8hrs to do 250 miles?

OK, so I went on a ride that I have been thinking about for about a week. I was planning on taking a shorter ride yesterday, but a coworker called me yesterday morning as I was getting my stuff together and asked where I was riding, and I threw out my idea and we got together and went for a ride.

We started by heading out to Estacada with plans to go up to Timothy Lake via FS Rd 5810. A small, paved single lane w/ turn-outs. A few years ago it washed out, so we knew there was a chance that we would have to find a way around if it wasn't repaired.

A few miles outside of Estacada, HWY 224 follows the Clackamas. It has a lot of 30-35mph (marked) turns, and a few long sweepers. It also has some great views of the river, which is great, until you sport a raft going down the rapids while you are in the middle of a corner, lol. We stopped at the Ripplebrook ranger station, the guy there said that that portion of RD 5810 had been decommissioned, and suggested a different route. Jim, my coworker said that there is a gravel road that goes around, which is about a mile or two long. Sounds good, so off we went.

We decided that we needed to see the washout, and here it is:
Where the road is blocked:

Where the road used to go:

It looked like a few people have gone through there on dirt bikes, and we were both wishing we had ridden dual sports at this point.....well, only a little.

Anyways, we backtracked to RD 5820, 4 miles of gravel later there were three little kids in the road....weird. I could just make out tents in the forest, so they were apparently camping. Another mile and we were back to pavement and on RD 5890. My bike got dirty, being #2 down a gravel road :'( Across the Dam, we followed RD 5810 again, then RD 57. We took another break at a historic ranger station near Timothy Lake:

The ranger on duty said that it used to operate as a HQ for most of the fire watch towers in the area. They would send supplies out from the station, and monitor the switch board that connected all of the lookouts to the station.

We took off down RD 42, towards HWY 26. Mostly some nice corners on that road. A short hop on HWY 26 brought us to HWY 216 towards Tygh Valley and Maupin. The road started in mostly Doug Fir country, which quickly gave way to Ponderosa Pines. This was a fun road with some fast corners, and a few that had us slowing down to about 40. After a couple final curves and going down a hill, we come out in the Oregon grasslands, and through a town interestingly named Pine Grove. One more curve as we left town, then 12 miles of straight, with only a couple of hills, and a couple of mirages to detract from visibility. A few minutes later, and we were cruising up HWY 197 towards Tygh Valley, when I looked to my left and had to stop for a few photos.

Then on to White River Falls:



While here a kid (15ish) asked if he could take one of our bikes for a ride, I said sure, if he has the cash, upfront to cover the bike...he thought better of it.

Then it was over to the town of Tygh Valley for lunch. Ooops, the only diner in town is closed, so we had to buzz up to Dufur. This part of the road was really windy, and we were getting tossed around. It seemed to be coming from the west, but when we would get next to a hill it seemed to switch and slam us from the other side. Crazy! We were happy to stop for a late lunch at the Pastime in Dufur:

A nice little saloon, if you get the chance to stop in. Good food, good prices, good service, can't go wrong here!

After our break, it was back on the road. The plan was to head up to The Dalles, fuel up and take the old highway to Mosier, then with the freeway for the rest of the way into Hood River. On Old HWY 30, there are some nice bends, and when you get to the top of Rowena, a great view:

After a few more nice curves, we got down into Mosier, and made our way onto the freeway. I had a little incident, I had to punch it to get infront of a motorhome that was going a little faster than I expected, closing the gap that I had planned on merging into. Made that OK, just breathing a little harder. We hopped off the freeway in Hood River with plans to cross and take SR14 back, unfortunately we had forgotten that the bridge in Hood River is a toll bridge, and neither of us had any cash! Well, to plan 'B', we took every side road that we could on the way back, until we got back onto the scenic highway. I don't know what it is, but it seems that every time I get to an interesting part of this end of HWY 30, I get behind someone that likes to go 25 all the time. Anyways, made it up to Crown Point for another short break, there were a lot of out-of-towners there taking in the sites along with us:

Then it was the back way home. Got home about 7 1/2 hours after I left. It was a good long ride, I found a few new roads and learned a bit too. Hope everyone enjoyed the photos. Happy Riding!