4,896 Turns Later: Summits, Switchbacks, and Eight Days in the Saddle

Some trips you plan for months. This Pacific Coast motorcycle road trip was one of them. Over eight days in July, I rode from Denver to the Oregon coast and back. My Africa Twin Adventure Sports logged 3,424.9 GPS-documented miles through five states. One short unrecorded stretch put the true total near 3,515. The GPS also counted 4,896 turns, 106 mountain passes and summits, and 126,639 feet of climbing. That is the height of Mount Everest, more than four times over.

The numbers tell one story. The road told a better one.

The High Point, the Low Point, and What I Learned

The high point of the trip was Day 3, and it never let up. Highway 20 threw turn after turn at me through deep forest, four corners per mile. Then the road crested the coastal ridge and started falling toward the sea. Coming down that mountain into Fort Bragg, the Pacific filled my visor. The best single place came a day later, on the Avenue of the Giants. Riding beneath 300-foot redwoods quiets you in a way no road ever has.

The low point arrived on Day 1, crossing Utah. The thermometer pushed past 100 degrees, and a haze of pollution thickened the air for hours. Heat like that turns a simple Interstate day into real work. The bigger challenges were quieter ones. There was never enough time to stop and explore the places flying past. And after the third day, inner-thigh soreness became a daily passenger. The lesson that stuck is simple. You can ride in serious heat, but you have to take it seriously.

Route at a Glance

• Route: Denver → Elko → Yuba City → Garberville → Coos Bay → Willits → Reno → Salina → Denver
• *Documented distance: 3,424.9 miles (*about 3,515 including one unrecorded stretch)
• Total turns: 4,896
• Passes and summits: 106
• Total climbing: 126,639 feet
• Highest point: Mount Rose Summit, 8,911 feet
• Twistiest day: Day 3, with 956 turns in 238.7 miles
• Straightest day: Day 7, with 73% of the miles on dead-straight road

Day 1 — July 11: Denver, CO to Elko, NV

The trip opened with the biggest mileage day of all eight. I covered 686.4 miles from Denver to Elko, Nevada, while crossing 14 passes and summits. The route entered the Eisenhower Tunnel beneath the Continental Divide, then climbed Vail Pass. Utah added Soldier Summit, Price Canyon, and long desert grades under a brutal afternoon sun. By evening, I crossed Pequop Summit, the highest point on I-80 in Nevada. The GPS recorded 373 turns because the West opened quickly beyond the Rockies. That low turn count did not make the day easy.

Glenwood Canyon gave the morning scale, with cliffs pressing tightly around the Colorado River. Later, the landscape widened until the road seemed small against the desert. The Bonneville Salt Flats flashed white beside the Interstate near the Nevada line. Heat above 100 degrees and dirty air made every fuel stop feel necessary. I finished in Elko tired, overheated, and fully aware that this trip would demand respect. Day 1 was not the prettiest ride, but it established the pace for everything ahead.

The route itself carries more history than one day can honor. Glenwood Canyon’s walls expose granite nearly 1.7 billion years old, some of Colorado’s most ancient rock. Utah’s Price Canyon was coal country, and the mining camp of Castle Gate once stood beside the highway. Soldier Summit is said to take its name from soldiers who died there in an 1861 blizzard. Farther west, the Bonneville Salt Flats are the floor of a vanished Ice Age sea. Ancient Lake Bonneville once covered much of Utah, deeper than today’s Lake Michigan. When it dried, it left the salt where land speed records have fallen since 1914.

Elko made a fitting first-night stop. The town grew up on the railroad and the California Trail, which followed the Humboldt River past here. Thousands of wagon emigrants crossed this same desert in the 1840s and 1850s. Basque sheepherders followed, and their culture still flavors the town’s restaurants and festivals. Elko also hosts the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering every winter. The empty country I crossed in one day took those travelers weeks.

Day 2 — July 12: Elko, NV to Yuba City, CA

Day 2 became the trip’s masterpiece. I rode 528.5 miles, logged 780 turns, and crossed 17 passes and summits. The morning followed NV-278 over Garden Pass before joining US-50 across central Nevada. Hickison, Bob Scott, Austin, and Mount Airy summits arrived one after another. The road mixed long empty valleys with sharp climbs through dry mountain ranges. Each summit revealed another basin, another straightaway, and another distant ridge. That pattern made Nevada feel endless without ever becoming dull.

Geiger Grade changed the rhythm as it climbed toward Virginia City. The old mining town appeared suddenly, stacked along a steep main street. From there, Mount Rose Highway carried me to 8,911 feet, the trip’s highest mountain pass. Lake Tahoe opened below the summit, blue and enormous beneath the Sierra. I crossed Brockway Summit, passed through Truckee, and continued over Yuba Pass. The final descent into California gold country felt like entering another trip entirely. Desert, mining history, alpine forest, and Lake Tahoe all fit inside one remarkable day.

