Well the wildfires are making quite a mess of my plans to tour OR this summer. Plan was to head east from Portland along the Lewis & Clark map (section 7) then head south in the general vacinity of Highway 84 through La Grande and Baker City, where I link up to the TransAmerica (section 2 & 1) route heading west. Then Sierra Cascades section 2 heading north back to Portland.
Obviously the fires out near La Grande and Baker City are bad with, currently, tons of smoke. A detour from Pendelton south on the 395 is a possibility, since my planned route on the eastern border skirts some active fires (route 7 goes right by the Cornet Windy Ridge fire). The Canyon Creek Complex fire is close the Clyde Holliday state park near Mt Vernon on the 26, too.
All the rain deluge coming this weekend in the Portland area won't land in eastern OR at all so there's not much hope there. I'm getting a bit freaked out that this whole trip may be a bust. It will take me a week or so to get out to the eastern part of OR so maybe conditions will change. I'm so ready to just go and hope for the best. If things get worse I can turn around and head back west at worst.
I'm hoping someone along the 84 or 26 corridors can tell me what the conditions are like (yes I have the smoke maps at
http://google.org/crisismap/a/gmail.com/wasmoke?hl=en&llbox=46.619%2C41.853%2C-113.643%2C-125.134&t=TERRAIN but they are not terribly detailed). Would you do any hard riding in your area? It's hilly so I'll be huffing and puffing up the hills for sure.
