Sierra Cascades Bicycle Route maps available soon

The long wait for Sierra Cascades Bicycle Route is almost over. The Adventure Cycling Association says the full maps will be available in mid April.

An overview map is available online. It shows the general route of the 2,392-mile bike route that parallels the Pacific Crest on paved roads.

The bike route from the Canadian border at Sumas, Washington, to the Mexican border at Tecate, Mexico, is the newest of more than 38,000 miles of mapped bike routes offered by the non-profit.

The bicycle route will visit Northern Cascades National Park, Crater Lake National Park, Lassen Volcanic National Park, Yosemite National Park, and Sequoia National Park. It passes Mount Rainier, Mount St. Helens, Mount Hood and other scenic, volcanic peaks. The high point will be California's Tioga Pass, at 9,943 feet.

Without giving out too much, Adventure Cycling has a summary of each map in the set of five. For instance, the 447-mile Map 1 is the northern-most map:

This section begins at the Canadian/U.S. border in Sumas, Washington. It shares routing with our Northern Tier and Washington Parks Routes to Yakima, Washington where it strays a bit further south before hitting the entrance to Mt. Rainier National Park. An optional spur into Bellingham is also included. …..

Section 2 begins at Mt. Rainier National Park and runs south to the wind surfing country of the Columbia Gorge and Hood River, Oregon. From there it skirts the Three Sisters Mountains through Bend, Oregon ending in Crater Lake National Park.

You can read about the others sections at the Sierra Cascades Bicycle Route website.

In addition to the fact — or maybe just my opinion — that the route wends through some of the nation's most spectacular scenery, there are few other things worth noting:

There's Amtrak passenger train service near the northern and southern extremities of the route. Section 1 includes a spur bike route between Sumas and Bellingham, which has an Amtrak station. In the south, Tecate is about 40 miles from San Diego along Route 94.

Also, the Sierra Cascades Bicycle Route crosses the Northern Tier bike route in Washington, the TransAmerica and Lewis and Clark bicycle routes in Oregon, and the Southern Tier and Western Express bicycle routes in California.

Further, bicycle travelers with lots of time on their hands can make a grand loop of the Pacific region by riding one direction on the Sierra Cascades Bicycle Route, and the other on the Pacific Coast Bicycle Route. (Having bicycled north on the Pacific Coast route against the prevailing winds, let me suggest bicycling north on the Sierra Cascade route and south on the Pacific Coast route.)

Adventure Cycling got its start some 35 years ago as Bikecentennial, which offered the 4,000-mile bike route from Yorktown, Virginia, to Astoria, Oregon. I'm looking forward to learn about Adventure Cycling's next map project.