Great Roads You Never Heard Of

Washinton Butler Map

North Cascades National Park looks to me like a must.

One of the things I look for most in a motorcycle roads resource is tips on roads I don’t even know exist. That’s one of the things I like best about the motorcycle maps made by Butler. As anyone who reads this blog knows, I’m an unabashed fan of Butler maps. In a very you-scratch-my-back-I’ll-scratch-yours manner, they give me all the maps they produce and I look them over and write about them. Make no mistake, if I thought they were crap I’d say they were crap, but I don’t and I don’t.

So the latest one I’ve been looking at is for the state of Washington. Washington is far enough away that the OFMC has never gone there on our yearly trips, though I’m lobbying for those of us who are now retired to remedy that deficiency. Let’s take any of the wives who are interested (I know Judy would be) and make a two to three week trip of it.

And there’s one place in particular I see us heading: North Cascades National Park. Now this is kind of funny. I worked for three years at the National Park Service, on planning documents dealing with a couple hundred different park units. I’m pretty sure I worked on this one. So how did it slip by me?

More specifically, here is what Butler has to say about this yellow stripe (the best roads) called “North Cascades Highway”:

Highway 20 slices through North Cascades National Park — you won’t have to ante up the typical park fee to ride this beauty. It’s not terribly demanding, but no problem — the scenery is off the charts: glaciers and glacial lakes, dense forests, and giant rock formations abound. The route is roughly 80 miles and without services, so fuel up on either end of the park before making the trek. The road is wide, curves gently and often sees little traffic. Truly, this journey carries with it some of the most spectacular mountainous scenery of any road in the continental U.S. — in fact we rate it in the top 5 “must do” motorcycle routes in the entire country.

Yow! Top five in the entire country? I’m going to Washington! Are you other guys coming with me?

Of course, that’s not all Washington has to offer. I’ve always wanted to go to the Olympic Peninsula, but I see from the map that there is surprisingly little in the way of good motorcycle roads there. Fine, just go for the peninsula, not the riding.

Where the best riding is, it appears, is around Mount Rainier and Mount St. Helens. That’s the really good stuff. And then the northeast corner of the state has a heck of a lot to offer, as well. Tie that in with Montana and Idaho, where there is also fabulous riding in this area, and you could spend a month.

Off in the southeast corner of the state, on the other hand, it’s almost all flat and open. Best to go around this either to the north or west, where you have mountains. Still, just in the very corner, there is one patch of yellow, which is Oregon 3 coming out of that state and becoming Washington 129. This is Rattlesnake Pass, “a canyon climbers’s dream.”

This is the kind of stuff you could miss. That’s why I love these maps.

Biker Quote for Today

Push your limits until you crash.. then back off just a bit.

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