Pacific Coast - August & Sept, is this a really bad idea?

[staehpj1]

It is the world's greatest scenery, except for the Alps in German-Austria. Some other places.

Worlds greatest?  Not sure I'd go that far, but it is very beautiful.  I'd add that the temperature is nicely moderated by the proximity to the ocean.  When I have been there it was often a very pleasant temperature, while it was unpleasantly hot a very short distance inland.

The coast has a lot to recommend about it.  I hope to ride it again some day after this covid thing has settled down if I am not too old and infirm.  The former seems to be happening more slowly than I'd like and the latter more quickly.

[Westinghouse]

The Alps and the Rockies have every bit as good scenery. The Atlantic coast route is more inland than coastal views, and is boring. The ST is engaging with the change of geography and scenery going east to west. When doing the ST I could not wait to get out of the all too familiar east, and into the west. Big Sur on the PCBR had great views. With a constant north to south wind it made going up hills easier. I still dream of doing the Transam. At 70 I still think I can do it. In anything, I will most likely do either the ST again or the great American rail trail. The GART is appealing because of 2000 miles completely off-road, mostly well paved or good hard-packed earth. There are parts that do way far out of the way to use pathways, but there are many ways to make short cuts in those areas using local roadways.

[smm7144]

I started my cross country trek in Astoria, and rode through the Columbia River Gorge. I found that Oregon was the hardest state to as far as what campgrounds and such were open. This was a couple months ago I would think that things may have slowly opened up by now. Hotels were still open, and there were still plenty of take out food options available along with stores. The upside to also traveling during COVID is there is more availability at some of the small lodging along with some of the smaller campgrounds.

[Nyimbo]

Thanks SSM,


Good to know.  I still haven't made a final decision.  Leaning one way one day and the other way the next day.  I appreciate the info.

[smm7144]

For what it’s worth I was having the same issues back in June then I just made the decision to go. Had I actually done the trip when I wanted to do it I would have been able to do more than a 1/4 of my trip. I had to bail early because my furlough didn’t end up being as long as I thought it would be. So if you’re leaning towards yes, just go out and do it. Since your trip is not as long and you’re close I wouldn’t sweat the logistics too much because you’re not going far and you’re relatively close.

[adventure124]

Hello,

I think doing a bike tour during Covid is one of the safest thing rather than taking public transportation or a flight into vacation. The tour sounds amazing and I would personally do it. But before you should definitely check accomodations and camping places.

Kind regards,

Carina