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Allan's 2007 WFO-6 Trip Planning
This page is here for historical interest. I planned this trip in
the spring and summer of 2007 and invited others to come along. In the
end, I rode it by myself. You can see some pictures and read about my
adventure on my WFO-6 Trip page. |
Over the weekend of July 26-29 of 2007 there is a motorcycle event, the "Western FJR Owners"
gathering. It's the sixth of that name, or
WFO-6.
I plan to ride to the event (in Park City, UT near Salt Lake City) from my
home in the San Francisco area, but I plan to go the long way. North. In six
days.
Maybe you want to come along? I can plan this as a group ride,
or I can go solo. It's all good. Let me
know if you're interested. You don't have to be committed just to contact me
- let's just talk.
I have a
discussion thread going about this plan at the
FJR Forum. I originally billed it as a
camping trip, but that might scare some folks off. So now we'll talk about
camping after we see who's interested at all.
Elsewhere on my web site, I've captured some of the
"What's your favorite road?" discussion from the LDRiders mailing list and
elsewhere. You can visit the all-state
index or o directly to the pages for CA,
OR, WA, and
ID.
Below is a draft of what I have in mind. As you can see, I'm not
into freeways! Route suggestions are welcome, regardless of whether you want
to join.

Plot this in your own map software like so:
- San Francisco, CA
- Eureka, CA
- Happy Camp, CA
- Medford, Bend, and Hood River, OR; Randle, WA (but not that simple)
- Lewiston, ID
- Bozeman, MT
- Red Lodge, MT
- Jackson, WY
- Park City, UT
The way I'm thinking about it so far, the days and highlights break down like
this:
- Saturday, July 21: leave San Francisco for Happy Camp, CA. 467 miles. Battle traffic
leaving the Bay Area to the north, probably as far as Healdsburg, then clear
sailing. Maybe take 128 to the coast. Visit the Avenue of the Giants.
- Sunday: to Medford, OR and up the first half of Ken Hattan's "Oregon
Cascades" ride. Overnight near Bend somewhere. 440 miles.
- Monday: back to the Oregon Cascades route, north to Randle, WA. Then
turn east and spend the night near Kennewick, WA. This looks to be 500
miles.
- Tuesday: Kennewick through Lewiston, ID and east to Bozeman, MT. This includes the amazing (by all
accounts) US12 across Idaho, with the famous "Winding road next 77 miles"
sign. My plan has us pounding freeway from Missoula to Bozeman for 200
miles - sorry! Got any better ideas? Total 550 miles.
- Wednesday: Bozeman to Red Lodge, then across Beartooth Pass and through
Yellowstone National Park. The Motel
6 south of Jackson makes it 400 miles. Long day in the park with a 35mph
speed limit.
- Thursday: Jackson, WY to Park City. An easy 240 miles, time to get to
the hotel, shower, take it easy, and rest up in preparation for the festivities.
This is a very ambitious ride. We will have a lot of daylight but we'll have
to use all of it, without long breakfasts or lunches.
As the instigator of this ride, I would coordinate hotels (or campsites!).
With two or three people, we can ride together or just say "That's the next
hotel, see you there."
My earlier, less-ambitious plan didn't include the Oregon Cascades. I had it
going from Ashland to Lewiston via Burns and Pendleton. This makes for much
shorter days. Definitely still a possibility. Also, Bozeman due south through
the park to Park City cuts off a whole day at the end without having to miss
Yellowstone. Any time past Burns, there's I-80 or I-15 to Salt Lake City as a
safety valve against bad weather.
So, are you interested? Like I said, Let
me know by e-mail so we can start talking and see if this will really
happen.
Thanks!
Some route points to ponder
One long pole in the tent is that going through Yellowstone is slow and we
might want to stop a few times. So it has to be planned as a low-mile day. Makes
sense to stop after Yellowstone to keep Wednesday reasonable. This also makes
Thursday short - 260 miles. That's probably a
good thing, lets us get there in the afternoon, register, kick tires, and
recover.
I just don't see us wanting to do Bozeman-Yellowstone-Park City all on
Thursday. That's 470 miles, including our time in the park (with low speed
limits!). It would mean we can't stop
in the park or else we get to Park City really late. Also, that route hits the
park but misses Beartooth Pass, which I would be sorry to do.
Monday from Bend can be made shorter by going north only as far as I-84, then
turning east to the northern part of Ken Hattan's
Hells_Canyon_Ride_2006 loop. Stop in La Grande, OR and you've only gone 412
miles since Bend, but you're farther east than Kennewick. Then Tuesday's 550
miles take you to Bozeman as before.
On this ride I think the overall average (counting slow roads, meals, and
stops) will be noticeably less than 50mph. So if a day is 500 miles that's over
10 hours from "start your engines" to the overnight stop. On the other hand, it's summertime and there are many hours of
daylight. It'll depend on the mix of people who want to come along - are they up
for 9-hour days or 12-hour days?
Returning home
Because I want to see Bryce and Zion, I will take two days
to get home:
- Sunday, start early, go south, ride through Bryce, Zion, and Dixie.
Overnight
in Cedar City or St. George along I-15.
- Monday, burn across Nevada, through Tonopah and Yosemite, and home.
Gotta have a National Parks Pass for this trip...
This page was last edited
April 26, 2008. |