West Coast Loop, Part 3 ... September 1994Day 4Klamath, CA to Portland, OR348 miles When I arose at 8:30 it was still in the mid-forties. So I lazed around for a while, to let the sun climb above the trees, and at 9:45 I headed north on US 101, toward Oregon -- and none too soon, since a day later the area was rocked by a 7.1 offshore earthquake. After another huge breakfast, this time in Crescent City, I was faced with a dilemma: stay on 101 or go inland on US 199 to I-5. The Oregon coast is indisputably one of the scenic wonders of the continent. However, the entire road is two-lane, and I had seen just about enough lumber trucks and RVs. Besides, there was the BTDT factor to consider (been there, done that). So I exited right off the 101, and almost immediately encountered a road-construction roadblock. But rather than reverse course, and potentially add several hours to the day's ride, I waited patiently till a pilot car came to guide traffic through a road-work labyrinth. After climbing over some low hills, the road began parallelling the Smith River. The scenery along this stretch whetted my appetite for my return trip through the Cascades and Sierra, and brought Colorado to mind. Unfortunately, there were a few stretches of unattended roadwork, so the ride was not as "fun" as it might have been. Around 11:00 I went through a tunnel, passed the California "customs" station, and soon the words "OREGON TO WELCOME" appeared in that order on the pavement. Almost immediately after the Oregon line, civilization reappeared, and there were many "speed zones" heralding small towns. Having read numerous warnings on rec.moto about zealous enforcement in Oregon, I (mostly) complied with speed limits. But it still wasn't long before I entered Grants Pass, an unremarkable town surrounded by attractive mountains, where US 199 links up with the dreaded superslab. After a brief pit-stop, I picked my way through the outskirts of town and found the ramp leading onto the I-5 north. The first 100 miles were actually very pleasant, except for very long stretches of road construction. (It'll be great when they get the whole thing repaved.) By Eugene, the landscape flattens out into the broad Willamette Valley, and the road becomes as straight and boring as the New Jersey Turnpike. At Eugene I exited to quaff the Oregon state drink, caffe latte. I found a parking place in an area reserved for motorcycles (cool!) which had a coffee house nearby (cool!) and also a nice, maple-tree-shaded park where I could sit, drink my java jolt, and watch the bike -- though there probably wasn't too much need to. I observed a couple of parking cops in action -- one on a recumbent bike, and another in a Demolition-man-looking electric contraption. Welcome to the PNW! I bought gas from a very surly attendant (whose job was limited to taking the hose off the pump and handing it to me -- Oregon law, you know) and got back on the freeway. By this time it was about 3:45 and the traffic was rather heavy. The right lane was covered in oil, so I stayed to the left and it was 75 mph rapid transit all the way to Portland. As I used to do when I lived up here, I scanned the eastern horizon for Mt. Hood, but there was a surprising amount of haze in the air. Some of it was dust, and some was smoke from the appalling (sorry) Oregon practice of allowing grass-seed farmers in enclosed valleys to burn their fields to encourage seed production. Well, I suppose they gotta make a living too -- far be it from an L.A. resident to bitch about dirty air. It wasn't until I reached the "Terwilliger Curves", a series of 50-mph sweepers which form a dramatic entrance to Portland itself, that I finally saw The Mountain. After the curves, I-5 climbs over a bridge which provides absolutely the best view of downtown Portland, which is a pity because you're usually going too fast to admire it. The freeway I needed to take to reach my friend's house was jammed, and lane-splitting is not smiled upon here, so I picked my way through the still somewhat familiar city streets to the Hollywood District. So after 1215 miles I was back in Hollywood, but this one is a quiet area light-years more serene and livable than the one I left. Day 5Portland, OR to Mount Shasta City, CA408 miles I spent a mostly enjoyable few days in Portland, during which I drank lots of coffee and Widmer Hefeweizen beer (no lemon), ate numerous cinnamon rolls from Gabriel's Bakery, took the scenic drive up to Larch Mountain (lots of loose gravel, too much haze for decent views), and generally hit all my old favorite places. Unfortunately, I also had my worst asthma attack in 6 years, so after riding to the ER at 4:00 am in the rain, I had to curtail my activities and in fact had to spend the last couple days in a hotel. (The Carriage Inn, 2025 NW Northrup -- excellent value, nice area.) So on this September Sunday, I was not in the best physical condition to ride, But dammit, I had a schedule to stick to! So I violated one of the cardinal rules of motorcycling. Sue me. In any event, the weather this day was absolutely gorgeous . It had rained the day before, and the air was scrubbed clean and sparkled like a newly shined