I don’t think there’s a thread like this, so here goes.
I’ve been thinking for a while now about riding to Seattle from Portland, and I think I might do it soon. I think I’d do it over two days, and would probably stop at a cheap hotel around halfway. I’m not opposed to meandering around and even adding an extra day. I don’t have any touring gear, though, so anything I take would have to either fit in a small backpack (I know, not ideal), or be mailable.
Any of you guys have suggestions for routes? My current century time is about 6:00, if that is helpful at all.
The STP route with one or two variations is pretty great.
Or you can go thru Carson and over St Helens. Or you can go out to Astoria and up the coast (ending in Bremerton then catching a ferry over). Either of those options would be like 40% longer though.
My advice is to take the train up and ride home. I’ve always found it’s easier mentally if you’re heading toward your home. You won’t care if you’re smelly when you get there, you can show up in the middle of the night, and you don’t have to deal with logistics after a long ride.
Also, being new to the area this thread is relevant to my interests…
I dunno; a ride through the mountains (there are a lot of interesting logging roads south of Olympia, and I’m sure the ride from Olympia to Bremerton or Baimbridge Island could be routed equally as well) followed by a nice ferry ride and hotel room in Seattle seems pretty good to me, modulo the teeny detail that a hotel room costs a lot of money.
Just did this. We stopped in centralia at a nice dudes house that we found on warmshowers web site.
We sniped the STP route, and you can see it on my strava. The route to centralia was rad. The way we ended up taking into Seattle was awful and put us squarely into homophobic redneck truck hippie territory.
I wanted to nuke the place after we left there for the sake of the future of the human species.
The northwest is cool, but once you leave the bigger cities it is scarier than rural Texas, and probably with more meth since at least small town creepy texans prefer to spend their days worshipping republican bro Jesus and Fox News instead of tweak binging.
NF-2199, the west half of Cougar Smith Rd, and parts of NF-23 are well-traveled gravel. The middle destination is the amazeballs former Oxbow Campground, there’s a pullout and gated road down on the north side of 23. You can also bushcamp on the north side of the Vance Creek Viaduct, just don’t try to cross it with your bike. There’s a good convenience store in Matlock to top up at, and you can just ride through there to 101 if you’re not gonna camp and would rather have a lame 600ft descent than have to do it twice on backroads.
The Bremerton ferry takes longer but is the best terminal to ride to from the west, and maxing/relaxing on a boat with views is a great way to end a trip
If you want to go through the cascades without camping, the services up there are at Trout Lake, this off-grid RV/Cabin place https://goo.gl/maps/aiAuZ , and Packwood/Randle/Morton
The whole STP corridor is totally fine. More suburban than rural for most of it; the quietest parts (Winlock, Vader) are more friendly than meth-y; and the really meth-y parts (Longview, Kelso) are big enough cities that nobody is gonna run you off the road in broad daylight.
The changes I would recommend from STP:
Go out on the WA side of the Columbia rather than Hwy 30; does add a ~1K foot climb, but much nicer roads overall. Rejoin the route in Longview.
I agree that most of the STP route is perfectly acceptable. There are, of course, better routes but they require either more effort, more time, or more gear.
If I were you, I’d try to get to Packwood via Wind River Rd., then head over Skate Creek Road and take 706/7 to Eatonville, and then Orville Road to Orting, then the Foothills trail to Puyallup and the West Valley Highway to Seattle Urban Area.
It would be hard, but also would be totally fucking rad.
I prefer catching trains home. I would rather deal with potential logistics issues after a trip than before. Perhaps I am biased because I’ve only had minor issues doing it. I always take the train the next morning. Never the same day.
There are many… how much gravel? Some/lots of climbing? Camping at the other end? Portland bros can probably comment better (I usually start further south from the valley) but Hillsboro to Vernonia via the rail trail then out 202 to Astoria is probably the most popular. 26 and 30 are usually too auto heavy to be any fun.
Thanks, guys! I’ll check out both the STP route and the coast route. Ferry sounds good, though now I’m having thoughts of taking ferry from Seattle up to Victoria to see my mom…
[quote=emor]I agree that most of the STP route is perfectly acceptable. There are, of course, better routes but they require either more effort, more time, or more gear.
If I were you, I’d try to get to Packwood via Wind River Rd., then head over Skate Creek Road and take 706/7 to Eatonville, and then Orville Road to Orting, then the Foothills trail to Puyallup and the West Valley Highway to Seattle Urban Area.[/quote]
To go into Seattle take a left on Newport Way in Issaquah all the way to Factoria, then get on the I-90 trail to cross the lake (it’s not really worth getting on it earlier)
You can also take the Cedar River trail to the Lake Washington Loop route
I usually hop on via Ohop Valley Rd & Orville Rd out of Eatonville
Bumping this for lack of somewhere else to ask… has anyone taken a Yak or other bike trailer on Amtrak Cascades? An FAQ mentions boxing it as luggage but I wonder if I could roll it on with the bike?