San Francisco to Alaska, and back. July 2012.

I got a lucky break with the bison viewing as well, unfortunately only video'd on a bridge camera


I also thought that iI was having an off day on the "winding road for 99 miles" section until I checked my tyre pressures early the next morning. Front tyre 10psi :eek: That will do it every time :)
 
Wednesday
We left Lewiston on highway 129, which climbed up the side of the valley on some lovely grippy black Tarmac. There was a few miles of flat plains, with some very large tractors in the fields that we passed. Chris then led us into Rattlesnake Canyon.

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Oh boy, what a road that is! The surface alternated between good and bad, some of the bends having been "resurfaced" with loose chippings, which kept you on your toes, but otherwise it was excellent. Halfway along we passed from Washington State into Oregon, and stopped for the usual photos.

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Highway 129 became Highway 3 at the border. At viewpoint at the top I told Chris I'd left my toothbrush in the hotel, and was going to nip back for it. Standing looking down the canyon you could hear the echoes of the remaining bikes as they rode up to join us. Sounded glorious!

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We then followed highway 3, The Enterprise Lewiston Highway, through mile upon mile of forestry, the road fairly narrow but winding along in a very pleasant fashion. The temperature was up in the 30s again, and some of the lads had gone native again riding in jeans and t-shirts. The atgatt brigade would have a fit! With the vents open my 'stitch was bearable whilst moving, but if we stopped I was hunting for shade.

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At the afternoon milkshake stop.

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At Enterprise we turned North West onto Highway 82, The Hells Canyon Scenic Byeway. The Americans certainly have a way with names.

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After La Grande, Chris led us onto Highway 244 to Ukiah, and then the 395 turning South again. A sign at the side of the road announced that we were crossing the 45th
parallel, which for some reason reminded me of a Billy Joel song, and I still can't remember why.

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Later on in the day the roads opened out again as we rode towards John Day and the countryside reverted back to open farmland. I was intrigued by the 'wheel line' irrigation system they use, and how it worked. Seeing hundreds of the pipe sections at the sides of the road did nothing to answer the question, but good
old Wikipedia filled that in for me next time we had wifi.

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Flat topped hill.

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After nearly a month on the road, what do you think this made me think of?

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Probably a radar trap along here, knowing my luck.

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John

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Clive

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John and Clive and an escort.
 
Oops! Managed to lose some text.

Wednesday (Cont)
The Motel that night had a decent sized pool, which was refreshing after the temperatures during the day. The lady on the reception desk took all my washing off me when I asked her where the nearest laundrette was, promising to have it done by the time we returned from our evening meal. We'd had a recommendation for a good Mexican style eatery in town, and after a brief walk we found it. A table for ten is not easily found, but they sorted one and fed us to bursting!


Thursday
Last night we had decided to leave in two groups, an early and a late start. I chose to go with the early start with Chris, John, Johno and Alex. Our early start was nearly sabotaged when Chris found a distinct lack of air in his rear tyre. Happily, there was a tyre shop just across the road, and with their compressor and some fairy liquid he soon found, and plugged, the offending hole.

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My final drive was looking rather grubby now, with dust stuck to the oil mist that had spread. It didn't seem to be getting too hot, and I guessed there must still be plenty of oil in there?

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Backtracking a couple of miles from yesterday we took Highway 26 westwards through the Fossil Beds canyon. There are three separate sites that make up the John Day Fossil
Beds National Monument, and they are famous for the huge amount of fossils that have been found there, but it stood out in my mind as a great place for a hoon!

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Ok, so one of us is confused.....


The foliage on a tree at the side of the road struck me as a little odd as I rode towards it, and soon realised it was covered in shoes! I have seen a shoe tree before, but still don't understand why.

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We pulled in at a place called Mitchell for breakfast, a small town straight out of the Wild West! The main road used to run through here, and you can see that it would have been a bottleneck. The breakfast was very good, marred slightly by my camelback leaking on the bench seat beside me and soaking my trousers. Looked like I'd wet myself.

