CMA Fastlane Road and Trails 2015

My initial goal was to ride up to Paradise which I got to in short order. I did mention people, right? Well it looked to me like a hiker's convention. There must have been 200-300 people there in various types of hiking gear click to enlarge - some quite serious - getting ready to head up the mountain. Yesterday I forgot my flashlight - today I forgot decent walking shoes. My pants have zip-offs to turn them into shorts, but I forgot my sandals which would have allowed me to take a hike or two myself. Dumb. Hiking around in my motorcycle boots on a hot day is not my idea of fun. So I had to content myself with looking around the hiking area and building, as well as the nearby hotel. I wouldn't mind coming back suitably attired. But for now, I bought a t-shirt for me and a sticker for my bike and headed on down.

Now, my route had me going from here to Sunrise, which is another overlook of the mountain, but pretty spectacular - or so I'm told. I didn't have the route in my Garmin correct and completely missed my turn to Stevens Canyon. I couldn't figure it out from my map, so I decided to just head back down to Packwood (Skate Creek Road, take two) where I had lunch. I've got nothing but time, so I wasn't really messed up over this. I had lunch at Cliff Droppers, a snow skiing themed hamburger place on the west end of the town. click to enlarge It was a great "handcrafted" burger with a chocolate milkshake and it's another place I can definitely recommend. Plus seeing all the old familiar skiing equipment was cool.

After lunch I headed north on US12, turned left on to SR123 which takes me over Cayuse Pass once I turned on to SR410. I see the sign for Stevens Canyon, making a mental note to turn in there coming back. I'm out of the park at this point by the way. I see the turn for Sunrise and head on along until I see a reader-board sign telling me there are significant delays due to high traffic. In other words - way too many dang people!! Sure enough, I round a corner and there's already a line of cars as far as I can see and we're not even a mile into the area (it's 15 miles to the top). Forget it. I can't see sitting on my bike for hours. I'll come again some other day.

I take the turn for Stevens Canyon which has me in a line to get back into the park, taking about 30 minutes in the hot sun to enter the park again. Once through it's another pretty drive back towards Paradise. Once I see the Paradise road again I figuratively slap my forehead for not seeing the now-obvious Stevens Canyon sign. Oh well. Live and learn. I retrace my steps down the mountain again, stopping at one point under the forest canopy to sit down, pull my boots off, and take a little break. Man did that feel good! After passing under the big log entrance again, I stopped to take a picture of it. Here's where another huge long line of cars were waiting to get in. My advice to you if you're wanting to visit the park is to get there early!

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