US-50 carries a famous nickname with real history behind it. Life magazine branded it “the Loneliest Road in America” in 1986, and Nevada embraced the insult. The highway shadows the Pony Express route of 1860 and the later Lincoln Highway. Austin and Eureka were silver boomtowns in the 1860s, and both still feel half-frozen in time. Virginia City sits on the Comstock Lode, the 1859 strike that became America’s first great silver bonanza. Its mines bankrolled San Francisco and helped fund the Union during the Civil War. A young Mark Twain found his pen name writing for the town’s newspaper.

Lake Tahoe rewards the climb with serious geology. The basin formed when a block of the Earth’s crust dropped between two rising fault lines. Glaciers later polished the granite and helped fill the bowl. The lake is 1,645 feet deep, second in the nation only to Crater Lake. Truckee, just beyond Brockway Summit, guards Donner Pass and its grim pioneer story. The Donner Party spent the terrible winter of 1846-47 trapped nearby. Highway 49 south of Yuba Pass is named for the gold seekers of 1849. Downieville still leans over the Yuba River the way it did when miners panned below.

Day 3 — July 13: Yuba City, CA to Garberville, CA

Day 3 proved that mileage and effort are not the same thing. It was the shortest day at 238.7 miles, yet the GPS counted 956 turns. That worked out to roughly four turns per mile, the highest rate of the trip. Highway 20 wound past Clear Lake and crossed several forested ridges. Ridgewood Summit marked the highest point on US-101 anywhere in California. The route demanded constant attention, but it never felt repetitive.

The reward arrived when the road crested the coastal ridge and began dropping toward Fort Bragg. The Pacific filled my visor before I reached the water. After days of mountains and desert, the ocean changed the entire scale of the ride. Highway 1 then followed cliffs before turning inland toward Leggett Hill. Nine passes and summits separated Yuba City from Garberville. I reached the redwoods knowing this had become the strongest day of the trip. Few roads have ever packed so much change into so few miles.

The day’s route connected some overlooked California history. Yuba City sits in orchard country famous for peaches, prunes, and walnuts. It is also home to one of America’s largest Sikh communities, which hosts a huge annual festival. Nearby rise the Sutter Buttes, eroded volcanic domes often called the world’s smallest mountain range. Clear Lake, farther west, is often called the oldest lake in North America. Its basin has held water for hundreds of thousands of years. Mount Konocti, a dormant volcano, still anchors its southern shore.

Willits and Fort Bragg bookend the coastal mountains with lumber history. Willits calls itself the Gateway to the Redwoods and hosts the historic Skunk Train. That rail line has hauled logs and passengers out of Fort Bragg since 1885. Fort Bragg began as a military post and grew into a company lumber town. Its famous Glass Beach glitters with sea glass tumbled from an old town dump. The ocean turned decades of trash into a tourist attraction. Few places show nature’s patience more clearly.

Day 4 — July 14: Garberville, CA to Coos Bay, OR

Day 4 belonged to the redwoods. I rode 301.0 miles, recorded 663 turns, and crossed 11 low coastal summits. The morning began on the Avenue of the Giants beneath trees taller than city buildings. I guided the Africa Twin through the Shrine Drive-Thru Tree at Myers Flat. The opening measured only a few feet wider than the loaded motorcycle. That brief passage became one of the trip’s most memorable photographs.

US-101 carried me through Eureka, Prairie Creek Summit, and Redwood National and State Parks. The forest eventually opened toward Trinidad, where fog softened the coastline and sea stacks. The Trinidad Memorial Lighthouse added a quiet stop above the water. Farther north, coastal fog moved across the hills like a slow tide. Crossing into Oregon brought the Samuel H. Boardman corridor and another dramatic shoreline. I ended in Coos Bay after the lowest-elevation riding day of the trip. The scenery stayed huge, even when the mountains did not.

The Avenue of the Giants deserves its reputation as the world’s finest forest drive. The 31-mile road follows an old stagecoach route through Humboldt Redwoods State Park. The park protects Rockefeller Forest, the largest remaining old-growth coast redwood stand on Earth. Coast redwoods are the tallest living things ever measured, with some passing 370 feet. They can live more than 2,000 years, drinking summer fog through their needles. The Save the Redwoods League began buying these groves in 1918. Every giant beside the road exists because someone paid to spare it.

The towns along US-101 carry their own stories. Eureka grew rich on redwood lumber, and its ornate Carson Mansion may be America’s most photographed Victorian. Trinidad, one of California’s smallest cities, keeps a memorial lighthouse honoring those lost at sea. Crescent City rebuilt itself after a 1964 tsunami from Alaska’s great earthquake destroyed its downtown. Across the Oregon line, the Samuel H. Boardman corridor honors the father of Oregon’s state parks. Coos Bay remains the largest coastal deep-draft port between San Francisco and Puget Sound. It is also the hometown of running legend Steve Prefontaine.