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From here the rest of the day was fairly boring, as far as the riding goes. Wide open roads and wide open spaces. We headed off Highway 26 towards Bend on Highway 97, where the roads got very busy with traffic. Chris had flagged up a supermarket stop, as we would be barbie queuing (iPad auto correct) that evening. At this point John realised he had left his camera behind at breakfast. A couple of phone calls later, he was headed back to Mitchell to be reunited with it, while we filled panniers with food.

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Howdy pardner.

Highway 97 southwards didn't have a great deal to commend it, being fairly straight, but there were what looked like volcanic rock formations glimpsed through the trees. This was in keeping with where we were headed, Crater Lake, which had once been a volcano itself.

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The afternoon milkshake stop gave everyone chance to catch up so that we all went into Crater Lake National Park together. Clive was missing, but he had been riding alone at the front for most of the day. As we rode up towards the Lake which gives the park it's name, there were patches of snow still in hollows and sheltered areas, reminding us of just how
high we were. The dry, open plain just before the lake had "snowmobile crossing" signs, which again is something you don't often see.

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Chris pulled into a car park on the left and dismounted to walk the last few yards up to the fence that marks the edge of the crater. He had warned us beforehand that the view was astounding, and he wasn't wrong! Photos again show nothing of the beauty of the place, but it didn't stop us trying.

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A North Wales favourite!

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The road that circumnavigates the lake is my kind of road, twisty, bumpy, cambered and crumbling, but as it is a National Park, and it was busy, I bimbled around it enjoying the views.
Our destination for the night was the Aspen Inn, which was easily confused with the Aspen campsite not many miles away. When Clive turned up, after us, he was a tad miffed having misunderstood where we were going, and where we were to be staying. There was then another spate of "changing rooms", as the cabins available were two doubles and two triples.

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Reminds me of one of those little weather vane type things. :D

There was also an unfortunate lack of beer, as no one had remembered to stop and buy some as Chris had suggested. I offered to go back while the rooms were being sorted, and had the good fortune to spot a handwritten sign on a store not two miles away saying "cold beer".
Fridge emptied and pannier filled I was back within ten minutes and helped Gaz set up the barbecue for our evening feast

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Mark
 
Greta report Mark.

An ordinary camera just can't capture the grandeur of Crater Lake.

Mike and I talked to a warden there, told us about a fly that lays it's eggs on the surface of the lake. They sink 7,000 (if my memory serves me correctly) feet to the bottom where they hatch. The bugs feed grow and pupate then float back to the surface to hatch as new flies and the circle begins again. Amazing.
 
Great report Mark, bringing back a lot of memories, I was on the trip three weeks prior to yours.

An ordinary camera just can't capture the grandeur of Crater Lake.

You said patches of snow, are you fond of understatement or had much of it melted?

a>


The pink is apparently bacteria

a>
 
Blimey! Didn't see that lot! :eek:
Don't know how quickly it would melt, but most of our lot were in T-shirts.
Mark
 
Friday
The late group had decided last night that they were going to head South today and take Interstate 5 directly to Santa Rosa, gaining an extra day off the bikes before the flight home. Chris, John, Johno, Alex and I needed no such rest, and set off across country on "Bilco's bonus roads." These started as mountain twisties, and then got better! The edges of the Heidenaus were starting to get some grief now.
We left Oregon and crossed back into California. A deer leapt out from the bushes at the side of the road not 5 feet in front of Chris, he didn't even have time to blink and it was gone. That could have really spoiled the day! The temperature climbed still higher, and I actually had a salad for lunch in honour of the 39 degrees showing on the gauge. We rode past a huge reservoir, whose siren call lured Johno in for a swim, despite the warning sign. I went for a paddle, in my boots. The water level was well down on the tide mark, but I don't know if that was normal for the time of year.

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Yes, he's in there!

Suprisingly, Chris managed to find a stall for a milkshake, in the middle of nowhere. He then led us down a road that really was the middle of nowhere! The Tarmac faded into a potholed mess, civilisation disappeared, and I was convinced I could hear banjo music playing! Johno's fuel gauge had been flashing for some miles now, and then my satnav froze. Not somewhere I fancied stopping! Then around the next bend, Gerberville! Chris told us that this was where all the old hippies ended up , and you could believe it.

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Erm, are you sure?

