Left about noon. Temps in the low 50's and mostly cloudy. Roads nice and dry. I headed out Bellfountain road, past Bellfountain to Alpine. These are not really towns so much as communities. Alpine is really miss-named. Its at most 400' above sea level, with no mountains is sight.
I guess its been a while since they did much business here.
Here is the road sign at Alpine.
When it warms up a bit, I'll get an early start and take the road to Alsea Falls, and Alsea. We did in the car and it's quite a climb, over the divide of the Coast Range. That said it's only 1200'.
Today I kept going south on Bellfountain Road. There was another good hill to climb and then this.
Its been a while since I've been up close to a clear cut. It seems amazing to me that they would still log this way. I used to run back and forth along these steep hillsides back in my tree planting days.
I turned left off of Bellfountain on Coon Road. It looked like if I continued on Bellfountain it would go to Glenbrook. Another day. Coon Road headed east into the valley, but not before another good climb. Then it was a fast downhill into Monroe.
Monroe is a real town on highway 99w. It has a high school which they seem very proud off. This sign is on the north end of town.
From here I headed north on the highway. I wish I had looked at the map because I could have avoided this part of the highway, which did not have much of a shoulder. The shoulder got better and I found I had a wind at my back and was cruising along at 20 mph. By now the sun was shinning and it was nice and warm.
I took off on a side road and got on Old River Road for a few miles. Then back to the highway for a few more fast miles, until I turned off on Smith Loop. I had taken this a few weeks ago and it is a very pleasant ride though the valley.
Smith Loop comes back to the highway, but a quick left is Llewellyn which heads west. I crossed Bellfountain and continued west to Fern road, which I took back into Philomath. All told, 50 miles. AGR.