Pacific Northwest Backroad Adventures

Each time I venture to the Gifford Pinchot National Forest in the South Cascades of Washington state, I am simply amazed at the beauty of the country. In this region, not only are you are surrounded by four major peaks of the Cascade Mountains (Mt. Rainier, Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Adams, and Mt. Hood), there is an extensive variety of terrain ranging from deep valleys and canyons to exposed buttes and cliffs, alpine meadows to old growth forests, and of course, the Mt. St. Helens blast zone. I could easily spend days or even weeks just exploring the region.

With that in mind, I decided to host a Backroad Drivers Northwest tour in the area just south of Randle, Washington. This region is an area which I am fairly familiar with having spent a lot of time hunting, camping and exploring with my father while growing up. The tour would follow one of my favorite routes in the area, Forest Road 77 from the Burley Mountain Lookout along the ridge past Pinto Rock and Mosquito Meadows. From Mosquito Meadows, we would would take FS 99 to the Windy Ridge Viewpoint at Mt. St. Helens and follow FS 26 back to Randle.
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Day Two: August 11, 2007.

Daily Goal: To Drive from Babyshoe Pass (on FS-23 near Mt. Adams) to Cle Elum, Washington (I-90).

Map Reference:
Gifford Pinchot National Forest Map
Wenatchee National Forest Map

After a surprisingly comfortable night of sleep in the back of my 80-series Land Cruiser (with my dog Tareva right next to me), I arose just after daybreak to the awesome views of Mt. Adams and Mt Hood. This was my first attempt at sleeping in my FJ80. I initially had my doubts on how comfortable it would be, considering my height. My newly built cargo box, the back seat folded down, a plastic tub on the second row footwell and the front passenger seat folded forward and all the way to the dash provided a great support for my air mattress. All that I had to do to rearrange from the days trip was to move the ARB refrigerator to the drivers side and throw some of my bags in the front seats.
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I now have day two photos of my overland tour of the Cascade Mountains of Washington state uploaded and available for viewing at Washington Cascade Mountains Overland Tour 2007 - Day Two Photos

The photos were taken between Mt. Adams, Washington and the second day’s campsite near Blewett Pass (near Cle Elum, WA).

Trip Report: Washington Cascades Overland Tour 2007 - Introduction
Trip Report: Washington Cascades Overland Tour 2007 - Day One
Trip Report: Washington Cascades Overland Tour 2007 - Day Two
Trip Report: Washington Cascades Overland Tour 2007 - Day Three
Trip Report: Washington Cascades Overland Tour 2007 - Day Four
Trip Report: Washington Cascades Overland Tour 2007 - Final Thoughts

Day One: August 10, 2007.

Daily Goal: To Drive from Carson, Washington (Highway 14 off the Columbia River near the Oregon border) to Packwood, Washington (Highway 12).

Map Reference:
Gifford Pinchot National Forest Map
Gifford Pinchot National Forest Adventure Routes - SUV and Dualsport Motorcycle Routes

Today was going to be a very long day. Not only would I be attempting to reach my destination in Packwood, I would also have to include the drive from my home in the middle of Washington state to the southern border near Oregon to start the tour of the Washington Cascade Mountains. My goal was to complete the drive from the Oregon border to the British Columbia in four days (see Washington Cascades Overland Tour 2007 for the introduction to this adventure).

After four hours of driving I-5 and Highway 14, I reached Carson, Washington - the designated starting point of my Cascade Overland Tour. From Carson, I headed north on the Wind River Rd. to Bear Creek Rd. (FS-6808) and ascended to Triangle Pass. From Triangle Pass, I followed FS-68 down to FS-66 and headed north.

FS-66 follows the east side of the Big Lava Bed for about 10 miles. Big Lava Bed is a 10 mile long lava flow from about +8000 years ago. There are no roads into the flow, only around the perimeter. From FS-66, you can see the exposed lava flow through the sparse forest.

At the end of the Big Lava Bed, I reached an area called South Prairie. You see meadows and and a small lake.

From South Prairie, I followed FS-6615 to FS-6621 to FS-60 which leads to Goose Lake and a what looks like a nice campground. There were a few people fishing but the trout weren’t biting that day. It would have been easy to hang out there for a few days.

From Goose Lake, I made an attempt to make a side trip to Red Mountain Lookout to get a better view of the Big Lava Flow however. When I reached the access road to Red Mountain (FS-240), the gate was locked. Back to Goose Lake to continue the tour.

From Goose Lake, I to took FS-6040 to Forlorn Lakes. This was the first road of the trip that lived up to the signage “Limited Maintenance”. Nothing difficult, but the ruts and waterbar crossings limit the route to high clearance vehicles.

