I remember being out in Mountain Home Idaho on a motorcycle trip and meeting an older guy in his 70's who was riding a Kawasaki 650 enduro solo and told me he'd come all the way from Sacramento California 1000 miles and hardly touched pavement. I was pretty inspired. Unfortunately I lost his contact info. Interested in doing a similar trip. Possibly with a truck camper. Can anyone direct me to info on this? Looking to do a trek from San Francisco up through Eastern Oregon to Northern Rockies.
Sacramento to Rockies Off Road?
#1
Posted 08 April 2014 - 07:42 PM
#2
Posted 09 April 2014 - 09:08 AM
If I were pondering such a trip, I'd first acquire the Benchmark Road and Recreation Atlas for each state I was planning to traverse. They're spendy at around $25/state, but I can think of no better method of getting a "big picture" feel for route planning. Where a route crosses NF lands, as surely it will wherever forested mountains and hills exist, a look at that NF's ORV map may help, or at least some telephone calls to NF district ranger offices to determine, for example, that "FS Trail 342 running up Pine Creek, over High Pass, thence down Spruce Creek" is in fact open and plausibly drivable in a truck.
Once in Idaho, I'd look at the Magruder Corridor and/or the Lolo Motorway as routes to follow, and would look favorably at the Big Sheep Creek/Centennial Valley/Gravelly Range routes in far southwest Montana.
Foy
#3
Posted 09 April 2014 - 04:02 PM
There are lot's of gravel roads in Nevada that connect into California and Oregon, and like Foy said, pick up a couple of state atlas's and use them as a guide. One thing though, lots of those nice Nevada gravel roads turn into paved roads at the California state line and most gas stations are on paved not gravel roads. It will get more interesting to drive on gravel/dirt rods only the further west to go; lots of these type of roads are on BLM/USFS lands so once you decide on a rough route, you probably will need to get detailed maps from them-lot's of private land inter spaced with public land out there, and you need to know who owns what. In NW/NCentral California especially, a possibility of running into dope gardens is high in some of the back country areas and they are not to friendly to outsiders! So rough plan your trip using the atlas and come back on line here and we can help with more exact data. Have fun planning-always a fun part of any trip!
Smoke
#4
Posted 10 April 2014 - 06:11 PM
I drove a quite a few miles through Nevada on good gravel roads. I also drove a few on brutal washboard road. I'm not sure you or your rig could survive a few hundred miles of washboard road. Plan carefully and have an exit route if you end up on an endless washboard road. Not so much a problem on my DR-Z 400s, but a very slow drive in my truck with camper.
Also tagged with one or more of these keywords: Off road, enduro, cross country, trails
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