Our Motel had a pool and a hot tub, both at similar temperature, freezing! Nice and refreshing after a hot day though. That night we ate in an Italian resteraunt, where the musical accompaniment was a fiddle player. "Player" is perhaps too strong a word. When I asked the waitress how she managed a full shift listening to that din, she replied that he was a friend of the manager, and you learnt to blank it out.
Needless to say, we left quickly.
Mark
 
Saturday.
Our last day on the bikes, and it started with some superb forest roads. I had a moment when I exceeded the edge grip available, and scared myself. No point finishing the trip off in an ambulance! At Legett we turned inland again and through the Redwood forests before coming out onto the Pacific highway. Coastal fog dropped the temperature to 12 degrees, but Johno still wanted a swim! We rode down onto a beach to let him. It felt cold just watching!

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Once his water based fetish had been satisfied, we turned inland again on Highway 128 to get warm and find some more bends. A final milkshake stop was taken just before the last blast into Santa Rosa, riding through the California vineyards back to the Motel where we had started, nearly four weeks ago.

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I unloaded the bike, and after a quick dip in the pool to cool down, we all converged on the Santa Rosa BMW dealership, where we were leaving the bikes for collection.
Chris had chosen to use them as a base because they had been so helpful in the past, and we were made very welcome.

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I felt a pang of guilt as we drove away. My faithful companion for the last month was left behind, our adventure over. I wouldn’t see my bike again until the beginning of October!
A quick trip into town saw me fixed up with a cheap suitcase, opting to take my gear home on the flight with me, rather than leaving it to moulder in the panniers.
Our last night together was spent in Cattleman’s restaurant, a short walk from the Motel, a great evening, but with mixed feelings. I was looking forward to going home, seeing my kids, seeing Denise, the rest of the family, friends etc., but I was going to miss getting on my bike every morning.

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Mark
 
Sunday.

Clive had sweet talked a taxi driver into doing a foreigner, and taking him, Bob, Gaz and I to the airport for a reduced rate. He and Bob were on the afternoon flight to London, whereas Gaz and I were on the earlier one to Manchester.
We were loading up her people carrier, when one of our number realised his passport was in his (Klim) jacket pocket, which was on his bike, in the dealership a few miles away. The dealership which was shut at that hour in the morning, especially on a Sunday!
A few frantic phone calls, a few disturbed lie-ins, and a few curses saw three of us heading to San Francisco, and one of us begging favours and hoping to catch up in time for his flight.
He made it, by the skin of his teeth.
Sat on the plane on my way back across the pond, I had chance to reflect on the previous month. A great bunch of guys, superb riding, mind boggling scenery, my superlatives were getting used up pretty quick! Riding, all day. Every day.
It’s an experience I recommend everyone to try if you can, I dont know that everyone will enjoy it. I know that I certainly did.
Thanks for listening. :D
Mark
 
Have followed this from the beginning and have thoroughly enjoyed it all. A lot of time & effort has been put into this, well done.:bow:bow:thumb2:thumb2
 
If I didn't have a business to run I'd have stayed on and done it all again I enjoyed it so much.

Thanks for the report, I was too idle to do it. :)
 
What a fantastic trip, with an equally brilliant report. Thanks for that. ,:clap:clap
 
Nice report Mark, I really enjoyed that. That is on my bucket list.:thumb
 
Nice report Mark, I really enjoyed that. That is on my bucket list.:thumb

+1 :clap :thumby:

me and the Mrs. are booked on to bilko's pacific coast highway trip next year so it's been great to see the video footage as some of the route you took is the same as the route we will be taking plus me and my buddy (gsamark) who with his Mrs. Jo is also on the PCH trip are seriously considering the alaska trip 2015 if it's run. i must admit i'm not an off road god and the dalton does concern me but i wouldn't let that put me off. so, we will see.
 
+1 :clap :thumby:

me and the Mrs. are booked on to bilko's pacific coast highway trip next year so it's been great to see the video footage as some of the route you took is the same as the route we will be taking plus me and my buddy (gsamark) who with his Mrs. Jo is also on the PCH trip are seriously considering the alaska trip 2015 if it's run. i must admit i'm not an off road god and the dalton does concern me but i wouldn't let that put me off. so, we will see.

You'll have a fantastic time Tony.:thumb
 


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