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Loop around Mt. Rainier from Olympia, WA


Salish900

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You know it's a holiday weekend when you wake up thinking you are doing one thing with the family, and find out that has fallen through, and everyone just goes off and does their own thing with a sense of leisure knowing you've got a WHOLE NOTHER DAY TOMORROW to play!

My thoughts turned to a full day motorcycle ride around 9am when other wonderful plans got moved to Monday. I felt the urge to go somewhere further afield, and so decided to head over the newly opened Chinook Pass. 

The entire loop was about 316 miles, took me about 5 hours total with stops, and was absolutely heaven. 

From Olympia I went up 5 to the turn off that puts you eventually onto 410. You pass through some boring and scenic towns before hitting the foothills and mountains on the northern flanks of Mt. Rainier. Once you leave syphilization, it gets really pretty. On the way up you get some stunning views of Rainier, and winding your way up and up to the pass is delightful. Once at the pass, which opened this week, I found a whole mob of people in every pullout enjoying the lingering snow and even skiing down the slopes after hiking up them. It was quite festive. The views are incredible near the top. It tops out at 5,400 feet. High for WA, and a foothill in CA. 

On the back side of Chinook you drop into a truly majestic glacier carved valley that reminds me of Hwy 20 up north, or countless others in the Sierra. It's just a lovely, lovely ride all the way down to where the rivers converge from the two canyons. You follow the very large Naches River down to just above Naches where the smaller Tieton River comes down from White Pass. Headed up Hwy 12 along the Tieton is quite nice, though I don't find it as scenic as the 410 canyon. 

Up and over White Pass, which is only 4,400 and had no snow, and I then found myself in the largest Memorial Day extravaganza I've ever seen any town hold. Packwood was packed beyond overflowing with humanity, booths, and mayhem. The road was backed up for miles. It took FOREVER to get through the town. Although there are more scenic and enjoyable rides off of 12 back to Olympia, I stuck with 12 to 5 to make it fast as my butt was getting tired of sitting. 

I can't begin to count the number of cars I passed along this loop, taking full advantage of the 900's ability to spin up quickly. Not quite my FJR or Connie, but not bad. I do find a downshift the 900 if I really need to accelerate quickly and am only going 60 or so. 4th does nicely at that speed. I've also found the bike has a real kick as you get up near 7,000 rpm. I need to look up the dyno numbers. You can feel it strongly. 

A lovely full day ride. Amazing scenery, volcanoes, snow and wet, dry and pines, rivers and fields, rubber and fuel. 

IMG_2846.jpeg

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That is one of those rides where you stop and shake your head in disbelief at the stunning scenery and realize just how fortunate we are to have this in our backyard to enjoy whenever we want.  I highly recommend riding all of our main highway passes again in late fall when the leaves have turned colors, truly spectacular.

I have been stuck in the Memorial Day weekend madness in Packwood before... not fun!  I try to avoid all travel on holiday weekends now because I hate traffic so much.  Whenever I come up behind trailers or RV's clogging up the roads I get evil thoughts in my head about handlebar mounted rocket launchers... 🤬

 

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***2015 Candy Red FJ-09***

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4 minutes ago, betoney said:

… I get evil thoughts in my head about handlebar mounted rocket launchers... 🤬

You say evil; I say pragmatic. 

😇

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1 hour ago, betoney said:

That is one of those rides where you stop and shake your head in disbelief at the stunning scenery and realize just how fortunate we are to have this in our backyard to enjoy whenever we want.

So true. As I rode I did just that. I'm lucky enough to have hiked and visited most of the wild places in North America. Between our mountains and the Salish Sea, it's hard to beat WA. It defies comprehension. Even Norway, as gorgeous as it is, doesn't have the volcanic elements we do. And CA is my home state and hard to beat for scenery, but things are quite far away from each other. You can't do a Joshua Tree, Sierra, Mt. Shasta and Humboldt loop in an afternoon! 

When I dropped down onto the dry side, I watched closely for the first Ponderosa Pines. So much transition here so quickly, and the raging rivers all over the place. Yikes. And if I had wanted, I could have gotten back to Puget Sound and gone sailing or sea kayaking in the same afternoon. 

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16 hours ago, Salish900 said:

You know it's a holiday weekend when you wake up thinking you are doing one thing with the family, and find out that has fallen through, and everyone just goes off and does their own thing with a sense of leisure knowing you've got a WHOLE NOTHER DAY TOMORROW to play!

My thoughts turned to a full day motorcycle ride around 9am when other wonderful plans got moved to Monday. I felt the urge to go somewhere further afield, and so decided to head over the newly opened Chinook Pass. 

The entire loop was about 316 miles, took me about 5 hours total with stops, and was absolutely heaven. 

From Olympia I went up 5 to the turn off that puts you eventually onto 410. You pass through some boring and scenic towns before hitting the foothills and mountains on the northern flanks of Mt. Rainier. Once you leave syphilization, it gets really pretty. On the way up you get some stunning views of Rainier, and winding your way up and up to the pass is delightful. Once at the pass, which opened this week, I found a whole mob of people in every pullout enjoying the lingering snow and even skiing down the slopes after hiking up them. It was quite festive. The views are incredible near the top. It tops out at 5,400 feet. High for WA, and a foothill in CA. 

On the back side of Chinook you drop into a truly majestic glacier carved valley that reminds me of Hwy 20 up north, or countless others in the Sierra. It's just a lovely, lovely ride all the way down to where the rivers converge from the two canyons. You follow the very large Naches River down to just above Naches where the smaller Tieton River comes down from White Pass. Headed up Hwy 12 along the Tieton is quite nice, though I don't find it as scenic as the 410 canyon. 

Up and over White Pass, which is only 4,400 and had no snow, and I then found myself in the largest Memorial Day extravaganza I've ever seen any town hold. Packwood was packed beyond overflowing with humanity, booths, and mayhem. The road was backed up for miles. It took FOREVER to get through the town. Although there are more scenic and enjoyable rides off of 12 back to Olympia, I stuck with 12 to 5 to make it fast as my butt was getting tired of sitting. 

I can't begin to count the number of cars I passed along this loop, taking full advantage of the 900's ability to spin up quickly. Not quite my FJR or Connie, but not bad. I do find a downshift the 900 if I really need to accelerate quickly and am only going 60 or so. 4th does nicely at that speed. I've also found the bike has a real kick as you get up near 7,000 rpm. I need to look up the dyno numbers. You can feel it strongly. 

A lovely full day ride. Amazing scenery, volcanoes, snow and wet, dry and pines, rivers and fields, rubber and fuel. 

IMG_2846.jpeg

Superb report. How was the tarmac?

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