Day 5 — July 15: Coos Bay, OR to Willits, CA

Day 5 turned the motorcycle south and replayed the coast from the opposite direction. I covered 354.5 miles, logged 781 turns, and crossed 13 summits. The Oregon Dunes appeared first, with high sand pressed between forest and ocean. US-101 then returned to the Crescent City grade and Prairie Creek Summit. Riding the same road backward revealed corners, views, and grades I had missed before. The route felt familiar without feeling repeated.

Southbound light changed the redwoods and pulled new details from the forest. I stopped again because rushing through trees that old would have felt wrong. Rattlesnake Summit, at 1,791 feet, added one more climb before the route settled toward Willits. The miles stayed satisfying, but the inner-thigh soreness had become impossible to ignore. Frequent stops and short walks helped, although the relief never lasted long. I reached Willits at sunset with five strong days behind me. The bike remained comfortable everywhere except the narrow contact points along the seat.

The Oregon Dunes are stranger than they first appear. They form the largest stretch of coastal sand dunes in North America, running roughly 40 miles. Rivers ground the sand from the mountains, and the sea threw it back ashore. Some dunes stand hundreds of feet above the beach. Frank Herbert reported on efforts to tame these sands, and the research helped inspire his novel Dune. A science-fiction desert planet began beside this cool, foggy coast.

The ride south crossed lands the Yurok people have held for thousands of years. Their reservation follows the lower Klamath River, one of California’s great salmon streams. Roadside attractions soften the history with kitsch, like the giant Paul Bunyan at Trees of Mystery. The redwood parks along this stretch shelter Hyperion, the tallest known tree on Earth. Its exact location stays secret to protect it. Riding the corridor twice, in both directions, felt like reading a great book twice.

Day 6 — July 16: Willits, CA to Reno, NV

Day 6 delivered another intensely technical ride, with 848 turns across 316.9 miles. It started over Ridgewood Summit beside Ridgewood Ranch, where Seabiscuit spent his final years. Highway 20 followed Clear Lake before dropping into the Sacramento Valley. From Oroville, the route climbed sharply into the Sierra on Bucks Lake Road. Bucks Summit reached 5,433 feet where the Pacific Crest Trail crossed the pavement. Thirteen summits stood between Willits and Reno.

The character of the road changed again near Lake Oroville. Wide valley miles gave way to tight forest corners and remote mountain pavement. Bucks Lake provided a calm break before the route continued east. Highway 89 crossed the Sierra Valley and aimed toward Truckee. I-80 handled the final descent into Reno after hours of smaller mountain roads. Six days into the trip, I had now crossed the Sierra Nevada in both directions. The Africa Twin remained composed through every change in speed, surface, and elevation.

This route crossed gold country at its source. The Feather River drainages around Oroville produced some of the richest placer gold in California. Oroville Dam, completed in 1968, remains the tallest dam in the United States at 770 feet. Bucks Lake began as a mountain ranch before becoming a reservoir and quiet resort. The Oroville-Quincy Highway follows old mining and freight routes into the high Sierra. Every tight corner on that road once carried mule teams and stagecoaches.

Beyond Quincy, Highway 89 enters the Sierra Valley, the bed of an ancient lake. The valley’s ranchland sits at nearly 5,000 feet, ringed by pine ridges. It gathers the headwaters of the Feather River before the mountains close in again. Reno waited at the bottom of the final descent. The Biggest Little City in the World built its early fame on quick divorces and legal gambling. Today it leans on tech money, but the neon still works.

Day 7 — July 17: Reno, NV to Salina, UT

Day 7 covered the full length of the Loneliest Road, and the geometry supported its reputation. I rode 542.4 miles east while the GPS recorded only 210 turns. Seventeen passes and summits still tied Day 2 for the most of the trip. Sand Springs, Austin, Pinto, Pancake, Robinson, and Connors summits broke up the empty basins. The climbs were short compared with Colorado, but they arrived throughout the day. Each descent returned me to another vast valley and another distant horizon.

Nearly 394 miles came from straightaways measuring at least one mile. The longest ran 37.3 miles between Austin and Eureka without bending two degrees. Another crossed 26.4 miles of Utah’s Sevier Desert. Those roads demanded patience because their scale hid speed, wind, and distance. Near Sacramento Pass, Wheeler Peak rose above Great Basin National Park. The final miles to Salina felt longer than their numbers suggested. US-50 earned its nickname through emptiness, not exaggeration.

