San Francisco to Vancouver Road Trip

[audreyh1]

Have been to the Oregon coast a couple of times. Two places to think about seeing are Stout's Grove in the Redwoods (where they filmed parts of The Empire Strikes Back);this is located in Northern California near the Oregon border and my favourite location on the coast, Harris Beach State Park (a wonderful beach with a nice campground close to Brookings)

See attachments:

- Redwoods in Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park, view from Brown Creek Trail. 101 drives right through the park.

- Harris Beach State Park on the beach.

 

[Lsbcal]

If you mean August 15th or so, very likely you would have good weather. The snow I referred to was a week or 10 days after that, and I was goat hunting above Hart's pass which I think is itself at 6000' or so. Lately we have had quite good weather. I am not the best witness, I just tend to deal with when it comes and I mostly am optimistic that the weather will be nice.

Harts Pass to Jim Pass | Trail Running || SeriousRunning.com

Ha

Thanks Ha. I won't be doing any goat hunting.

Once we took a vacation in the southern Sierras (Mammoth Lakes) around Sept 3. It was cold and grey. Not any fun and on hikes one couldn't sit down for long (cold logs and cold granite).

 

[Lsbcal]

But not in Oregon or Washington. There kids don't return to school until September.

I guess we'd not be competing with California families. Wasn't aware of the Oregon/Washington school situation, rats. Thanks for the tip.

 

[audreyh1]

In 2008, I spent about 2.5 months (mid-May through July) traveling in the Northern California Redwoods area, then the entire Oregon coast photographing the incredible scenery.

- Enderts Beach - just south of Crescent City, CA
- View from Cape Blanco, OR - the Cape Blanco lighthouse was a real treat

 

[audreyh1]

I guess we'd not be competing with California families. Wasn't aware of the Oregon/Washington school situation, rats. Thanks for the tip.

Yep - I discovered this last year when we spent August and September in WA.

 

[JakeBrake]

We visited Washington State several years ago pulling a Coleman camping trailer behind an F150 pickup. This was in July. We were snowed in at Crater Lake and we were socked in with fog at Mt. St. Helens. Centralia had a very nice free municipal campground in the middle of town.

We were planning to camp on the Pacific Ocean in a campground in the Olympic National Park. To my surprise I discovered that every campsite in every campground on the ocean was occupied. At the time there was no reservation system. Strangely, almost every campsite was occupied by an RV with California license plates and there was almost no one at the campsites. They were like ghost towns. I have always strongly suspected that the Californians were parking their RV's at the campsites and commuting to the campgrounds on weekends. We found a place to stay in Forks. The weather was so bad that all the loggers were hanging around town. Almost like "Axmen".

 

[haha]

We found a place to stay in Forks. The weather was so bad that all the loggers were hanging around town. Almost like "Axmen".

Did you come back with a newly discovered love of human blood?

I live in Washington, and have almost forever. If I lived in California, I would almost never leave to vacation in Washington. Reliable sun improves almost anything.

Ha

 

[Brat]

As I look through this list I notice that Timberline Lodge isn't on the list. [URL="http://www.timberlinelodge.com/"]http://www.timberlinelodge.com/[/URL]

As you plan your trip drive the Coast Highway south. There are lots of viewpoints on the ocean side, you won't need to cross traffic to use them.

Once you have an approximate date for Portland PM me. I live just a few blocks from the Japanese Garden, mentioned earlier.

Have you considered visiting Victoria? There is a fast passenger only ferry from Seattle to Victoria: Victoria Clipper Ferry | Ferry to Victoria BC | San Juan Islands Ferry . If you want to take your car a nice routing would be to take the Bremerton or Bainbridge Island ferry (both the same fare but the Bremerton trip is longer so you will see more), drive to Port Angeles, take the ferry to Victoria. The Royal BC Museum and high tea at the Empress Hotel are not to be missed, visit (have dinner) the Buchart Gardens. Drive to Sidney, catch the Tsawwassen ferry at Swartz Bay if you want to see Vancouver, BC. Washington State Ferries also operates a ferry to Anacortes out of this same terminal. Advance ferry reservations are a necessity.

 

[Meadbh]

I'm bookmarking this thread for a future road trip from Vancouver to San Francisco. Read backwards, of course!

 

[Gotadimple]

OK, here's my ideal trip, if I was heading north from San Francisco and wanting to do a loop through Vancouver BC. I would want a variety of scenery, and as the OP said, shorter drive times. Understand that you will hit traffic congestion on I-5 north or southbound between Chehalis WA and Eugene OR. This is the main route for large truck traffic and combined with urban sprawl makes for a less than interesting view point.

Heading north on the coast road up to the Redwoods - visit the state park and the National Park. Sleep in Arcata or Crescent City - check out the bay at Crescent City.

