September 2009: The Lost Coast

Before meeting the group, we spent a few days exploring central Oregon and the Willamette wine country south of Portland. Approaching from south-east of Portland, we found the Wheatland Ferry offers a novel way to get across the Willamette River between Newberg and Salem.

While in the wine country, we hired a driver so we could enjoy the wines without worrying about driving afterward. We visited a handful of wineries and explored the countryside for a day. In some ways, the Willamette wine country is more scenic than the Yakima and and Walla Walla regions - rolling countryside with forests, a variety of crops, and well-landscaped wineries. The most interesting wineries we visited were Stoller, Penner-Ash, and Anderson Family.

After leaving the wine country, we drove to Bend via R Highway 242 east of Sisters. This is a spectacular road that is well worth the extra time. We met the group in Bend and continued toward Lake Almanor. Traveling south from La Pine to Lakeview the highway passes 2 large "lakes." Silver Lake has long been dry, and Summer Lake was little more than a few swamps and dusty sand flats (there may be more water in the spring, its at best a large, very shallow lake). Just south of Lakeview we passed Goose Lake - another mostly dry lakebed which sent blowing dust across the highway (looked like smoke from a forest fire).

The drive from Lake Almanor to Geyserville was pretty nice. We drove through the canyon on CA Highway 70 then on to Clear Lake. CA 20 between Williams and Clear Lake is OK, but I didn't think it was anything special. After crossing the mountains we drove around the east, then north shores of Clear Lake - this is a slow road with lots of traffic, congestion, and vacation homes (the southern route may be faster). In several places we could smell the rotting algae in the lake, prompting discussion about the horse that died from inhaling noxious gasses from rotting algae in France

Once we were passed Clear Lake, we took on CA Highway 175, which is one seriously twisty road. This may well be the twistiest road I've driven - it folds back on itself in numerous 15mph corners as it crosses the mountains to Hopland. You know the road's twisty when the roundabout at the end feels like a sweeper.

From Geyserville we crossed over to the coast on Skaggs Spring Road (a GREAT road) then worked our way north looking for twisty roads along the way. We ultimately found ourselves in Fort Bragg, home of the North Coast Brewing Company - the beer is great. I gorged on Old Rasputin Russian Imperal Stout and Brother Thelonious.

CA Highway 1 (Pacific coast) is a beautiful road, but there's a lot of traffic. (Of course, we were driving it on Labor Day weekend.) The northern portion of this highway (from Fort Bragg to US 101) is spectacular (scenery and curves). We were concerned we'd be caught in RV-parades, so we left early in the morning (7:30 AM). While this increased the risk of deer encounters, we were successful in having the highway to ourselves.

After Highway 1, we drove north through the Avenue of the Giants to Mattole road. The Avenue of the Giants is nice, but if you're driving Mattole road to the Lost Coast there are opportunities to see redwoods in Humboldt Redwoods State Park. Mattole road to the lost coast is a "must do." Its a rough, but exciting drive, and the lost coast is a beautiful, secluded stretch of beach.

Heading north into Oregon, we found that US 101 in southern Oregon (CA border to Coos Bay) has a lot of passing lanes, which help in getting past the heavy traffic, but it could still be slow on a busy weekend. North of Coos Bay there are fewer passing lanes and the road gets slower. My favorite stretch of the road is between Lincoln City and Tillamook. North of Tillamook there are some nice roads in northwest Oregon. OR Hwy 53 and 47 come to mind.

Overall, we avoided large cities on this trip, but a couple of small towns were particularly onerous to get through (long, slow, many stoplights). They are Lebanon OR on Highway 20 west of Albany and Longview WA between the Highway 433 bridge and Interstate 5.

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