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Winthrop, WA - Mt. Baker Loop

soph9

New member
On October 2nd, 2010 my partner and I decided to take an over night trip and leave that day, Saturday. here was our route....

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About 200 miles each way of gorgeous Twisting scenic highways through the Northern Cascades of Washington State and many side road trips on to forest logging roads and just undeveloped dirt roads in general.

We left on Saturday at about 1515 in the afternoon. Got a late start because one of our headsets was not charged.:p

No pics from the 1/2 day ride because we needed to try to get to Winthrop before dark but that didn't happen. Got caught about 50 miles outside Winthrop riding int he pitch black on the mountain pass and doing everything we could to avoid hitting deer. I came close to hitting one but just missed his butt. We were glad to get to town and by 2100 hrs we were checked in at our cabin at the Virginian Lodge.

I have some video from the dark, just need to edit....coming soon.
 
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Oct 3 - heading back home all ready

So, this was just a short over niter and what a great time we had. Weather was very Fall like, down to 7 degrees Celsius and up to only 18 degrees Celsius. Slight drizzle and roads were pretty clear even of leaves.

This is what we woke up to on Sunday the 3rd....

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Our Cabin

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More sky in the early AM....

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Even before we had breakfast or coffee we went exploring up the hills in this very interesting place. Surrounded by mountains but at the same time on the edge of the Okanagan which heads up to Canada as well. We call this the interior and it is almost like desert with sage brush and in the summers can be very hot.

We rode up the north side of Winthrop where there were these cool looking houses and of course would equal dirt roads or something. Of course we did not have a map considering we decided to leave the same day we did.

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Very cool riding up in the hills mixture of sand, sage brush, hard pan, rocks, gravel and just dirt.

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Finally came down from the hills after we would end up eventually on someone's Private Property. Seems like all the little dirt roads off the main one would be someone's driveway:whistle Still a lot of great riding! here is our little breakfast joint outside town.

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Beautiful Horse across the street!

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Winthrop - Cute Western little town

Winthrop is a town gone back in history....all the buildings are very western like and there is such a great feel to this small town. Very simple and friendly...we will be going back and staying longer to explore the off road riding more!

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Past peek foliage season but still lot's of gorgeous colours left....

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We started to head to Rt. 20 to ride to Mt. Baker but decided to take a detour instead!:dance

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My HD helmet cam decided to die on us...well...to be honest I have three batteries, and I obviously put the one in the camera that was not charged but at the time I just thought the cam was misbehaving...so no video of this little detour but it was great fun to ride. One steep area and loose gravel and roots, dirt and NO CARS!


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My Heidenau K60 tires have 18000 KM on them and are still doing the job well!

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Taking our Time

We leisurely took our time heading home on Sunday. Stopping whenever we wanted and checking out the scenery. Over cast skies made for easy riding. This is my favorite time of year to travel on a bike...crisp cool days and I can rider for hours!

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This a beautiful area!

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Heading towards Mt. Baker we got to see this herd of wild Elk. There is a wildlife viewing area and apparently this herd is pretty predictable and make a showing through out the day and there they were when we showed up!

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They were really far away so I tried and zoom in as much as I could with my Panasonic Lumix point and shoot camera.

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Finally we got to the road that leads you up to Mt. Baker Ski area....and we once again took a side route just for fun...

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Nothing but a cliff and steep drop off between us and the road...

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Riding in to the CLOUDS!

When we got to Mt. Baker the lower area was in the clear but as we headed up the mountain we literally road in to the clouds and you could only see a few feet in front of you. I started to feel claustrophobic....:p


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Colouful above treeline foliage....

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Had a bit to eat at a place we will never go back to....and then headed back to the border.

What a great way to spend 2 days and a night...we will do this trip again being so close to home and spend way more time on the dirt....would recommend anyone heading out this way to take on Rt. 20 and if you really want some tar with unlimited hair pin curves and twisties...the road to mt. baker is amazing and fun if you can beat the cars!

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Until NEXT TIME, happy riding!
 
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Short video of our ride to Winthrop...got caught in the dark, dodging deer and we are now adding Denali aux lights...should help with night riding. The camera lens was not completely level and I did not notice it until late in the ride...this is full 1080p if you can watch it that high...

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