Continue north on 101 to Bandon and Reedsport - plenty of places to stop and view, and to stay over. The Oregon Dunes are magnificent.

Fire up the GPS, and head east on one of the state highways. Aim for Eugene. Nice places to stay, a university town (lots of wineries to check out along the way).

Head east from Eugene towards Newberry Oregon and visit the volcano there. Head north towards Redmond Oregon. Along the way visit the High Desert Museum in Bend. High Desert Museum: highdesertmuseum.org There are plenty of places to stay in Redmond.

By now you've seen beaches, forests, and dry vistas of eastern Oregon. Continue north on I-97 to the Dalles and cross the Columbia River into Washington. Then depending on your likes, either:

Head west on Washington 14. Stop by a Stonehenge replica dedicated to WWI veterans, then onto to Maryhill Museum (about 3 miles), then onto Maryhill Winery (nice restaurant too!). And then further west to I-5. Northbound, stop at Mt. St. Helens (again plenty of places in the I-5 corrider to pull off and stay). Continue north using recommendations from others here about Seattle and northward (including west across the Sound to Olympic National Park, or east from Tacoma to Mt. Rainier, and or east from Sedro Wooley to the North Cascades National Park).

or

Continue north on I-97 through the Yakima Valley observing the high desert. Once in the Yakima area there are many wineries to visit if that is what you like. Also good places to stay and marvelous views of Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Adams, and Mt. Rainier.

Continue north to Ellensberg and on to Wenatchee. Head west at Highway 2 to the Bavarian town of Leavenworth. Great walking, shopping, eating, sleeping. Continue west to I-5 and then north to Vancouver.

Return: Vancouver to Victoria. Victoria via Ferry to Pt Angeles, then onto the Olympic National Park. West out of Pt Angeles to Forks and south along 101 all the way to Astoria. Continue down the Oregon/California coast, or move east onto I-5 for a faster drive home.

BTW, I think this is more than 2 weeks, but it gets you out of the I-5 corridor to the eastern parts of Oregon and Washingon. In eastern Oregon you also get great views of the the large and small volcanoes in the Cascade Mountains.

-- Rita

 

[FIREd]

Wow, thank you for all the excellent suggestions! I have started a notebook to keep track of everything.

I like a variety of sceneries - urban, coastal, mountains, forests. And it sounds like this trip could have it all.

 

[Brat]

But I would drive this route in the reverse. Hgwy 101, the Coast Highway, is mostly 2-lane, tourists should drive it south bound.

 

[shortstop14]

Lots of brewpubs in Portland, but it's hard to go wrong. I like Lucky Labrador, since I can sit outside there with my dog. Rogue, Laurelwood and Deschutes are good ones, too. The McMenamins on the river in Vancouver WA is nice as you can sit outside right on the water.

 

[shortstop14]

Lots of great ideas in this post, if time allows. The I-5 corridor is really a pretty boring drive, but useful if you're just trying to cover ground.

The loop around the western Washington Olympic Peninsula is really much more entertaining - beach, mountains, rain forest, Hurricane Ridge in Olympic National Park.

Bring your rain gear in May or early June, spring in the Northwest can be kind of moist.

 

[NW-Bound]

I just thought of something.

If one times his trip to be in Ferndale by the Memorial Weekend, then he can watch the original annual Kinetic Sculpture Race.

An excerpt from Kinetic Grand Championship - Humboldt County, California follows.

Kinetic Sculptures are all-terrain human-powered art sculptures that are engineered to race over road, water, mud and sand. Kinetic sculptures are amazing works of art; many are animated with moving parts like blinking eyes, opening mouths, heads that move side to side and up and down.
​

Further info from Kinetic sculpture race - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia follows.

The concept of kinetic sculpture racing originated in Ferndale, California in 1969 when local sculptor Hobart Brown "improved" the appearance of his son's tricycle by welding on two additional wheels and other embellishments. Seeing this "Pentacycle," fellow artist Jack Mays challenged him to a race. Others later joined in creating a field of twelve machines that inaugurated the first race down Ferndale's Main Street during the town's annual art festival. ​

The motto of Brown as the founder of this race is "Adults having fun so children will want to grow older".

This is one of the events I'd like to see in my RV travel some time. Who knows, one may even see Trombone-Al in the race.

For downtown parade, see this:
Kinetic Sculpture Race 2 - YouTube

This is typical of the water race segment:
Wipeout! - YouTube

 

[Helen]

The loop around the western Washington Olympic Peninsula is really much more entertaining - beach, mountains, rain forest, Hurricane Ridge in Olympic National Park.
.

Hurricane Ridge is incredible!!!!

To be honest, it is hard to go wrong with the PNW. It is a very beautiful part of the country.

Aug - Sept is the best time to visit. October is typically nice as well.