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Wild Roads Washington, 2nd Edition 

80 Scenic Drives to Camping, Hiking Trails, and Adventures

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Whether you love living on the road or are just fighting the Sunday scaries, discover the 80 best scenic drives to camping, trails, and adventures in Washington!

Now fully updated with 5 new roads, Wild Roads Washington is perfect for roadtripping enthusiasts, RV-ers, and #vanlifers looking to explore the best vistas the state has to offer.

Experience some serious road rave with drives that take you to the most beautiful places in Washington State, such as:
  • Views of Mount Rainier at the end of the road to Sun Top 
  • Vistas of Lake Cushman and Hoot Canal from atop Mount Ellinor in the Olympics
  • Picnics amid alpine scenery at Salmon Meadows in the Okanogan National Forest

The 80 routes span the state from eastern Washington to the Olympics and the coast and are on paved and dirt roads that are all traversable by car, and take you to excellent trailheads for further adventure by foot! Rating by distance, road condition, and grade from Flatlanders Welcome to Valium Prescribed makes this guide flexible to your capability. Wild Roads Washington invites you to connect with nature again—all from the comfort of your vehicle.
Praise for Wild Roads Washington, 1st Edition:

Detailed drives with ratings, distance and maps to the prettiest places in the state, from the best views of mountains and lakes to flower-filled meadows and sagebrush prairies.
—The Seattle Times
SEABURY BLAIR JR. spent many years as the outdoor columnist for The Bremerton Sun, where one of his most popular features was the “Hike o’ the Month.” He is an avid backcountry skier and hiker. 

He is the author of  the Creaky Knees Guide series of easy hiking books (titles cover Washington, Oregon, and Pacific Northwest National Parks and Monuments); and the Day Hike! series of easy hikes that you can do in a day (titles cover the Central Cascades, the North Cascades, Mount Rainier, the Olympic Peninsula, the Columbia Gorge, and Spokane/Coeur d'Alene).
INTRODUCTION
In 2015, three years after the first edition of this book was published, I convinced my wife, B. B. Hardbody, that the Belching Beast was no longer fit to carry our Bigfoot truck camper. I argued that we needed a bigger rig, something that had a bed we could get out of without crawling over each other, something that would carry all of the essential items for a wilderness camping trip. To wit: satellite television (preferably one for the living area and one for the bedroom), microwave oven, hot and cold running water, shower large enough to wash your back without tripping over the toilet; those sorts of things.

So we ended up with a 25-foot motorhome, which was actually about a foot shorter than the Beast with the Bigfoot atop. We set out that year in our new ride to revisit all the wild places we had found along the roads in this book, only to discover low-hanging branches, narrow roads and paint-scratching brush. We also discovered something called “Class B” motorhomes.

They seemed to be everywhere: on a trip near Bend, Oregon, we passed more Volkswagen vans than I knew still existed, heading to a rally called “Descend on Bend.” Shortly after, COVID came along and it seemed to me that a heretofore unknown byproduct of the virus was an uncontrollable desire to join #vanlife. Not simply in a bunch of old VW buses and Vanagons, but in a bevy of new cargo vans from Ford, Mercedes, and Fiat. While life around the COVID-stricken cities and burbs sucked, life on the road seemed safe and enjoyable.

The pandemic is officially over, thank goodness, but the urge to get away—to find your own little parking spot by the stream, mountain top, forest glade or desert retreat—continues to flourish. In 2017, campers could still find spots at many U.S. Forest Service and National Park campgrounds without snagging a reservation months in advance. That’s pretty much a thing of the past, these days.

But thanks to the wild roads outlined here, you can still discover those diverse campsites and smaller forest campgrounds that aren’t as popular or well-known as the biggies. They are no less enjoyable, often quieter, and maybe best of all, not quite as costly as most of the overnighting areas you’ll read about elsewhere.

As you’ll see, this isn’t a campground guide. It’s a map to the roads that will take you to past many of the spots that will reach out to you and say “Why not stop here for the night? I’ve got a gurgling stream to sing you to sleep.” It will direct you past base camps from which you can hike, paddle or pedal.

The first edition of Wild Roads Washington offered a slew of backcountry routes that were West of the Cascades, and far less on the Eastern side of the state. I’ve tried to change that by adding five new roads in the least populated areas of Washington. You might be surprised to find that they include sections on state highways, and you might argue they are anything but “wild” roads.

But the fact is that the new routes on state and county roads in Eastern Washington often carry less traffic than several of the most popular U.S. Forest roads on the West side of the state. You needn’t drive far to get away from it all if you live, say, in Pomeroy or Kettle Falls. Another plus: the sun is more likely to shine on your gravity chair.

Another question you might be asking is “Why should I drive 30 (or 230) miles to visit a route that is only 18 miles long?”

The answer is what this book is all about. As anyone who steers a motorized vehicle along highways has discovered, it’s almost as much fun in getting there as being there. It’s what makes life on the road—wild or tame—worth the trip.

