Day 12

Route 12 promises a motorcyclist a good time and a cage (car) rider nausea!

Rural Idaho's Route 71 was no slouch in the scenery department.


The following pictures were taken on the Hell's Canyon Scenic Byway.

I am camping in Hell's Canyon, Oregon tonight. Despite the name, it is quite "heavenly"! I sure didn't expect to get on the internet out in the middle of nowhere but someone has an unsecured WiFi Access Point!

I left Hamilton, Montana around 8:30 this morning under cloudy skies with a temperature of 53 degrees. It remained more cloudy than not for most of the day. The high was around 73. And I only had one significant downpour to deal with.

My first objective was to ride the Lolo Pass which is Highway 12 that heads out of Lolo, Montana to the west. It was a delightful ride with long sweepers which are not challenging to navigate but offer up a good feeling as you lean through those turns. The road follows the river through the Bitterroot Mountain Range. It is beautiful and quite isolated.

I also had a good time on Route 71 that had a lot of tight turns (vs. sweepers which are challenging) as I headed northward toward Hell's Canyon.

The rest of the day (only about a third) found me in interesting country on roads fit for car travel. :-( But most of that was in Idaho which I think is about the loveliest of places. It is green and mountainous. I spent hours smelling the pine trees as I navigated those "car roads".

Hell's Canyon is really lovely. I am in a very nice campground (that I think that the power company subsidizes). The camping charge is $10 for the night!

After I set up camp I headed out to take the 22 mile (one way) ride throught the canyon to the power company's dam. What a wonderful, beautiful, twisty ride. It was worth the 423 miles I travelled today to reach Oregon and this lovely canyon.

Tomorrow I plan to head north through Oregon and back into Idaho to eventually head west into Washington.