From Forlorn Lakes, I intended to follow FS-6035 along the east perimeter of the Indian Heaven Wilderness Area, however the sign said that the road was closed five miles ahead so I followed FS-6030 to FS-6020 instead.

From FS-6020, I made my way on FS-24 along the northwest corner of the Indian Heaven Wilderness Area, past huckleberry meadows and Indian Camps of the Sawtooth Berry fields. The huckleberries are in season in August and there are a lot of native americans out picking them throughout this area.

Once past the Twin Buttes area, I followed the native surface FS-8854 (another fun limited maintenance road) past Steamboat Lake to FS-8871 and then to FS-88.

From FS-88, I made an attempt to follow another primitive forest road (FS-150) but found the road blocked. I then followed FS-200 which eventually becomes FS-150 in a few miles and eventually dead ends where a bridge once crossed the Lewis River at Twin Falls Campground. I had to then backtrack to FS-88. At least it was another limited maintenance native surface road. The national forest map is not very clear on this route.

Once back on FS-88, I followed it to FS-90. Ahead, FS-23 was washed out, so I detoured out of the valley on FS-585 (another primitive limited maintenance native surface road) to FS-2334 and onto FS-23.

Once I reached Babyshoe Pass, it was getting time to find a campsite for the night. Just past the pass was FS-335 so I followed it up Babyshoe Ridge and found a great spot on top of the ridge to camp for the night. This spot provided a great view of Mt. Adams to the southwest and Mt. Hood further south in Oregon. Elevation 4690 feet.

I didn’t meet my goal of reaching Packwood, Washington. If a more direct route was taken, it could have easily met the daily driving goal. It turns out that I was about two hours short, considering my backtracking and driving the more primitive routes in the area.

Daily Summary:

Total Miles Driven (approximate) - 102 miles (Carson to Mt. Adams)
Paved Highway: 7.7 miles
Paved County Roads: 8.5 miles
Paved Forest Service Road: 16.2 miles
Improved Gravel Forest Service Roads: 55.4 miles
Limited Maintenance Forest Roads: 14.2 miles

See all of the photos from day one of this trip at Washington Cascades Overland Tour 2007 - Day One Photos.

Next Day: Day Two: Mt. Adams to Blewett Pass

Trip Report: Washington Cascades Overland Tour 2007 - Introduction
Trip Report: Washington Cascades Overland Tour 2007 - Day One
Trip Report: Washington Cascades Overland Tour 2007 - Day Two
Trip Report: Washington Cascades Overland Tour 2007 - Day Three
Trip Report: Washington Cascades Overland Tour 2007 - Day Four
Trip Report: Washington Cascades Overland Tour 2007 - Final Thoughts

For the past year, I’ve had the desire to map out and drive an overland route through the Cascade Mountains of Washington state from the Columbia River near Oregon all the way to northern border with British Columbia.

Last year (August 2006), my son and I completed a portion of this route from Cle Elum to Mt. Adams (see Cascade Overland Adventure - August 2006) but did not go any further South because of time constraints. At the time, I knew little of any possible routes from I-90 North to British Columbia.

Shortly after that trip last August, I sold my Jeep YJ Wrangler and purchased my Toyota FJ80 Land Cruiser with the goal in mind to make it into an overland expedition vehicle.

Winter and Spring came and finally the snow thawed in the high country. With vacation scheduled for August, I started getting serious about mapping out a route through the Washington Cascades.
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I just uploaded photos from day one (08.10.07) of my cross state overland tour of the Cascade Mountains of Washington state.

These photos were taken between Carson, Washington and the first day’s campsite near Mt. Adams.

See all of the photos at Washington Cascade Mountains Overland Tour 2007 - Day One Photos

Trip Report: Washington Cascades Overland Tour 2007 - Introduction
Trip Report: Washington Cascades Overland Tour 2007 - Day One
Trip Report: Washington Cascades Overland Tour 2007 - Day Two
Trip Report: Washington Cascades Overland Tour 2007 - Day Three
Trip Report: Washington Cascades Overland Tour 2007 - Day Four
Trip Report: Washington Cascades Overland Tour 2007 - Final Thoughts

With an actual weekend off, and knowing that I would probably soon be selling my Jeep Wrangler to buy a larger adventure vehicle, it was time for a three day Jeep adventure.

Our first goal (my son Steven and myself) was to travel from I-90 near Cle Elum, Washington to Highway 410 near Cliffdell, Washington via logging roads. I heard people talk about such a road in the past, but have never attempted to locate it.

Our second goal was to travel from Highway 410 to Highway 12 over logging roads. We would then travel Highway 12 over White Pass to Packwood. From Packwood, we would head South on logging roads towards Mt. Adams and locate a campsite for the night.