tailpipe. My route out of Portland went east, via US 26. An endless trek through dreary suburbia brought me to where the freeway begins, and once on it I promptly ran out of gas. At this point it occurred to me that I hadn't gotten any since Eugene, five days before. Feeling sheepish, I switched to reserve, got the bike started again after repeated tries, and went back into Gresham to fill up. After this inauspicious beginning, I climbed with US 26, through bizarrely named towns such as Wemme, Welches and Zigzag, to the slopes of Mount Hood. The rainstorm which visited Portland had deposited a load of fresh snow on its upper slopes, and the view was gorgeous. I pulled over to take a photo just as a few stray clouds obscured it, but I waited a couple of minutes and they parted, allowing the sun to shine on the blindingly white new snow. Mt. Hood is not actually that tall -- at 11,300 ft. it's the "lowest highest" mountain of any Western state -- but at that moment it looked positively Himalayan. As I walked back to my bike, I was already short of breath, and wondered idly how my asthma-shrunk lungs would cope with the elevation in Yosemite, a mile higher still. But luckily, the road provided a distraction from such thoughts. After a couple of 4,000-ft. passes, it descended gently through thinning pine forests into the Warm Springs Indian Reservation. By the time I reached the Deschutes River, the scenery was completely different and typically "Western": sage, juniper, mesas and canyons. The road, along the very blue Deschutes River, climbed up a bluff and back down to enter the agricultural town of Madras, where (if you're coming from Portland) central Oregon begins. I was somewhat dismayed to find espresso being touted from every other sign... but at least they can't Portlandize the scenery. At Madras I joined the main line of central Oregon and Washington: US 97. Traffic on this road was quite heavy, with lots of motorcycles and (unfortunately) lots of RVs, this being the Sunday of Labor Day weekend. Now I could see other, more southern peaks of the Oregon Cascades: Mt. Jefferson and the Three Sisters, which were all dingy grey, as indeed Mt. Hood usually is in early September. Getting wet in Portland was definitely worth it. After passing a sign for Wimp Road, I entered Redmond and had my first meal of the day at Chez Micquedee's. Then I gassed up in Bend, down the road a bit, and continued my rather monotonous journey toward Crater Lake through mixed scrub and spruce forest. The road was relatively straight and wide, so I made excellent time down US 97 and OR 138 to the gates of Crater Lake National Park. After paying my $3, I climbed to 7000 feet through a huge pumice wasteland, and then caught my first glimpse of the magnificent lake. From my vantage point, several hundred feet above the water's surface, the lake looked like a cup full of twilight sky. A beautiful place, but once I had taken a good look (and a couple of photos with my increasingly ill-sounding camera), I felt I had got the basic idea and so continued on my way southward. By the time I left the Park, I noticed I was a bit low on gas. I expected the town of Fort Klamath to hold a gas station, but it turned out to be completely moribund, so with increasing anxiety I continued down through OR 62, through a broad, bug-infested valley, toward Klamath Falls. Finally I encountered a gas station, and experienced a bit of culture-shock: most of the clientele were Mexican migrant workers. Of course, they don't just stay in California... still, it was strange to encounter them in this redneck part of Oregon. A few miles later, US 97 came upon Upper Klamath Lake, a huge reservoir which reaches to the city of Klamath Falls itself. As I transited Klamath Falls on a newly-asphalted freeway, I caught sight of huge Mt. Shasta for the first time -- it was still about 60 miles away, and provided a handy visual reference point for the rest of the day's ride. The road was flat and straight, and soon the words BACK COME on the pavement ushered me back into California. (Don't worry, Oregon, I'm sure I will back come day some.) Through the incredibly dreary town of Dorris, and then the California ag inspection station, the road continued on its tedious path toward Shasta. The sun was beginning to set and cast its rays full on the glacier-capped peak, so I pulled over at a "Vista Point" to take a picture. As I was hanging out there, a few cars passed me, one of which I recognized a few miles down the road being pulled over by the CHP. Guess who that Chippie would have caught (going 70 in a 55) if I hadn't pulled off? Buoyed by that bit of good fortune, I covered the last several miles of US 97, which comes to an ignominous end in the mountain-ringed town of Weed. I say ignominious, because by one reckoning, this is the southern terminus of the Alaska Highway (US 97 connects with BC 97, which becomes the Alaska Highway). Here, too, I was thrust onto I-5, but only for a few miles, and soon I found my destination: the beautiful Alpenrose Youth Hostel in the weird little town of Mt. Shasta, where the Harmonic Convergence meets the timber industry. Home - Back to Part 2 - On to Part 4 |