............58.4✯Bridalveil Falls........................................................62.1✯Vista House at Crown Point ...................................66.8Town of Corbett .........................................................69.3Town of Springdale ....................................................72.0R on Woodard Road (uphill) ......................................72.4L on Woodard Road (downhill) ..................................73.3R on Historic Columbia River Hwy.............................74.6L over Sandy River into town of Troutdale .................75.2L on Halsey Street......................................................76.2L into McMenamins’ Edgefield Resort .......................77.0Finish .........................................................................77.1

HISTORICCOLUMBIA

RIVERHIGHWAY

McMeniman’s Edgefield Resort

Troutdale detail

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Northern Oregon TourDay 6: Troutdale to Silver Falls State Park93 miles, 9000' up, 7500' down

Leave Edgefield Resort.................................................0.0R on Halsey Street .......................................................0.1R on Historic Columbia River Hwy (thru Troutdale) .....0.8R on Hurlburt Road (in village of Springdale) ..............6.0R on Gordon Creek Road .............................................8.1Many steep ups and downs between here and Sandy...R on Bull Run Road ...................................................16.0L on Ten Eyck Road (sign to Sandy) ..........................19.2Nice park for a regroup at the corner.R on Hwy 26 (Mt Hood Hwy) (town of Sandy)...........22.6L on Hwy 211 (Eagle Creek-Sandy Hwy)....................22.8Busy road, poor shoulders, bad sight lines...L on Eagle Creek Road ...............................................28.8L on 6th Avenue (into town of Estacada) ...................33.4R on Broadway (thru Estacada) .................................33.5L on Hwy 211/224......................................................34.1R on Hwy 211 (cross bridge over Clackamas River) ..34.4L on Day Hill Road .....................................................34.6Straight on Day Hill (cross Hwy 211).........................36.3L on Springwater Road ..............................................36.9R on Springwater Road..............................................38.4R on Hwy 211 ............................................................39.2L on Grays Hill Road ..................................................45.1R on Green Mountain Road........................................47.2L on Dhooghe Road ...................................................49.7Becomes Fernwood Road ..........................................51.9L on Callahan Road (more straight ahead than left) ...53.1Becomes Ramsby Road .............................................55.0L on Dickie Prairie Road (at Dickie Prairie store) .......55.2R on Upper Molalla Rd...............................................58.9No road sign; cross Glen Avon Bridge over Mollala River, uphill on South Mollala River Recreational CorridorR on Guernsey Road...becomes Trout Creek Road ....59.5Steep climb...

L on Sawtell Road ......................................................62.7R on Maple Grove Road .............................................64.5Smooth, fast descending...Bear L on Maple Grove Road .....................................67.6L on Nowlens Bridge Road.........................................71.9L on Crooked Finger Road (in town of Scotts Mills) ..72.0Big climb ahead...R on McKillop Road ...................................................75.3Half-mile of gravel road, then pavement returns for a steep, technical, sketchy descent...caution!R on Abiqua Road ......................................................77.3L on South Abiqua Road ............................................77.7L on Timber Trail ........................................................77.9R on Powers Creek Loop ...........................................80.4L on Hwy 214 (Silver Falls Hwy) ................................81.9Enter Silver Falls State Park .......................................90.0L into campground at park headquarters ...................93.0

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Northern Oregon TourDay 7: Silver Falls to Springfield96 miles, 4000' up, 5100' down85 miles, 3000' up, 4100' down

Leave camp on Hwy 214..............................................0.0L on Carter Road (easy turn to miss!)..........................6.7 R on Triumph Road......................................................8.1Straight on Boedigheimer Road .................................10.1R on Fern Ridge Road (cross Hwy 22 into Stayton)...12.4L on 10th Avenue (doing the side streets of Stayton) 13.0R on Jefferson Street .................................................13.5L on 4th Avenue.........................................................13.9R on Water Street ......................................................14.3L on Stayton-Scio Road .............................................14.6L on Kingston-Jordan Drive (country roads again) ....14.9Straight on Kingston-Jordan Drive.............................16.0Short route turns R on Sandner Road*......................18.0R on Hwy 226 ............................................................22.7L on Jordan Road ......................................................23.2R on Camp Morrison Road ........................................24.3✯Cross Hannah historic covered bridge...................25.5L on Hwy 226.............................................................25.6R on Shimaneck Bridge Road ....................................27.9L on Richardson Gap Road ........................................29.6✯Cross Shimaneck historic covered bridge .............29.6L on Larwood Drive ...................................................33.4R on Fish Hatchery Drive✯Cross Larwood historic covered bridge .................38.2L on Meridian Road....................................................38.5R on Lacomb Drive ....................................................41.5L on Bellinger Scale Rd (short route rejoins) .....43.6/32.9R on Berlin Road................................................48.5/37.8L on Waterloo Road ...........................................48.8/38.1L on 1st Street > R on Gross Street ...................50.1/39.4Follow flow of highway thru village of Waterloo...L on Old Santiam Road ......................................51.0/40.3

L on Fairview Road ............................................52.2/41.5Bear R on Fairview Road....................................53.0/42.3Cross Hwy 20 to Liberty Road ...........................55.9/45.2Stay on Liberty thru at least 3 junctions...R on Fern Ridge Road (biggish climb) ...............58.7/48.0Summit; cool descent ........................................60.2/49.5R on Hwy 228 ....................................................62.6/51.9R on Crawfordsville Rd ......................................62.9/52.2Holley School on corner.L on Hwy 226.....................................................67.1/56.4✯Crawfordsville historic covered bridge on rightR on Brush Creek Road......................................67.8/57.1Begin long, moderate climb ...............................70.6/59.9Becomes Marcola Road at summit (1183')........74.2/63.5L on Paschelke Road..........................................81.0/70.3 ✯Cross Earnest historic covered bridgeR on Wendling Road ..........................................82.4/71.7✯Wendling historic covered bridge just off course to leftL on Marcola Road (in village of Marcola) .........84.0/73.3R on Donna Road...............................................86.5/75.8R on Hill Road (at Mohawk General Store) ........88.1/77.4R on Old Mohawk Road .....................................92.5/81.8R on Marcola Road (into city of Springfield)......94.0/83.3L on 19th St .......................................................95.9/85.2L into Village Inn ................................................96.0/85.3

*Short option...R off Kingston-Jordan Road on Sandner Road ..........18.0L on Gisler Road ........................................................18.4R on Ridge Road........................................................20.1L on Ridge Road > Richardson Gap Road..................21.3✯Cross Shimaneck historic covered bridge .............22.0L on Baptist Church Road ..........................................30.8R on Kowlitz Road......................................................31.1L on Lacomb Drive.....................................................32.1R on Bellinger Scale Road (rejoin long route) ............32.9

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The Northern Oregon Tour - WordPress.com...THE NORTHERN OREGON TOUR 4 down to the village of Lowell...

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