Trip Report: Portland to Olympic Peninsula to Orcas Island

Oct 9

If you follow me on Instagram, you know I purchased a 2021 Benelli TRK502X in July. I just completed my first overnight trip with the new Benelli, doing 7 nights / 8 days from Portland, up the Olympic Peninsula, over to Bellingham and then finally to Orcas Island.

The plan was to camp most or all nights until my last two nights on Orcas, where I had a small waterfront cottage rented right in Orcas Village, where the ferry lands. After three nights of camping, however, I realized I can’t really do the “thin air pad on the ground” thing anymore (I’d be 50 in a week, after all!). My back was killing me and I was not sleeping well, making the following day’s ride less enjoyable at best, and probably also less safe.

So, instead of 5 nights of camping, I did three and then found a cheap motel in Port Angeles, figuring I’d camp the next night and then do my two nights in the cottage. As it happened, most of the next day was rain and the forecast was rain all night and into the morning, so I ended up in a hotel in Bellingham to avoid setting up and breaking down camp in the rain. I can do it. Have done it. But if money is no object and there is lodging available, why be miserable?

The route I planned was intended to get me familiar with the TRK’s manners while allowing for the fact that I’d be riding solo and really didn’t want to get into trouble that I couldn’t get myself out of. The 502X, despite being a 500cc bike, is not light. Curb weight is listed as 518 lbs (dry is 470). So, I favored two lane highways, but included some backcountry single lane roads that were a mix of pavement and gravel.

Here’s my trip report.

Day 1

Planned / Actual Destination: Cape Disappointment State Park
Planned / Actual Accommodation: Camping
Planned / Actual Miles: 201 / 212

Planned Route: Tigard to Seaside via the Nestucca River Backcountry Byway; Seaside to Cape Disappointment via US 101.

*Planned route from Carlton to Beaver along the Nestucca River.*

Route Notes

I let Google guide me to Carlton from Tigard (home base). On Gaia GPS, I had planned a route that followed the Nestucca River Backcountry Byway from Carlton to Beaver. Unfortunately, there was a detour after McGuire Reservoir (the body of water at the left edge of the right third of the map above) that took me well south down to Bell Mountain along Bald Mountain Rd before heading back north again and rejoining the Nestucca River Rd near Thune Mouintain. Basically, I missed at least half of the scenic route I was hoping for. I wasn’t sure how far the closure went on Nestucca River Rd, and I was still getting the hang of using Gaia to both see where I was, and plan where I wanted to go…so I just followed the signs for the detour. The detour was nice, but it wasn’t the Nestucca River . Most of the route was paved single lane forest road, with a small section of gravel thrown in before the detour.

Once to Beaver, I just rode south on 101 until I saw the signs for Pacific City. Lunch at Pelican Brewery. (I’m not a fan of their new orange grate picnic table outdoor seating.)

After lunch, I rode straight up 101 through Astoria and across to Ilwaco, where I had a reservation to camp at Cape Disappointment. Great spot, right up against the beach (with some trees and brush to break the wind).

Camp Notes

Cape Disappointment was filled mostly with campers pulled by pickup trucks, and my site was nestled between two of them. Most people were friendly. The guy on the north side came over right away to ask about the bike. He’d never seen or heard of Benelli. The guy on the south side came over several times. It’s like he kept looking for excuses to come over and talk more. He even offered me dinner (red beans and rice, with sausage). I accepted. The next morning, he came over with pictures of places I should see in Olympic National Park. The wife of the guy on the north side came over just before I departed for the day’s travels. “Looks like a lot of fun. Nice bike. Reminds me of when we used to backpack. Now we have this thing,” (she gestured to her trailer).

The site itself was great. It was wooded, and sheltered from the beach winds with a thin band of trees and brush, plus a wall of driftwood you had to navigate through and over to get to the beach. The beach itself was gorgeous.

Gear Notes

I’d read that my trusty MSR Whisperlite Internationale (purchased in 1991) can run on unleaded gasoline just as easily as white gas. Since this kind of moto touring is about going as light and simply as possible, I figured I’d just run unleaded gas instead of bringing white gas. This way, I’d have 1.5 liters of spare gas plus whatever was in my stove bottle in the event that I ran out of gas on the road. Seemed like a great idea.

