I'd been saving this one for a sunny day, and this was it. According to the route guide on the Mid Valley Bicycle Club website, this ride would go out highway 34 over the Coast Range summit, and then down to the town of Alsea, and then return on a back road past Alsea Falls and over another summit before dropping back down to the community of Alpine on the Bellfountain road. It's listed as a 72 mile ride from Corvallis, but I figured it would be under 60 from my house in Philomath.
Getting started on Highway 34
From Philomath there are two routes to the coast. Highway 20 goes to Newport and is a straighter shot at 47 miles. Highway 34 meanders south and west and is 63 miles to Waldport. 34 also gets a lot less trafic than 20.
The road doesn't start climbing right away but sort of rolls for about the first 8 miles. Then you start the 3 mile climb to the summit. It turned out to be a very mellow 4-5% winding road through the dense coast range forests. Just before the summit was the turn off for Mary's Peak.
Mary's Peak Recreation Area
If you really want to add vertical to this route you take the side trip up Mary's Peak. At 4,097 feet it's the highest point in coast range. There is still snow on the road a few miles up and I wasn't going to try it on this ride, but as it's only 11 miles from my house I'm sure I'll be doing it soon.
It's downhill from here all the way to the ocean.
From the summit it's a fast mile or two before slowing down as the road joins the north fork of the Alsea river and opens into a nice valley. Unfortunately clear-cuts are still all around. At least most, but not all, of them show signs of young health trees that in another generation will be nice forests.
The North Fork of the Alsea River
The town of Alsea came at 20 miles from my house. It could be a pretty town except for the huge clear cut which fills the view to the west. At least the town is still alive, probably because it it the only stop between Pilomath and Waldport, themselves both pretty small towns. I ran into some other riders who were stopping at the market, but after confirming the route with them I rode on, figuring they would catch me later.
From Alsea the route leaves 34 and starts out south on the Alsea-Deadwood highway. Seeing this brought back some memories from when I first came through this way in the early 70's. I was living on the coast and a couple of times came over the mountains and took this road in either direction. North to Alsea and then to Corvallis, or South to Deadwood and then to Eugene. It was all gravel logging roads back then, so to see it called a 'highway' was interesting.
It's only a mile or so south before you head east again on S. Fork road. That being the South Fork of the Alsea river. This is a single lane with turn-outs that winds along the river climbing back up to the Coast Range summit.
The South Fork of the Alsea River
After joining the river there was one short steep section of 6-7% which made me think this was going to be a much harder climb than the first summit, bu that turned out not to be the case. The rest of the way was a mild 4-5% through some lush woods of Maple, Alder, and Cedar, with Fir forests on all the ridges. By now the clear cuts were pretty well hidden. I saw maybe 2-3 cars for the next 10 miles making this the best part of the ride.
It was about 7 miles up the S. Fork to Alsea Falls. This is a popular destination for locals and has a campground and day use area, with lots of hiking trails. We had come up to check it out in the winter and I was curious to see if it was still roaring.
The falls looked even better in the sunshine.
I sat by the falls and had a snack. When I got back up to the road some of the riders I had seen earlier were stopped. So I rode out from here with Joe, John, and Maria. It was another 2 miles or so to the summit, but it never got very steep. All in all about as easy a climb as you could hope for. From there it was some fast down hill and then some mostly downhill to the community of Alpine, which I wrote about on my ride to Monroe. Here I turned north again on Bellfountain road for the last 17 miles back to Philomath. This turned out to be the killer. Bellfountain is all rolling with some pretty good climbs. It's one thing to do them at the start of a ride, but quite another after already doing 2 summits. I was beat when I got home, but what a great day. The loop was 56 miles.