Cascades and Central Oregon

[keithu]

Sunday was my last day home before five weeks of work travel, and the wife was out of town, so the FJ and I headed out for 370 miles of asphalt-coated bliss.
 
I started with a less-than-blissful drone down I-5 to Eugene, and then turned west on OR-126 and OR-242 to McKenzie Pass. This pass follows an improbable 1860 wagon road through lava flows between Mt. Washington and the Three Sisters. 
 
I continued down into Sisters and then over to Redmond and north on US-97 and US-26. In Warm Springs I diverted north onto Agency-Simnasho Highway, which delves through the heart of the Warm Springs Indian Reservation. This was a new road to me, and it doesn't seem well known. But it might just be my new favorite road in Oregon. Phenomenal. 
 
I headed back to US-26 briefly and then hit NF-42/Skyline Road past Timothy Lake and back over the Cascades. This is one of those serpentine single-lane goat paths that you find all over Oregon. Why did someone bother to pave a road through a forest linking Nowhere to Noplace? Many of these roads are mossy and riddled with cracks or potholes, but the surface condition of NF-42 is excellent. It reminds me of what Quartzville Road used to be like 15+ years ago. NF-42 eventually ended at NF-46/Clackamas River Road, which I followed south to Detroit and then west to the Willamette Valley. 
 
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[redfjniner]

Nice ride report and pictures. Know the roads well. You must live in the Salem area, as I would have taken the 224 to Clackamas and home in Vancouver. At first I was wondering why you didn't take 22-US20-126 to 242 and stay off I-5? Then I see you were returning on 22. We need to get together and do a ride after I put mine back together.
 
I got over there in June and took these:  Got the one with the horses on the road over to US 26.
 

 
 
 

 
 

[keithu]

I live in Albany. Normally I would have taken US-20 up to OR-126 and then OR-242, but US-20 is currently closed east of Sweet Home due to bridge construction.

[redfjniner]

I live in Albany. Normally I would have taken US-20 up to OR-126 and then OR-242, but US-20 is currently closed east of Sweet Home due to bridge construction.

Isn't that construction almost done.  By by curvy road.  Hello smooth easy to ride road.  Can hardly wait to travel it and see how it turned out.  20 has always been one of my favorites going east from the Valley.

[keithu]

I don't think they're removing any of the good twisties heading up to Tombstone Summit, they just have to rebuild a bridge that keeps sliding down the mountainside.
 
They are bypassing some twisties on US-20 between Corvallis and the coast, which is fine because there was always too much traffic on that road to enjoy it. The twisties will still be there, but the traffic will be diverted to a new main highway from Eddyville to Toledo.