2009 Mt. St. Helens Tour Official Thread

Oh Man, this thread brings back good times.



McClellan look out on Curly creek rd.

 

Lets see. If I attach a grounding strip to the gerbings wires and drag the strip along the ground behind me....I just may be OK....Maybe. I still have a piece of that tree in my garage from July 2006. Seems like yesterday. I should be able to make it providing it is the June 13 ride.

 

JS that looks very doable in 2days 430miles or 690km is nice days ride. RVFR
has a point we might want to hit Winthrop first will be there for lunch you will need a rest after rockport-winthrop, thats one of the best northern bits. after winthrop its not as exciting. if we stay in yakima and hit the good southern routs the next day all rested. by the end of the day were back on hwy 9 close to home and if we run short of time we could hit I 5 hopefully we can avoid that.shouldn't be a problem even with lots of stops days are long lots of day light. if you wanna make it a 2nighter why not leave friday afternoon and stay in winthrop or Leavenworth 2 really neat towns! would need a good 4hrs of daylight to get to winthrop just a thought. if some think that 400miles a day is to much.
Looking Good:thumbsup:

 

OK Randy make sure you be nice to the wifey lots of roses for valentines!!
It for a good cause LOL ... it sometimes works at my house:smile:

 

She is still a no for the SF trip in conjunction with my Reggie trip. So it looks like we will be doing the SF trip the following month on a ....ho hum.... airplane.

OK See....Reggies in April. SF in may...Mount St Hellens in June. ANd a three week camping trip in August Septemeber to who the hell knows where. Going to be a busy year for hwy travel for the Randy Family

 

If we go clockwise and you don't like this, will you still come but do it in reverse?

 

LOL I can figure it out either way ya go.

 

"Man don't bring up johnny law, that spoils the fun. either way I'll be watching this one play out, once it's known whats going on I'll more than likely intercept, Haha, some where."


I get it. An interceptor pun.

 

OK JS, I'll take a stab at it

Seems you'd prefer 1 night. so how about.

Clockwise.

Abbotsford to Winthrop 4 hrs, Lunch

Winthrop to Yakima 4hrs (via #97 and Chelan) Dinner - Overnight

Yakima to Carson (via #97 and #14) 2hr 45min- Early lunch

Carson to Enumclaw (via Wind River, #25, #99 to Spirit Lake and back,#12, #123,#410) 5 hrs

at this point hit the I-5 for the border 3 hrs (Dinner somewhere in here, Everett?)

These times don't include rest stops, but then again they are based on speed limits . This way makes second day somewhat longer. But allows the more technical riding done in the morning.



Plan B. Leave Fri. afternoon for Winthrop, overnight in The Dalles Sat, blah, blah, blah making it like 4 hrs Fri, 7 hrs Sat. 8 hrs Sun.

 

Bastid's I have a race that weekend and can not come out to play. Have fun and let me know how it turns out. We must make many trips to Baker and Winthrop this season.

Cheers, Ryan

 

updated map 890miles with no slabbing on dreaded I 5. come back west side of Rainer.
check the map out if any one can make some suggestions that would be great especially the locals that know those Rd's

Harley-Davidson - Ride Planner - Shared Ride Plan

 

Ryan not sure if those dates are confirmed yet. still aways away
what dates will work for most ? also it looks like with extra mileage if we avoid I 5 we would leave Fri afternoon stay in Winthrop and stay south of Yakima like Kingsley suggested. post up people what works and who's interested

 

Do some checking if you are planning to ride up windy ridge. I went by there last July and the road was closed by a large slide.

 

Local roads change every day. I'd be checking general road and weather conditions as often as is possiible. My map program has auto updates that are pretty good about construction and shut downs.

Lots of difference on one side of Ranier and the other. Easten WA is a desert. On the West side expect anything. Went to Superbike one year with a bud of mine. We were just South of Olympia and the sky opened up. I think I saw Noah in a Zodiac with an Evinrude before we got the hell off the slab and rode 101 all the way to San Fran.



Avoiding the I-5 slab is pretty hard to do. The West side of Ranier puts you guys on 410. Turning North in Enumclaw will bypass some of the slab. Traffic, depending on the time of the day is generally not too bad. Expect bottlenecks on surface roads around Federal Way, Tacoma, and especially Seattle. Seattle has freeway lanes that are one way at certain times of the day. Use them or you will be sitting in traffic.

For you Canadian guys, the slab HOV lanes are legal on bikes.

 

Thanks for that. I was wondering cause did not see any signs last summer to say one way or tuther. They are here too.

 

The signs are few. You might run into an asshole cager or two that cannot read signs and might do a little foaming at the mouth or fist waving. Worse than that is the not understood procedures for loading ferries. Bikes to the front, meaning bikes can bypass the cage lines.

The symbolic return gesture is a hand signal based upon the one which we (most of us) were cautioned against lest we grow hair in our palms. This is one not found in any of the MSF lists of handy-dandy hand signals.

 

Too funny....

 

Looking for more info on the Mt baker ride.

Is it still on and when?

Just finalizing vacation plans, I hope that the ride coincides with either vacation days or days off.

Thanks.
__________________

 

Reading way back in the post, I think June 13-14 was the first try. There are a lot of Alpine roads in there, so we will have to check on them closer to.

Borg, if you're over in the LMD, drop us a note. We're always up for a scoot.

 

As already stated, Windy Ridge was closed all summer last year due washouts from record snowpack. Hopefully, barring late opening and/or no funding for repairs, it'll be ready for this season.




Here's the link with road conditions, FS99 (Windy Ridge) is near the bottom.

Recreational Opportunities In Gifford Pinchot National Forest

Also, if this road looks like what you're after, you can head west off 97 at Goldendale, might even shave a few miles. I can put up a detailed map if you're interested.