Peter, National Geographic Adventure mag. did an article on Canada to Mexico all off road, and I think they had some trips through Washington in the article. I think it was August/'05 issue. I'll check and see if I still have it and let you know where the route is. I don't recall if it was a trip completely through the stae, but we'll see.

Scott

peter-

i was thinking about the same thing that scott mentioned. the article had some vague info; i don't recall anything specific. i know that you can get from pretty much my house to oregon through the gifford pinchot forest on service roads only. there isn't a specific route that i saw. there'd be a lot of guesswork involved. i already asked joohee if she'd want to go as we'd end pretty much at her parents' house and she is a definate "no."

andy

Well, that's a start. We know you can get from I-90 to 410 (Manastash/Naches). I-90 to Hwy 2 (Colockum Pass Rd.).

I started looking the other night and will look to the area you mentioned Andy. It doesn't have to be 100% off pavement. Some of those lonely roads out East where there is no one around are ok too.

i've been eyeing lake roosevelt national recreation area for a while. at least on Google Maps there's a number of "roads" that pop up, and Owhi lake looks as if it might be an interesting spot to make camp for an afternoon / evening.

something to think about?

Last night I took a good long look at some maps. There'll have to be road miles, but hopefully not a lot. the preliminary plot went from the Nighthawk border crossing (hwy 97) overland to the West of 97, then over into the Wenatchee National Forest some, Cross hwy 20, before heading toward Chelan. There's no way to get around Lake Chelan, too much of that friggin "Wilderness" stuff around it

From Chelan you can make way on forest service roads towards Cashmere, cross Hwy 2, then slowly cut East and and then West towards the Manastash crossing over the hills. A short stint on Hwy 410 gets you to bumping lake and this is where it gets iffy. I found some roads south by a winding route but then it crosses into the Yakima Nation (Indian Reservation). What are rules about using their backroads?

From there it's more winding, sometimes north, until you get pretty close to the Columbia.

This is a super first hand idea. While looking at the maps of th Coleville area I found a lot of 4wd trails and roads. While this area probably won't get you as far south before a lot of pavement, it might be a good place for exploring. This was off of a Forest Service map which also shows locations of gates and whether or not they are permanently closed or just seasonal. But that's another thread....

Peter,

As for the Indian Reservation. They get fussy with anyone using the land. I think there are some roads open, but good luck finding out from them which ones those are. I think it will depend on which person you talk to. You may get fifty different answers, possibly all from the same person.

Good to know Scott. some of the stuff I was looking at was coming in the backside. I don't want to tread where I'm not wanted, so I'd obviously get some form of some kind of maybe an answer at some point.
Not many options are availble if that area is cut off.

I've taken a closer look with some NFS maps that show things in more detail and it's looking good to get from the border of the Yakima Nation around Rim Rock Lake north to the border on 90% dirt/back country roads.
I'll see if I can't build this into some form of Google Earth format or something as an initial step. Obviously it's a lot of guess work and things will change as roads close, but I think it can be done.

I'd love to see what you've come up with.

Do you have it as a GPX file? If it can't be attached, let me know and I'll get it working. We need to be able to exchange GPX files here.

Craig

The hard part is going to be getting it into MapSource as not all the roads show on there, but most do. I really like the National Forest Service maps but MapSource doesn't like rasterized maps (look!! It sounds like I know what I'm talking about!!)

If you can get it into a Google Earth KML file, you can convert it to a GPX file via GPS Babel.

that's another option. I'll see if I have time to work on it tonight. My current plan is to try it out maybe in July, at least part of it. so if someone else wants to try parts of it sooner, I'm all for that

Ok, here ya go.  This is the very first attempt at  South to North.  I actually built it from the north to south, but it works both way.  I'll eventually extend it on to Rim Rock Lake and then it gets iffy with the Yakima Reservation and all that South. 
I tried to place route points close to each other at possible turns, so that when you're at the turn you can tell which is the right way whether you're going north or south.  There are more optional routes than I noted, but I tagged the most obvious ones.

I tried to keep to dirt and gravel.  Most times I prefered going with a more likely open route on gravel rather than the ????'s on the dirt track.  Sitting at my computer with a paper map and Google Earth, this the best I could do.  There's one long stretch on pavement on the road out of Mission Ridge to Cashmere.  Not much to be done about that since the Apline Lakes Wilderness is on the West and Wenatchee is on the East.  Some other 3-5 mile stints on Hwy 20 and 153 but that's about it.  I tried for as much dirt as I could.

I'll also go along and put in way points of interest next.  There are a lot of mines you pass by up north and some good view points/mountains in the middle that are just off the main road.  But first I want to get the main route then explore it.

This is an 'open-source' project.  feel free to improve on it and add to it.  Just post up any changes you make to this thread for the time being until we figure something better out in the maps section.

I wouldn't mind trying to drive part of this after the Quilomene trip this summer. At the least the Cashmere north part.  I figure it'll take a couple of years to figure it all out.  In the mean time, there's lots out East to explore!!

Crud, the GPX is too big.  Well, it's here http://thecareyadventures.com/files/Taneum2Border.gpx

This has been something I wanted to research and explore since last summer when I did the Southern portion of the route (see Cascade Overland Adventure – August 2006)

If the timing is right, I would be very interesting tagging along. I know the Southern portion of the state well, but not the Northern part.

Steve

If I can manage to plan it.....it'd likely be hear the first week in September. Or maybe middle of August, but that'd be more hot. I'd like to do it North to South first. it'll be a lot of stopping for pictures, exploring and back tracking when we find a road doesn't go where it should.
I'm half way through your writeup on the southern part and it looks like that's a good path to take to get the most dirt while not crossing Yakima land.

Cool project Pete. I tried to copy and paste the gpx file into a text doc but I get an error when opening it. (The expected file header format could not be read from this document) I'm sure it's just me. Could you email me the gpx file?

Cool. let me know if you head out there this summer.

Will do. I may have some old track/recommendations to add for the area south of Chelan. Some cool driving with great views up there and it connects down into Leavenworth or Cashmere. Without laying it on a map, the track looks like you may have found it.