Hi everyone I'm Steve and I'm from South Jersey and wanna plan an overland trip to the state of Washington... I wanna use as little asphalt roads as possible... Was thinking I'd head to the great Lakes by road and try and find as many old logging trails to the Pacific Ocean in California and the drive up the coast to Washington.... Any information about ur area of the country would be appreciated to help me prepare for my trip... I'm not planning on going for a year or so, I gotta get all my ducks in a row before I leave home and I wanna make sure I'm prepared with plenty of information before I leave.... Thanks in advance for any information you provide me with!

HAPPY JEEPIN EVERYONE!

 

Sounds fun. I wish I could help more but the only roads I know of head from north to south for the most part. The problem with the majority of the east side of Washington is its largly farm country so I don't know how many "forest" roads you'll find. Navigating through the Cascade mountain range is easy on dirt and I know the NE corner of Washington has a lot of forest roads too. If someone from the east side of the state can get you from Spokane to say Ellensburg or Yakima then I could get you to Enumclaw or North Bend on dirt roads.

 

Thank u Washington is the part of the trip I'm looking most forward to... Well that and the rubicon trail

 

Post up when you are coming out and we will run the Rubicon with you!

 

Definitely will do! I'm doing all my research now to plan the trip

 

Some years back one of the four-wheel drive magazines ran a series of articles about following the Lewis & Clark route in a Land Rover. They got in as much dirt road as they could, though some of the route had to be run on pavement. I'm guessing those articles are 15 - 20 years old now, likely Four Wheeler - as that was what I was reading mostly back then. No, I don't have the magazines anymore, but if you could find them, they might provide some good research material.

One section in Idaho is still available, as an unpaved route. It runs more or less parallel to Hwy 12 from Lolo Pass on the Idaho-Montana border, down into the lowlands. This is the Lolo Motorway: http://www.fs.fed.us/r1/clearwater/L...ving_lolom.pdf

There are lots of routes like this available - take a map and look for the unpaved roads, they're all over the west. Old logging & mining roads, and some that just traverse ranch country. A lot of them are visible on computer mapping programs, but those don't always tell you if the roads are private - across vast ranchlands, or open to the public. It can take a little time to figure that out. Many are National Forest or BLM roads now. The Forest Service publishes good maps of their areas, including the dirt roads, as does the BLM.

Most of the roads are actually in pretty decent shape and don't require much "off road" capability, unless the weather turns.

It should be quite the trip!

Regards, CW

 

Wow! Thank you this sounds great!