We just returned from a two week road trip, we didn’t head too far from home, but we revisited some old tracks in our motorcycling past.
In 2016 we did the Washington State Back Country Discovery Route (WABDR) and Canwest HUBB, and in 2017 we did the North West Passage route. Back then, we did these trips motorcycling camping. This year, brought our motorbikes with us in our little toy hauler/RV trailer.
We didn’t do the WABDR per se, but stayed at the Conconully State Park, and focussed on what we could do from there as our base. Have to say, it was amazing. The State Park is fantastic, excellent facilities, very well staffed and the volunteer camp hosts, the Lopez’s, were extremely helpful and friendly.
The riding in this area is pretty awesome. The counties of Okanogan and Ferry allow the use of ATV’s and SxS’s in some of the local towns. This makes Conconully quite the go-to place for these types of vehicles. We actually returned to the state park after the 2023 CanWest Hubb in Nakusp, we had some more riding we wanted to do, and this seemed like the perfect place to continue to explore.
The access to the backroads is so much better than it is on Vancouver Island. All these forestry roads are open and users are encouraged to explore, vs here. Locked yellow gate, after locked yellow gate. It’s ridiculously frustrating here.
Anyway, we did a few rides out of Conconully, to Loomis through both the Okanogan National Forest, and Sinahelkin Wildlife area, which are chock full of basic campsites, lake accesses and room to roam.
One fun ride we pieced together was from Conconully to Winthrop, via FSR roads. Again, stunningly beautiful, passes up to 2000 metres, winding dirt roads, and so few people using them! We did an out and back on this ride, we stopped in Winthrop for fun and picked up a very scrummy cinnamon bun which we shared at Pearrygin Lake.
We also went to the Canwest Hubb, hosted by Horizons Unlimited. This is the third time we have attended, and it is a nice event to use as a destination. Always some very good people we meet at this event, this time was no different.
The route we followed is here, and also a write up of our rig, with bikes and roof top tent.
fajersson.org 