The reality, as I found out, is that gasoline burns very dirty compared to white gas. It lit, no problem, but the stove was left covered in black soot after a single burn and everything ends up smelling like gasoline. I never realized how much I’d want to smell white gas. So, next trip I’ll ditch the gasoline and go back to white gas.

Also, I threw out my deodorant and body soap before bed. Because I’m using soft bags (not hard aluminum cases) all of my food, toothpaste, and other smelly items need to fit into a small bear canister that fits inside one of my soft bags (keeps rodents out, even if there are no bears). To save space, the stove needs to fit in the bear canister, too. The deodorant and soap simply didn’t fit. So, off they went. Besides, I use Dr. Bronner’s as my dish soap. If I found a shower, I could use that.

Day 2

Planned / Actual Destination: South Beach Campground
Planned / Actual Accommodation: Camping
Planned / Actual Miles: 231 / 219

Planned Route: Cape Disappointment up around the Long Beach Peninsula, to South Beach Campground via Raymond, Grayland, Aberdeen, Moclips, Lake Quinault (I skipped the loop around the Long Beach Peninsula)

Route Notes

Today was a very nice ride. Two lane highway all the way, with a good chunk of it along the coast. I had planned to do a loop up the Long Beach Peninsula, but decided to skip it to save time after spending some time in the morning exploring Cape Disappointment State Park. My destination, South Beach Campground, is first come / first serve and I wasn’t sure how busy it would be, so I didn’t want to arrive too late.

Finding lunch turned out to be a problem. I was avoiding sketchy looking places because the mask wearing seemed to be a problem. I wasn’t looking for conflict. Along the way I discovered the town of Seabrook, which appears to be a vacation shopping mall built specifically to separate you both from reality and your money. Not my kind of place, though I did look to see if there was a place I could eat. Everything looked too fancy for me to roll up in my full moto suit and boots. Where’s a good taco truck when you need one?

I ended up eating in a gas station convenience store (You and I Market) parking lot in Pacific Beach, just up the road from Seabrook with a bunch of day laborers picking up their afternoon tallboys.

Gear Notes

For day two, I used Gaia GPS’s route planning feature to set my path to South Beach. It’s quite easy once you figure out the combination of gestures and long-presses (I needed a YouTube video). One caveat is that you either need a data connection (Wi-Fi or mobile data) to be able to do it (if you want the route to snap to a road or trail, which is quite handy), or you need to have downloaded all the map areas and route planning data ahead of time. Ordinarily, this wouldn’t be a problem, but I had brought along two phones: my iPhone (which is my regular phone) for pictures and communication (it would ride in my chest pocket); and Goggle Pixel 3 I’d purchased to use only for navigation (it would be mounted to the handlebars). I don’t have data for the Pixel.

This turned out to be a problem because I hadn’t downloaded all the map areas and route planning data for my trip onto the Pixel (whereas I had downloaded it all to the iPhone). So, I switched to navigating (still with Gaia GPS) on my iPhone and taking pictures with the Pixel for this leg of the trip, hoping I’d get good Wi-Fi at some point which would allow me to download the data I needed onto the Pixel so I could switch back.

This single day of using the iPhone as my navigation device fried the camera. Two days later, Apple published this.

I still really like having two phones on a trip. (I also have a Spot X satellite communicator for off-grid communication.) It’s nice to have one in the pocket that can come out for a quick picture. It’s also nice to have an emergency backup. It would be nice to have a data plan for the nav phone. Short of that, I just need to be better about downloading map areas and routing data ahead of time (and not using my iPhone for nav).

Camp Notes

South Beach Campground is right on the water, and it’s first-come, first-served. The weather was good, and I felt lucky to get a spot. There were several spots available as it turned out. As I was riding around trying to choose which spot to take, there was a couple with a pickup camper waving me in next to them. This was a first. “We ride!” they exclaimed. So that’s where I set up camp.

The guy’s name was Steve Miller. He sells CBD products online. Seems on brand. They were an amazingly friendly couple, actually. Both ride BMW’s and Steve, especially, was really curious and enthusiastic about the TRK. The bike was really turning out to be a conversation starter. He came over several different times while I was setting up camp and making dinner to ask questions or share info about riding groups he’s a part of. It was really quite welcome.

In the morning they gifted me some carrot zucchini bread for breakfast and then broke camp and pulled out well before I did.