Astoria Loop
Via Mist and Jewel
The best part of the ride is once you’ve left Hwy 26 until you get to Astoria.
If you’re coming from the east, there is one 25 mph corner when you get near Gray’s Bay to keep in mind. (Marker B?) It is a blind right and extremely tight. The road wraps around a small bluff. I crashed there once when returning from Astoria. I had done the Three Capes Loop and added on a hop up to Astoria. It was dark and chilly. Nighttime fog and rolled in making visibility almost nill. I was doing 20 to 25 mph. Using the center line as my reference foe where the road was. In hte thick fog, I lost the center line and ended up dumping it into a very large mud puddle. Not fun. During the crash, I knocked out all of my tail lights. Super-fun. Riding home, in the dark, in thick fog, without tail lights. I had to keep one eye on my (crappy) mirrors and one eye on the road.
I has so much fun, I was stopped by the Highway Patrol about 10 miles from home. His first words were, “I didn’t think you were gonna stop.” He figured that I would rabbit. <shrug> I explained the situation with my tail lights. The cop loooked at the mud smeared up one side of my body and looked at my bike which sported the same matching color scheme. “Go home, be careful, and get those tail lights fixed.
I avoid Hwy 30 South of Rainier after dark. There are some bars out in the middle of nowhere and the drunks have killed a couple motorcyclists. I bail out and cross into Washington, then take I-5 back in the city.
