Best Short Camping Tour from SE Portland: Mellow Ride on Paved Paths?
 

Hello,

A good friend of mine, who is pretty uncomfortable with cycling in traffic based areas...is down with a bike tour/camping trip..."if" we can accomplish getting to a paved trail and arriving in a pretty camping zone.

Kind of a break in to get her used to riding...and heck, it will be a good practice run for me to take camping good in panniers and sleeping bags rolled up on the back of my bike too.

Anyone have a recommendation that might involve a shirt jaunt on Portland roads to a trail that will calmly take us to a lovely area to enjoy for a day or two?

10, 15+ miles of riding is fine.

We are interested in combining transit like Max and/or busses as needed too.

Thanks!!


Kenny

take max as far west as possible, ride to Banks and take the Banks Vernonia trail to Stub Stewart State Park. Todd Fahrner of Clevercycles did this ride and has a write up of it at the clevercycles web site. I have ridden the Banks Vernonia trail and it is very very nice and the campground is pretty cool too. They have hiker biker camping for $9.00 per site and you can easily get two tents on one site. anywho, that's my two cents.

That is a great idea. I was looking at his post about this camping trip sometime back.
Hot Springs also sound nice, I am not sure if there is a quiet/chill ride to any though?
Thanks!
djkenny

not bike friendly
 

this has me concerned. back to the the hot springs option or other camping that is chill to ride....(?)

http://bikeportland.org/forum/showthread.php?p=6138

Try Oxbow, or Milo McGiver
 

Breitenbush isn't close, but the hot spring might make up for that.

You might want to consider Oxbow Park, on the Sandy River just east of Gresham. A steep climb out, though.

And Milo McGiver State Park near Estacada might be something to consider. I've never been there, but Cycle Wild does camping trips there. They have a trip planned for Stub Stewart in a couple of weeks, if you're still considering that.

Champoeg State Park is also relatively close, west of Wilsonville on the south side of the Willamette. Jonathan did a story on his camping trip there over the July 4th weekend.

And there are some campgrounds in the Gorge that aren't too far.