Washington State Bikepacking Route

[briandunnington]

@Russ (and anybody else who is interested) - just send me a message via this site and let me know your email address so we can communicate more easily. A few other folks have already contacted me, added tons of good insight, and even gotten out and rode a bit of the route, so interest is definitely there.

[racing4thesun]

Im sure everyone knows, but there is still a ton of snow. I was out again this weekend checking some of the trails in the snoqualmie pass/crystal area, and it is going to be atleast 3-4 weeks before that section of trail may be ridable. Probably longer.

[carbonguy]

How is this thing progressing? Did any of you ride it? I need to get some fantastic WA trail riding done once the snow finally melts up there.
Thanks,
m

[chrisx]

Any body familiar with the area around lake Chelan?  Is there a way to get from Leavenworth to Stehekin along the west side of the lake?  What about North from Stehekin to State Route 20?

[speedycog]

This is a fantastic idea—I've been thinking about something like this for a while.  I'm new to the southern WA area (Battle Ground) but I'd love to help where I can.

[AdamHale]

Nice planning, fellows!

I am also interested in big rides in Washington. I gave a shot at the TD with the grand depart last June, but had some butt problems and only made it as far as CO.

Can't get back to Banff this June, but hope to be there in 2014.

So for this year I'm planning lots of shorter off road tours around the Cascades, Olympics, and Washington's Coast Range.
B
Another goal of mine is to piece together a grand tour of the PNW. My ideal route would take in both sides of the Cascades in BC, Washington, and Oregon. I picture a 2000+ mile loop.

A good resource is the map sets put out by some motorcycle touring outfit. I've lost the contact at the moment, but I'll post here when I find it.

If anyone is interested in some big rides, please get in touch. I'm in Tumwater.

Adam

[HappyWanderer]

We have done some fun trips on the eastern side of the mountains from the Wenatchee/Leavenworth area north to Winthrop, Conconully and on to Loomis  Lots of possibilities out there.   The route you have planned out looks really great!

[briandunnington]

Just an update for anyone who was interested in the WaMBR route: A friend and I set out from the Canadian Border in July and planned to map the route as we rode south. The planned border crossing turned out to be on private reservation land, so we had to modify the route immediately. Many of the trails listed on various maps were either non-existent or only suitable for snowmobile travel when covered in snow. We tried a few cross-country routes but invariably ended up at uncrossable streams or just pushing our bikes/gear for miles at a time. We re-routed on gravel forest roads, but that is really not very fun riding to be honest.

The Blue Buck trail that drops down toward Twisp is actually a really fun singletrack trail, with lots of rocks, roots, stream crossings, etc. But with 50+ blown down trees across the trail, it can be a big struggle with a loaded bike or trailer.

In the end, we only made it as far as Twisp and decided to reassess things. I still am obsessed with the idea of a border-to-border route, but I am headed back to the drawing board to rethink things a bit.

I know a few folks have ridden (or planned to ride) parts of the trail, so I would love to hear any feedback. Was the route workable? More importantly - did you have fun? I am very interested in hearing what others have to say.

[speedycog]

@briandunnington - what ever happened to WAMBR? I see the domain has expired.

[seanstokley]

Here's a Canada to Oregon dirt road option.....


http://www.backcountrydiscoveryroutes.com/WABDR

[bekologist]

Washington state riding, lots of good riding in the Okanagan. Bikepackers de reguiur trip is to aim to ride the highest road in the state to slate peak, and there's plenty of riding in there N of, between Mazama and Omak. Dead horse curve leading up to slate peak is a pretty cool ride esp coming back into Mazama!!!    there's also a ride to connect slate peak to 20 on a broad singletrack descent (might be illegal Natl park ride, i forget)

I see this is a thread about stitching a LD ride together, my snippets are disconnected sections of good riding in the state.
 
Heading into the center of the state, though, there is very limited practical options for riding between stehekin and Leavenworth. This is truly cruel hike a bike wilderness, and most is  designated wilderness area, off limits to bikes. Riding is limited in that transect.  Good riding along the W side of Lake Chelan peters out.  In answer to ChrisX's question about riding W of Chelan, or stekehin to 20, i will say nothing obvious or easy. if there was a way to get into stekehin with a wheeled vehicle from the N, someone would have put in that track already.  A person could carry their bike through the North Cascades national park section of Cascade Pass and pick up the road into stekehin from the West. that is patrolled heavily by rangers though, a rider would likely encounter a greenshirt and a ticket if they were riding up and over cascade pass. riders could certainly do a link up of riding Canadian boarder to Mazama/highway 20, hike bike over Cascade pass, ride into stekehin, take boat to chelan (or better yet, 25 mile creek) and, ride from chelan (25 mile creek to leavenworth across the entiat/forest service land.


Theres great riding in and around Lake wenatchee, north of US2 and leavenworth. I recommend FS6700 from stevens pass area up and over Nason Ridge (ride it w to e).

