This is for the carefree and the optimists … an unplanned trip with no fixed destinations and a loose schedule. My trip set off mid-pandemic at the height of fire season in the Northwest. Both had their silver linings. Being solo in the middle of this couple of weeks I chose a few things I wanted to see, a rough endpoint for the time I had, a few roads I wanted to drive, and an interesting place to end up and hunker down for a few. This route to get from Seattle to Montana and back looks like it was drawn by a 5-year old. I prefer “big kid with a fun toy”.

This route was more about the drive than the destination, but an amazing number of beautiful things were seen along the way. Caution: much of this route can only be done in the summer months.

Heading south from Seattle in summer it is good to go around the east side of Mt. Rainier on SR410, setting the GPS for Cayuse Pass. Consider an optional stop at Rainier’s Sunrise Visitor Center via the 3,650 ft elevation gain Sunrise Road. (This closes earlier than Cayuse and Chinook passes, and no RVs are allowed.)

One winter option would be to cross to Chinook Pass to Highway 12, continue to Yakima and take the 42-mile detour up Yakima River Canyon and back. Then travel down 97, the Yakima Scenic Byway, to rejoin the rest of my route at the Columbia River Gorge.

On my route I continued south on Highway 12 to Randle and then turned left to the forest roads for Bingen on the Washington side of the gorge. There are a couple of options to continue south. I had turned on “Avoid Highways”, but not turned on “Avoid Unpaved Roads”. This was a terrible mistake in the Aston. Use your technology. In Bingen I can recommend the cabins at the funky Society Hotel. There are lots of lodging options across the river in Hood River, Oregon.

Since this is a vacation-length drive I’ll mention that Mt. Hood is a good side trip from here, with a great road from the north and a beautiful national park lodge at the end.

From there I went up the Gorge a ways to connect with Highway 97 south until Shaniko, before heading east again to the fossil country. Set your GPS for … wait for it … Fossil. The Kimberly and then Monument. Basically you’ll being enjoying the open roads around and through the John Day fossil beds. From there I headed north to Walla Walla for great accommodations.

For the drive from Walla Walla to Missoula you should definitely set “Avoid Highways”. That said, staying on Highway 12 the whole way will take you across the rolling Palouse, past Lewiston and into Idaho, where it becomes the Northwest Passage Scenic Byway. This follows the stunning, twisty Lochsa River. Traveling during a pandemic and forest fires may have been unusual, but there was practically no other traffic on the Idaho section of this road. Perfect driving.

Once in Montana it was time to turn west again. After overnighting in Missoula I headed north on highway 93 to Rivalli, reminiscing of days not so long ago when Montana had no speed limit on their highways. Before turning left onto Route 200, it is worth a small detour to the Bison Range.

Route 200 itself does not look drive-worthy on the map. But it winds beautifully along the North Fork Clark River all the way to Lake Pend Oreille (the earring) and in my experience it is always sunny. Your mileage may vary. The obvious place to stop over is Couer D’Alene, named by French trappers as “Heart of the Awl”, which makes no sense.

The next stretch is a long one, but with every terrain possible east of the Pacific. It starts out through the rolling fields of the Palouse, crosses the Columbia River into Idaho, and then winds through the mountains to McCall on beautiful Payette Lake. This day needs a map.  McCall is a great setup to drive Hells Canyon, and doesn’t name alone evoke a great drive?

Head west past Council to Oxbow on Highway 95, and then take Hells Canyon (NFD 454) Rd north to the end of the line. There appears to be a great looking dirt road shortcut from Council to the Snake River which I did not try. Again, a map will help explain.

Driving up and down Hells Canyon is impressive by any measure. It is 10 miles wide and a mile deep. And the road along the Snake River is stunning. But it is actually the road over the mountains to Joseph, Oregon, that is the greatest drive. Truly one of the great driving roads in the Northwest. There appears to be an alternate way to Joseph via Imnaha that could be even more of the same, but by now you have had a long day. I did not take it, but if you have time it looks very promising. Joseph is a typical American small town. You can push on if you want bright lights, big city, aka La Grande.

By now in my trip the fires and smoke were getting pretty intense, so there won’t be many pictures. To avoid the fires and closed roads I blasted down the freeway (boring!) to Ontario, back on the border with Idaho. This was also because I wanted to see the high desert in Oregon. Something you don’t expect to see in the rainy Northwest. Going west on Highway 20 takes you through the Great Sandy Desert. Not so great, really. It is geologically interesting, true. For hours. And there are no forests to catch fire. The land is an enormous flat basalt lava flow, generally brown, and melding with the brown toned smoky skies it was monotonous, in the true sense of the word.

But my destination was McMinnville, and the mountain drive past Mt. Jefferson was great. There was no time to stop for pictures, though, as every other road was being closed for fires as I passed. Happily I found a route through and arrived at the very funky and completely deserted Vintages Trailer Resort. Between the latest COVID variant, the roads close by fire, and the now very dense smoke, I was the sole and only guest. Fortunately my plan was to stop driving and hunker down  for a week of WFT (work from trailer), that turned out to be well timed.

For diversions the town of McMinnville itself is very welcoming, with good local food and promoting the wineries of the Willamette Valley. More delightful to a gearhead is the surprising presence of Howard Hughs’ famous Spruce Goose a few minutes from the trailers. The Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum was an unexpected delight. With no people, but planes littered everywhere, and shrouded in smoke it had a terrific post-zombie-apocalypse vibe. I’ll leave you with a few images of that odd time and place.