As in previous adventures, I turned to the book Washington Byways: Backcountry Drives For The Whole Family by Tony Huegel for some of my planning. The most likely route was to use Tour 43 - Quartz Mountain as a starting point for our weekend adventure.

Cascade Overland Adventure: Intro | Day One | Day Two | Day Three

I just completed an overland adventure by Jeep from Cle Elum, WA (I-90) to SR410, to US Highway 12, to Mt Adams, to Mt. St. Helens and posted the pictures at Photos from Cascade Overland Adventure - August 2006.

Enjoy.

This year (2006) marked the second year I attended the WEROCK Rock Crawl competition in Goldendale, Washington. Last year, I learned a few things not to repeat. First, don’t drink heavily and expect to function well without sleep and in the heat. Second, bring a lot of water when working on the course and stay hydrated throughout the day. I must be getting old because my body can’t handle the abuse that it used to.

In order to avoid the 100+ degree temperatures as long as possible, we decided to take the longer scenic route from SR12 in Randle, to the FS 25 road (we should have taken the FS 23 road), past Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Adams, into Trout Lake, the Columbia River Gorge all the way to our hotel in Biggs, Oregon. This year we decided to get a hotel rather than camp at the Cottonwood like last year. Unfortunately we were a little late and we were unable to locate accommodations in town. Lesson learned for next year. At least we only had a 15-mile drive through the desert into our air-conditioned room with a shower.

After checking in and another stop for bottled water, we made a quick stop at the Stonehenge World War I memorial that’s about a mile from Highway 97 overlooking the Gorge. If you haven’t been there, this is a full size, true to scale reproduction of the original Stonehenge; all aligned to view the Summer and Winter solstice just like the original.

The first stop in town was the grain silo parking lot where everybody parks their trailer for tech inspection. We ran into and chatted with BZ and Dustin Webster. Walked around in tech inspection, checking out the rigs and then met up with the rest of our group.

On Friday night, the town scheduled a parade through town. Apparently the local police did not like the buggies driving through town. A big difference from last year when they had free reign throughout town. I heard a rumor that there was a new Police Chief in town. Just what you don’t want to do - piss off the competitors and spectators of the biggest money making event that comes this town. Anyway, the parade was lame compared to last year - just a slow speed cruise behind a city fire engine then onto the trailers at the other end. In 2005, there was junk cars set up in the street for the competitors to drive up and over which was a crowd pleaser for the locals. Not this year.

From the parade, we migrated down to the city sponsored beer garden where there was a beer trailer and a DJ. Interesting is all I have to say. After mingling for a few hours, the music was halted at 11:30 PM with the last call.

On Saturday, we were greeted by overcast skies that helped keep the temperature down just a little, but still over 100 degrees F. With my Camelback filled and batteries charged, I was ready for a day of photography.

Lil Rich did a good job of using the natural features of the land in laying out courses. There was plenty of action on all courses to challenge the competitors and satisfy the spectators viewing. Because of the number of competitors, in order to keep the event of schedule, both the Super Modified and Unlimited were mixed together and ran the A and B courses, while the Stock Modified ran on the C courses.

After the event, it was back to the hotel to wash off the dust before dinner. Once back in town it was on to a BBQ. Rob McKenney and Shannon Campbell provided an impressive spread of food for dinner including burgers, hot dogs, steak, salads and of course Tammy Campbell’s awesome homemade salsa.

Saturday night was a blast. We just hung out in the parking lot of the hotel and had plenty of entertainment. Lots of war stories throughout the night. No more biting on a dog’s ear for Nick Campbell.

The group almost had a guy from Bremerton (I forgot your name) walking through talked into eating a 10-pound bag of pasta salad within 30 minutes with his buddy for $50. Later that night, three Goldendale police cars and two troopers showed up at their motel unit because the people downstairs heard somebody “screaming like a girl”. Reports said it was pasta boy.

We made it through Saturday night on a few hours of sleep and onto Sunday. This was to be the hottest day of the year for Goldendale. Reports were that the temperature was 107 degrees. That’s a little too warm for us coastal people.

Sunday was another fun day in the dust. There was plenty of rock crawling action for everybody. There were a lot of hurting people that were casualties of Saturday night.

Thanks go out to Rob McKenney, Shannon Campbell their crews and families for the hospitality. I can’t wait until next year to do it again.

For a run down on the results and competition, you can visit http://www.we-rock.cc and http://rock.off-road.com (the article mentioned a guy in a kilt - I wonder who that was). There are also a lot of reviews on http://www.pirate4×4.com, http://www.snort4×4.com and http://www.nw-wheelers.com