 Exploring off the Mountain Loop highway between arlington and darrington is excellent place to bikepack, ride road that leads past COAL LAKE off mountain loop, fantastic views there - and ride to Monte Cristo!

A holy grail for a bikepacker in Wa state is doing the historic wagon route of the Naches Trail between 410/Rainier and Yakima.

In my riding experience, the Olympic peninsula is where its at for bikepacking in WA state. Quilcene crossover FS 27/28 PA to quilcence is stellar, absolutely stellar overnight (road heavy) trip from Seattle.  Some fella wrote a book that should be available, i've got an advance copy here..... 'around the olympics on a mountain bike' which stitches together years of bikepacking trips, or an ambitious week long circumnavigation of olympic natl park.

 The rational place to stitch together Washington's premiere long distance bikepacking route is a loop around the Olympics.

[carbonguy]

Exploring off the Mountain Loop highway between arlington and darrington is excellent place to bikepack, ride road that leads past COAL LAKE off mountain loop, fantastic views there - and ride to Monte Cristo!

A holy grail for a bikepacker in Wa state is doing the historic wagon route of the Naches Trail between 410/Rainier and Yakima.

I marked the Naches Trail on my map a while ago, but didn't realize it was such a destination!
http://www.nachestrail.org/
It just moved to my 'do-this-year' list. Checking the nearby Snotel site on Sawmill Ridge, snow should be melted at the pass (5000 ft.) by next weekend, if it's not clear already. Trail is closed to motorized use November 15 through July 15.

Does anyone know how busy the Mountain Loop area is due to the Oso re-route from the mudslide?

And on the topic of mentioning random trails: the Columbia Plateau trail is another one that's sure to keep one busy for a few days.

[mathieu]

A holy grail for a bikepacker in Wa state is doing the historic wagon route of the Naches Trail between 410/Rainier and Yakima.

I have been looking for a route from Yakima up along the Little Naches River and down in the watershed of the Green River. I found a set of forest roads that crests at about 5000 ft. However my Benchmark Atlas of WA-state has the upper Green River basin as 'closed to the public'. Does this mean that all forest roads in that area are banned for bikers?

[bekologist]

I marked the Naches Trail on my map a while ago, but didn't realize it was such a destination!
http://www.nachestrail.org/
It just moved to my 'do-this-year' list.

Oh, it isn't the most scenic tour in the state  but it's historic - its how people rolled into western Washington. I think the historical connection makes it.

green river basin...closed to the public?

 yes, it is the seattle watershed and you will be ticketed unless you rode it at night, maybe. Used to be a whole set of towns, hot springs, railroad up that way... you can still ride it part way, just not all the way through...

The iron horse trail into north bend from cle elum and all the way to yakima.... tunnel on iron horse trail under snoqualamie pass is the longest tunnel open to bikers and hikers in the united states. http://youtu.be/bhvolhZEH5U  steer to the iron horse trail instead, it's a great, great ride.

[dbrainbucket]

A couple of years ago three of us modeled a ride around the Washington discovery motorbike route mentioned previously. But we detoured/re routed for the single track descents. Rode from eburg up over naenum/mission ridge and down Devils gulch. Up and along Entiat ridge and down the mad river trail. Up the Entiat and over shady pass and down Devils backbone and pot peak trails. Around the south end of lake Chelan, out grade creek and into the Chelan sawtotloyhs from the s. Angels staircase and foggydew trail to the Methow. Starvation, golden staircase, back to Winthrop. Overall picked some of the "classic" oldschool mtb trails of the cascades connected by lots of beautiful first road.

A more "touring" route  I enjoyed : from the west (hwy 20 or a variation of the above) to Winthrop, over (?) pass to conconully, up the sinlehekin to oroville, and basically straight east through chesaw. Cerlew,  north port, metaline. One could continue into ID through granite pass, but I returned via 20. Much more of a backwoods tour than a trail ride, but pretty quiet and remote overall.

Fact is, if you want to get across the washington cascades on a bike, legally, you're on hwy 20 (pretty nice on a weekday), hwy 2 (more in a bit...), I90 (no thanks), or one of the southern passes near rainier (I think the motor bike route does this). The best route I've found across the north/central portion is over Stevens pass via tye creek, into lake wenatchee via smithbrook (mentioned above), and over Entiat ridge to entait/Chelan. I guess it depends on where you're trying to get to, but I'm also just partial to the ncw. Again, a "touring" route, but with plenty of wildness and vertical.

[chrisx]

What about next july?

looks like someone has come up with a route
http://crosswashington.weebly.com/the-route.html

Do these 2 routes work together?
http://ridebdr.com/WABDR
http://oregontimbertrail.org/
California is going to be tough to do north to south  
A couple of summers ago, I was able to ride some dirt roads from Klamath Falls
south past Lassen Volcanic National Park.  Then around Plumas it got hard to find north south roads.