Columbia Gorge Gravel

Wel­come to Ore­gon! This morn­ing, our guides will pick you up from any down­town Port­land hotel and we’ll enjoy a 1.5 hour shut­tle to the start of our first ride on the south­ern shoul­ders of Mt. Adams and Mt. St. Helens, the south­ern most active vol­canos in Washington. 

We’ll fit our bikes and ride to up a beau­ti­ful for­est grade past Pan­ther Falls before touch­ing our first grav­el. Gen­tly climb through emp­ty for­est roads that have reclaimed extinct vol­canos to a series of small lakes for our lunch. 

After a deli­cious lunch, the route deliv­ers the reward of the morn­ing’s climb­ing as you descend for almost 30 miles back to the Colum­bia riv­er. Hop back to the Ore­gon side of the riv­er to the adven­ture for­ward town, Hood Riv­er, home for the next 3 nights.

After break­fast, we’ll shut­tle 5‑minutes to the Coy­ote Wall trail­head, where we’ll start our morn­ing ride. This route offers up beau­ti­ful gorge views and stun­ning wildflowers. 

The Coy­ote Wall trail will take us into the town of Lyle, Wash­ing­ton where we’ll hop off our bikes, enjoy a post-ride bev­er­age and lunch, then shut­tle to Hood Riv­er, Oregon. 

Enjoy break­fast at the hotel and get your fill of pre­mi­um Pacif­ic North­west coffee. 

This morn­ing, we have a dif­fer­ent adven­ture planned. Grab your bathing suit and sense of adven­ture — we’re going white­wa­ter raft­ing! A quick 20-minute shut­tle will take us to the White Salmon Riv­er, we’ll meet our raft­ing guides and hit the river. 

This after­noon is yours to explore. Walk around down­town Hood Riv­er, enjoy an ice cream and browse the shops, book a mas­sage at the hotel or take a wind­surf­ing les­son (not includ­ed) in the nation’s wind­surf­ing capital! 

Lunch and din­ner are on your own and our guides can offer restau­rant rec­om­men­da­tions — there are many won­der­ful options to choose from. 

Pack your bags. Suit up and ped­al to break­fast. We’ll eat at one of our favorite break­fast restau­rants near our hotel, and then get back on our bikes! By the end of the ride, we’ll end up in The Dalles at our next hotel. Door to door! 

The Dalles is a french word for “rapids of a riv­er through a nar­row gorge” — and you will quick­ly see where the name comes from. There are a few dif­fer­ent routes to choose from today, and no mat­ter which way wem go, we will have incred­i­ble views and van sup­port along the way. 

We’ll enjoy lunch at Mosier Creek, before fin­ish­ing our ride and check­ing into our hotel. 

Tonight, we’ll dine togeth­er at the Bald­win Saloon, a his­toric restau­rant that has been a gath­er­ing place for more than 100 years. 

After break­fast this morn­ing, we’ll shut­tle to the Colum­bia Hills His­tor­i­cal State Park sit­u­at­ed on the shore­line of the Colum­bia River. 

We’ll enjoy a ride on the Dalles Moun­tain Loop. This ride starts with a chal­leng­ing 10 miles climb with views every ped­al stroke. Before you know it, we will crest the ridge line and find our­selves in a very dif­fer­ent envi­ron­ment of open farm fields of south Cen­tral Wash­ing­ton. Enjoy the grid roads of the farm lands as we head for the wind­mills which will mark the entrance of a unique and fun descent. 

The descent is of the local­ly famous Mary Hill Loops road. This play­ground was the test road bed for con­struc­tion a style to man­age car traf­fic of the ear­ly 20th cen­tu­ry, out of the steep walls of the Colum­bia Gorge. This stretch was refur­bished and resur­faced in 1998 and is a closed road now used for long board com­pe­ti­tions, sport card ral­lies and bikes! 

For lunch, we’ll stop in at Gunkel Orchards Fruit Stand for fresh, local hand-picked fruit and oth­er goodies. 

After our ride, we’ll shut­tle back to down­town The Dalles for our sec­ond night in town. 

After break­fast at the hotel, pack your bags and hop on the bike. No shut­tles need­ed this morning.

Today’s ride will reveal a fan­tas­tic trans­for­ma­tion as we climb away from the the Colum­bia riv­er, ped­al past orchards, through scrub oak for­est with Mt. Hood in the distance. 

Slow­ly the road will tran­si­tion to tall pines and cool­er moun­tain air as we approach the stag­ger­ing Mt. Hood. The van will be wait after after a fast, fun descent for your shut­tle up to the infa­mous Tim­ber­line Lodge best know as the hotel of Stan­ly Kubrick/ Stephen king’s The Shining.

If you want to test your legs, skip­ping the last shut­tle turns this into an even 10,000 feet of climb­ing for the day.

We will have a great din­ner at the lodge and enjoy the piece of sleep­ing above timberline.

Eat a big break­fast at the hotel, the last day has anoth­er big ride. We will start with a short shut­tle before get­ting back in the saddle. 

This ride is one you won’t soon for­get. We start on a gen­tle grade of pris­tine tar­mac for a cou­ple miles of warmup before turn­ing to a beau­ti­ful grav­el climb high on the north face of Mt. Hood up to Cloud Cap. With the glac­i­ers, pines, long lines of site to Mt. Adams and Mt. St. Helen’s to the north, the climb will go by too fast. After pho­tos and a walk around the his­toric, and out of ser­vice, lodge remain­ing on top of this ridge, we will descend the 10 miles of the grav­el climb to tar­mac where you will coast 25 miles of paved down­hill out of the for­est, through the orchards and back into Hood River. 

Eat a great meal at Kick­stand, shed the span­dex and hop into the van for a scenic hour shut­tle back to Portland.