Last week, a friend and I took off a couple of days of work to do a couple of days of motorcycle riding. We headed out late Wednesday and rode about 110 miles to a campground on the east side of Snoqualmie Pass (Salmon La Sac). After spending a very cold night there, we headed out towards Ellensburg on forest service roads.
These roads are made of gravel and were in reasonably good shape. We’d never ridden in gravel and took some getting used to our bikes’ “squirreliness” with less traction. Nevertheless, we got the hang of it and rode long enough to get to 4000-5000′ and encounter snow. We had to double back and find alternate, lower, routes.
The views from these forest service roads are spectacular. For the most part, the roads are used for logging and for fire fighting. As such, they wind through forests and mountains. They frequently feature steep cliffsides (with no guard rails, of course).
After lunch in Ellensburg we got on the “superslab” (highway) and headed north towards Leavenworth. There, we camped at the Eightmile campsite and spent a much warmer night.
The next day, we decided to continue on the Cascade Loop highway cutting up through Wenatchee, Chelan and back through the North Cascades highway. Although this was all on pavement, the views were stunning and we met some great characters along the way. We stopped at the North Cascades summit (about 4800′) and took a picture standing on 3′ of snow. The ride home took about 7 hours including stops for lunch and to relieve sore butts.
I’m looking forward to more such rides including more gravel and more visits to places I’ve not been to before.
Great trip…