Another route
Buck Pilkenton
Baker City is much like Sturgis, Daytona, or Douglas – after the bikes have ridden on, the towns, the watering holes and eating places, the people, the scenery, and the roads, especially the roads, are still there. While the Hells Canyon rally map is an excellent guide to the paved roads, and the rally itself is an event worth attending, there is another two wheeling attraction here – dirt roads, and they too are present year ‘round.* Sixty miles may not seem like a long ride, unless one is sitting in traffic, but howzabout sixty odd miles, never touching pavement ‘til the half way point, making a 7 mile jog into town for some great bistro food, running back out the same way then leaving pavement and returning to the starting point over a 7200 foot pass?
Starting the ride from Sumpter Valley and a panoramic view of the Elkhorns, break away from the highway and start up one of the roads heading north, towards the mountains. The Elkhorns branch off the main spine of the Blue Mountains, and the area of their junction is the highest part of the Blues. As the Elkhorns run southeast and drop in elevation, they also spread out. Think of a left foot pointing east. Work your way up to the instep, then part way down the outside of the big toe, then zigzag along between and across the toes. Each toe is a ridge, each space between is a draw, so the road meanders along into the ravines and around and over the ridges. There are some fine views, a creek crossing, and all good riding. If we were to wind our way around to the last toe, there is a nice little drop off to less steep road. One of the charms of the local roads is their verticality. At the bottom is pavement, a veritable county lane, smoothly paved, with nicely banked right angle sweepers at the pasture boundaries. Seven scenic miles puts one in downtown Baker City, where some very good food is served. Gas up and head out the same road that you came in on, viewing the other 180 degrees of scenery, pass the place where we emerged from the woods, and less than a mile later, peel off to begin another climb.
On one side of the Elkhorns is an exposed outcrop of limestone of commercial quality. On the other side of the Elkhorns are the Union Pacific tracks. In between is a 7200 foot pass, about 1000 feet higher on the Baker side from flat ground. Back in the 50s and 60s there was a man who ran a fleet of dump trucks from the quarry and over the pass to the lime kiln by the tracks, hauling loads of high grade limestone. Now by fleet, one might picture a flotilla of shiny Petes or KWs, identical but for cab numbers. There may indeed be such a fleet, somewhere. The reason that this fleet took the pass instead of an easier route was that it was a collection of worn out beaters bearing neither insurance nor license plates (not needed then on USFS roads). Mechanical failures were frequent, and it was said that one could walk the route and assemble a truck from fallen pieces. Yet, under the rules of the day, the operation had a perfect safety record, as no one was actually killed. This bit of trivia I learned while working with the trucker’s son, who spent many a teenage hour fixing trucks. Sadly, all that is left are the quarry sites themselves, and, visible from the pass, a white stain marking the remains of the kiln. Enough of the kiln remains to make a worthwhile scenic detour past it on the return to the mountains from lunch. It puts me in mind of the guns of Navarrone.
We’ve putted the lane, swooped the sweepers, and as it begins to seem that we are approaching a thousands of feet high wall, we see another right sweeper coming up. But, we go straight, up a gravel road, pass through a few turns and past some homesteads. Since we peeled off of the tarmac, there has been a slight but increasing grade to the road, and as we pass the last house the trees close in and the grade becomes more insistent as we climb through a mixture of road, rock garden, and switchbacks, including some fairly steep pitches. Where the woods open up there are some very nice views of Baker Valley and the Wallowas. A good moderately pitched run gets a person from the last switchback to the summit, where a break is mandatory. Dropping down the Sumpter side the road is generally moderate slope textured with waterbars and mini ravines, with a few steep pitches leading down into switchbacks. We go past the quarry itself, with opportunities to explore limestone traction. Then, onward down into the woods and putt around and down and back to the starting place by a choice of several routes.
One of the charms of the pass is that it is heavily affected by erosion, both loss of roadbed and by stuff, usually limestone gravel, flowing down onto the road. Early in the season, this might mean that bikes can get through where rigs chicken out. So what kind of machine is needed? There is a trailhead at the summit, and a great view, so there are often rigs parked there. Discounting ATVs, the predominant ilk seems to be shiny pickups and SUVs. Saw a shiny Subaru once, no rocker panel damage. I’ve been up there on a stock sportster. So, while there are sections that will have one thinking trials course, getting up should require no more than a comfortably low first gear and sufficient cooling capacity to handle long steep grades at slow speed. Downhill sections will require adequate retardation, whether brakes, low gears, or boot leather is a matter of choice. While there are no cliffs with high drop offs, there are 100% slopes starting at the edge of the road.
There are many fine dual sport rides in the area, this has been just one of them.
· Though they may be under snow, usually November – April, but sometimes October to June, or December to February. Depends on elevation too. And adventurousness. Pulling a BMW backwards out of a snow and mud** hole is quite aerobic, but that’s another story.
** Blue Mountain mud is available spring and sometimes fall. Distinguished by its red clay content, it comes in regular, slick, and extra greasy. They look alike.
Nortley Buck