I have been missing my get away drive that I always had at my disposal down in CA. There is nothing like living 10 minutes away from the Angeles Crest Hwy. It was consistantly ranked on the top 10 driver's raods. Now living up here I have spent a good anount of time looking for something fun and beautiful to drive.

What I have found is the State route 706/national park hwy/paradise lonmire rd. It is not too far, but looks amazing, with some simply stunning views. Go to google maps and zoom into the street veir around "reflection lakes".

I set two routes starting from where I live in the kenmore/Bothell Area. The direct route takes about 2 hours to get there. If I took only back road twisties, and minor freeways it would be about 3.5 hours to get there. Any back road trips would need to wait until spring as it takes 410 and 123 which are closed for winter.

I know that it would be a long drive even taking the direct route, but I have yet to find a more promising strech of road anywhere else. Any more local suggestions would be welcome as a two hour drive is more than I would like for my quick escape from reality road.

I have also posted this on a miata forum as well, as most miata drivers seem to have about the same mind set as s2k drivers. My only requirement from the s2k drivers, and especially the miata drivers would be to try and keep stupid behavior that will attract unwanted attention to a minimum.

N.L.

 

The road from the west is only open to Paradise in the winter, goes up to 5500 ft. (so it gets a lot of snow on it), and the speed limit in the national park is 25-30. During the time you'd want to drive on it it's crowded with people in minivans, there's a $15 entrance fee, and you'd have a park ranger up your ass very quickly if you tried to drive it like you want to. There's a fun section further down the road, above Alder Lake, but again, it's usually busy, and it's known to be dangerous due to people cutting corners to go faster.

Either way, probably not the drive you're looking for, although it is a beautiful cruise in the summer. 410 past Crystal and 123 don't typically open until at least Memorial Day, and the Stevens Canyon Road shortly after, depending on snowpack and avalanche danger.

 

Damn. Well there goes that idea. I didn't even think about it being park of the park system. That generally rules most fun roads out.

I'm still interested in some sort of drive, and am still looking for a good road far enough out of the city to be fun.

 

Summer before last I drove to Idaho from Bellingham. I left early on a Thursday morning and took the North cascades (Hwy 20) because I was in no rush. No one was on the road, the weather was amazing, the scenery is the best in our state and road is a blast to drive. From Kenmore your only a hour away to the start, just drive to Winthrop, have lunch, drive back.

 

I will show you some good ones I like to hit up around Issaquah if you want

 

That is an awesome drive BTW!

 

HWy 20 came up on the Miata forum as well. It looks like a great drive. The loop that was described to me was go across 20, then down to 2 and come back to monroe. the only down side that I could see is that from the starting point to monroe is more than 6 hours. That doesn't even account for getting to and from the start/end of the drive, so some poeople would be looking at 9-10 hours of seat time.

Another good looking drive could be starting/ending in Jordan road-canyon creek. Take mountain loop hwy around and up to 530 and back down to where you started. It would still be a bit north of most folks, butis only about 15 minutes from I-5 in marysville. The loop would take about 2.75 hour according to google. I may have to give this one a test run this weekend if we get any sun at all.

 

Well I lose again. Mountain loop is paved for the first 30 miles, than is UNPAVED for 13 MILES!!! and then goes back to paved for the last 9 miles. I guess that you could always tun around when you got to the poor part, but that sort of negates the loop aspect of the drive...

Well thanks wikipedia for saving me the confusion durring the drive.

 

Yeah, I was going to mention that I was pretty sure that road wasn't in good shape. It was closed for quite a few years due to a washout on the Granite Falls/Verlot side of things.