So, may it come up to meet you.

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About

Whether you love living on the road or are just fighting the Sunday scaries, discover the 80 best scenic drives to camping, trails, and adventures in Washington!

Now fully updated with 5 new roads, Wild Roads Washington is perfect for roadtripping enthusiasts, RV-ers, and #vanlifers looking to explore the best vistas the state has to offer.

Experience some serious road rave with drives that take you to the most beautiful places in Washington State, such as:
  • Views of Mount Rainier at the end of the road to Sun Top 
  • Vistas of Lake Cushman and Hoot Canal from atop Mount Ellinor in the Olympics
  • Picnics amid alpine scenery at Salmon Meadows in the Okanogan National Forest

The 80 routes span the state from eastern Washington to the Olympics and the coast and are on paved and dirt roads that are all traversable by car, and take you to excellent trailheads for further adventure by foot! Rating by distance, road condition, and grade from Flatlanders Welcome to Valium Prescribed makes this guide flexible to your capability. Wild Roads Washington invites you to connect with nature again—all from the comfort of your vehicle.

Praise

Praise for Wild Roads Washington, 1st Edition:

Detailed drives with ratings, distance and maps to the prettiest places in the state, from the best views of mountains and lakes to flower-filled meadows and sagebrush prairies.
—The Seattle Times

Author

SEABURY BLAIR JR. spent many years as the outdoor columnist for The Bremerton Sun, where one of his most popular features was the “Hike o’ the Month.” He is an avid backcountry skier and hiker. 

He is the author of  the Creaky Knees Guide series of easy hiking books (titles cover Washington, Oregon, and Pacific Northwest National Parks and Monuments); and the Day Hike! series of easy hikes that you can do in a day (titles cover the Central Cascades, the North Cascades, Mount Rainier, the Olympic Peninsula, the Columbia Gorge, and Spokane/Coeur d'Alene).

Excerpt

INTRODUCTION
In 2015, three years after the first edition of this book was published, I convinced my wife, B. B. Hardbody, that the Belching Beast was no longer fit to carry our Bigfoot truck camper. I argued that we needed a bigger rig, something that had a bed we could get out of without crawling over each other, something that would carry all of the essential items for a wilderness camping trip. To wit: satellite television (preferably one for the living area and one for the bedroom), microwave oven, hot and cold running water, shower large enough to wash your back without tripping over the toilet; those sorts of things.

So we ended up with a 25-foot motorhome, which was actually about a foot shorter than the Beast with the Bigfoot atop. We set out that year in our new ride to revisit all the wild places we had found along the roads in this book, only to discover low-hanging branches, narrow roads and paint-scratching brush. We also discovered something called “Class B” motorhomes.

They seemed to be everywhere: on a trip near Bend, Oregon, we passed more Volkswagen vans than I knew still existed, heading to a rally called “Descend on Bend.” Shortly after, COVID came along and it seemed to me that a heretofore unknown byproduct of the virus was an uncontrollable desire to join #vanlife. Not simply in a bunch of old VW buses and Vanagons, but in a bevy of new cargo vans from Ford, Mercedes, and Fiat. While life around the COVID-stricken cities and burbs sucked, life on the road seemed safe and enjoyable.

The pandemic is officially over, thank goodness, but the urge to get away—to find your own little parking spot by the stream, mountain top, forest glade or desert retreat—continues to flourish. In 2017, campers could still find spots at many U.S. Forest Service and National Park campgrounds without snagging a reservation months in advance. That’s pretty much a thing of the past, these days.

But thanks to the wild roads outlined here, you can still discover those diverse campsites and smaller forest campgrounds that aren’t as popular or well-known as the biggies. They are no less enjoyable, often quieter, and maybe best of all, not quite as costly as most of the overnighting areas you’ll read about elsewhere.

As you’ll see, this isn’t a campground guide. It’s a map to the roads that will take you to past many of the spots that will reach out to you and say “Why not stop here for the night? I’ve got a gurgling stream to sing you to sleep.” It will direct you past base camps from which you can hike, paddle or pedal.

The first edition of Wild Roads Washington offered a slew of backcountry routes that were West of the Cascades, and far less on the Eastern side of the state. I’ve tried to change that by adding five new roads in the least populated areas of Washington. You might be surprised to find that they include sections on state highways, and you might argue they are anything but “wild” roads.

But the fact is that the new routes on state and county roads in Eastern Washington often carry less traffic than several of the most popular U.S. Forest roads on the West side of the state. You needn’t drive far to get away from it all if you live, say, in Pomeroy or Kettle Falls. Another plus: the sun is more likely to shine on your gravity chair.

Another question you might be asking is “Why should I drive 30 (or 230) miles to visit a route that is only 18 miles long?”

The answer is what this book is all about. As anyone who steers a motorized vehicle along highways has discovered, it’s almost as much fun in getting there as being there. It’s what makes life on the road—wild or tame—worth the trip.

So, may it come up to meet you.