I originally intended to see White and Chinook passes, but the Goat Rocks fire forced me into Mount Rainier National Park. Needless to say, I wasn't too unhappy about it.
I'd always thought I'd see Paradise for the first time with my dad since he likes to ride motorcycles through Mount Rainier National Park, but things didn't turn out that way.
Previous albums from the area:
More after the break…
To Packwood
I started at 5:30 this time, since this was going to be a fairly long ride. To avoid dealing with the I-5 closure, my route took me across SR-520, then south on I-405 to SR-169 in Renton. As I rode along the latter, there was a Mustang that really wanted to get around me, but didn't get the chance to pass prior to turning off in Covington.
Along the rural stretch of SR-169, I noticed that it was very cold in the lowlands and river valleys, but quite warm in the highlands. After being chilled around Lake Washington, I had been thinking about dawning another layer, but the warmth convinced me otherwise. This warmth was likely due to the smoke, which reduced visibility considerably. What really caught me off guard, however, were the strong windows. I usually wouldn't associate such winds with warmer temperatures.
As I neared Enumclaw, I considered my breakfast options. First was the Krain Corner diner, which wasn't open quite yet. I then headed over to the Kettle Cafe as I had last time. Seeing that its usual opening hours at 7 AM, I waited the 10 minutes, and when it still hadn't hopened, I looked online and discovered that it had shut down since I was last there!
Looking around a bit on my phone yielded Charlie's Cafe, which I arrived at only after making a couple wrong turns. The restaurant was fairly busy and the food took a while, but the ambiance was nice and the food was worth the wait: pancakes, bacon, and eggs.
As I returned to my bike in the parking lot, I asked a guy who was also leaving if this strange weather was normal since I wasn't from the area. He also wasn't.
I left Enumclaw via the usual route toward Orting, then continued south along Orville Road, only to be stuck behind a large dump truck until it turned off just before the Puyallup River crossing. Further along the road, a pickup truck tailgated me for a while until I upped the pace a little. It was around this time that the idea that I should pick up oil for my bike popped into my head, which remained a theme throughout the day.
After passing through Elbe, I got gas then stopped in Morton as I was feeling a bit off, likely from the smoke. To try to help with that, I grabbed a Diet Pepsi from a convenience store. As the cashier checked me out, I asked if the highway was closed on this side of Packwood, but he didn't have a clear picture of where the closure was, shown by how he didn't know if I could get to SR-123.
Before leaving, I tried to strike up a conversation with a big motorcycle group who was parked out front. They said they were headed to Windy Ridge, but didn't seem to keen on talking to me.
There wasn't much traffic on US-12 between Morton and Packwood thanks to the closure. As I approached the latter, I started seeing signs directing people to various camps related to fighting the Goat Rocks fire, and when I arrived in town, most of the businesses were closed. Among those was the local Napa Auto Parts, which meant that I'd have to find oil elsewhere.
While I got my photos, I saw multiple convoys of (National Guard?) military vehicles headed past the road block to help with the fire.
Detour to Paradise
Since I didn't have a route plan at this point, I observed folks rolling through town. Several of them made a left onto a side street, so I decided to set my GPS's destination to Greenwater and check that out.
I was a little apprehensive until my GPS snapped to a through route along Skate Creek Road, a minor road through Mount Rainier National Park. Not long after I'd climbed a bit, I saw a dual-sport headed the other way, which was a decent sign that it was a reasonable road.
At my second stop, I noticed that a family was doing car camping. Pretty strange considering the fire and smoke danger, but who am I to judge at this point?
I eventually made it to the eastern edge of Ashford (SR-706), which meant that I'd enter the park for real if I hung a right. Not long after doing so, I ended up in a long line of cars entering the park. I was hot and hungry, so it wasn't the best time.
After paying for a day pass, I ended up stuck in a line of cars behind two new minivans who were randomly deciding to go between 20 MPH and 30 MPH on the 35 MPH road the whole way to Kautz Creek. While I also pulled off there to get some photos, there wasn't really much of interest so I didn't stay long.
My next stop was Longmire, where I got a lunch of a burger and seasoned fries at the National Park Inn restaurant. While I ate, a drunk guy in an adjacent chair kept commenting on everything people were doing.
After eating, I walked around to take photos of the interesting buildings in the area.
Before leaving, I had to check out the historic Longmire suspension bridge, which Bicycle Quarterly had familiarized me with.
When I returned to the main road, I ended up at the tail end of a group of four sportbike riders who were headed the same way as me. It didn't take long for all of us to end up stuck behind a slow sedan, and it took even shorter for them to start passing the car on a this winding road with several blind hairpin turns! The last of them nearly ran head-on into an oncoming car and had to duck behind the sedan at the last minute. After they were all gone, I gave a shrug to the driver of the sedan and stayed behind them since I didn't want to die!
After all that, I was at Christine Falls and had to stop for photos when I saw the sights. While I was walking around, a middle-aged couple were standing on the shoulderless bridge to get photos of the falls and I heard an older couple commenting that we aren't supposed to stand on the bridge. Thus, while I got my photos, I sat on the wall so I wasn't blocking traffic.
The day was starting to get long, so I decided to skip a few sights like the Nisqually River Bridge. After all, it wasn't all that hard to get out here under normal circumstances. That said, I did pull off to get a shot of my bike with Mount Rainier.
The climb up to Paradise was very curvy, but I had a good time with it at my reasonable pace. When I did get to Paradise, I kept seeing signs about parking lots being full, but I didn't have any trouble finding an open spot.
While the mountain itself was quite striking, much of the environs were unfortunately obscured by smoke.
Similarly to before, I decided to skip checking out the Paradise Inn, mainly because I doubted that I'd be able to find parking out there.
Return Home
There weren't many cars on the back side of Paradise, nor was there much smoke, which gave some awesome photo opportunities. I wasn't alone, either, as I saw someone modeling for the camera.
After making a note to save the Reflection Lakes for next time, I stopped after a tight hairpin behind an old motorhome because I saw Stevens Canyon opening up before my eyes.
Across the canyon, I saw that cars were moving along much more slowly than I'd expect, which seemed strange to me. After making my way to the other side of the canyon, the reason became obvious: there were gravel sections due to construction. Not the most fun on my Ninja!
As Stevens Canyon Road made its last hairpin-filled descent to SR-123, I ended up stuck behind that RV from earlier with another car, so I wasn't able to go very fast.
Traffic was nil on SR-123, and still fairly light on SR-410 until it descended to the White River, where I ended up stuck in a line of cars.. I was starting to feel out of it again at this point, so that wasn't ideal. Thankfully, I found a rest stop in Wapiti Outdoors, where I got water, a Diet Coke, and a Snickers bar. They had some tasty-looking homemade huckleberry ice cream that other customers were enjoying, but I didn't want something so heavy.
Across the highway was the Naches Tavern, which I noted for another time.
As I descended further along SR-410 to Enumclaw, I ended up stuck in another line of cars. The last car in the line was barely keeping up, so I passed it when the opportunity presented itself, and that last car eventually disappeared in the distance behind me.
After a quick stop for gas in Enumclaw, I arrived at the Napa Auto Parts less than a half hour before closing. I wasn't too familiar with the layout of the store, so I asked an employee who was doing stocking work about motorcycle oil and he pointed me to the front of the store. All they had was Mobile 1 "racing" and "V-twin" oil, so I bought a bottle of the former and poured it in my bike. All the while, someone was working on their pickup's underside in the parking space next to my bike. He must've been having a pretty bad day!
Oh, and the air was brown with smoke at this point, which only worsened as time went on.
Rather than dealing with the Auburn are, I headed back the way I came along SR-169. Traffic was pretty light, so it was definitely the right choice.
Traffic wasn't so light on I-405, but it did keep moving. Being in stop-and-go traffic while choking on wildfire smoke wasn't exactly something I wanted to experience.
By the time I got home, it was 7 PM. After that long day, I wasn't too happy when my garage door opener quit working, especially when I'd replaced the battery only a couple weeks prior. A fresh battery didn't help, either, so I messed around with its internals and got it to work. (Later, I would repair some cracked plastic, which ended up solving the problem.)
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