US-50 crosses the Great Basin, a geology lesson 400 miles long. Here the Earth’s crust is slowly stretching apart. The stretching breaks the land into parallel mountain ranges separated by flat basins. That is why the road repeats its rhythm: climb a summit, cross a valley, repeat. The route also traces the Pony Express, which lasted just 18 months in 1860 and 1861. The restored Sand Springs station still stands near the singing dune at Sand Mountain. Riders once changed horses where I simply rolled on the throttle.

The eastern half of the day held quiet landmarks. Ely boomed on copper rather than silver, and its Nevada Northern Railway still runs century-old steam trains. Near Sacramento Pass, Great Basin National Park protects ancient bristlecone pines. Those trees are among the oldest living things on Earth, some nearly 5,000 years old. Beneath Wheeler Peak, Lehman Caves hides chambers of ornate limestone formations. Past the Utah line, the desert near Delta once held the Topaz internment camp of World War II. Empty country, it turns out, remembers a great deal.

Day 8 — July 18: Salina, UT to Denver, CO

The final day pointed the Africa Twin home across 456.5 miles. The GPS recorded 285 turns and 12 summits between Salina and Denver. I-70 climbed Emigrant Pass, the highest Interstate point in Utah. The freeway then cut through the San Rafael Swell and Spotted Wolf Canyon. Ghost Rock Summit crowned the crossing above layers of folded desert stone. The route looked ancient, exposed, and completely different from the Pacific coast.

Glenwood Canyon brought the Colorado River back beside the highway. Vail Pass and the Eisenhower Tunnel placed the final major climbs near home. Floyd Hill and Genesee Hill completed the last descent toward Denver. The familiar roads felt different after eight days of desert, forest, and ocean. I returned with a fuller camera, a sore body, and much more confidence in the bike. The trip proved that long mileage stays enjoyable when the route keeps changing. It also proved that heat, time, and seat pressure deserve serious planning.

The San Rafael Swell is one of the strangest landscapes on any Interstate. It is a giant dome of rock, pushed up roughly 60 million years ago and stripped by erosion. Engineers blasted Spotted Wolf Canyon to squeeze I-70 through its eastern reef around 1970. The Salina-to-Green River stretch runs about 106 miles with no services at all. That is the longest such gap on the entire Interstate system. Green River, the melon capital of Utah, breaks the emptiness beside its namesake river. John Wesley Powell floated past this spot in 1869 on his way into the unknown Grand Canyon.

Colorado welcomed me back with familiar icons. Glenwood Canyon’s freeway, finished in 1992, was the final piece of I-70 and an engineering landmark. Glenwood Springs has drawn travelers to its hot springs for more than a century. The gunfighter Doc Holliday came for the waters, and his grave marker overlooks the town. Georgetown, near the last descent, was a silver capital before Leadville stole the crown. Its narrow-gauge Georgetown Loop Railroad still climbs the valley for tourists. After 3,500 miles, even home felt like a destination.

Eight Days on the Africa Twin

This was my first long tour on the manual Africa Twin Adventure Sports with the larger tank. Multi-day distance came far easier than on my previous BMW F900XR. The bike handled the road like a champ. It ate big highway miles, then carved tight twisties with a full load of saddlebags. Day after day, the long miles stayed pleasurable and satisfying.

A few things need attention. The saddlebags cut fuel economy, noticeably more than they did on the BMW. The seat needs some customization to head off leg soreness on long days. Android Auto also connected inconsistently, which is a minor annoyance rather than a problem. I did not buy a motorcycle for phone connectivity.

Why Ride It

A trip like this is not about any single road. It is about watching the West change shape underneath you, mile by mile. Deserts become mountains, mountains become redwoods, and redwoods end at the sea. Tracking the data made the transformation visible: 4,896 turns, 106 summits, 126,639 feet of sky. But the numbers only confirm what the handlebars already knew. If this route is on your list, stop reading and start packing.

Have you ridden US-50, the Avenue of the Giants, or the Oregon coast? Drop a comment below and tell me about it. And subscribe so you do not miss the next ride.

The Complete Route: Roads, Passes, and Summits by Day

Day 1 — July 11 — Denver, CO to Elko, NV (686.4 mi, 373 turns, 20,922 ft of climbing) Roads: I-70, US-6 (Price Canyon), I-15, I-80. Named passes and summits: Genesee Hill (7,730 ft), Floyd Hill, Eisenhower Tunnel at the Continental Divide (11,158 ft), Vail Pass (10,662 ft), Soldier Summit (7,440 ft), the Leppy Hills summit at West Wendover, Pequop Summit (6,967 ft), and Moor Summit. Plus six unnamed desert rises. Note: A GPS gap left the Glenwood Springs to Grand Junction stretch of I-70 unrecorded, about 90 additional miles.

Day 2 — July 12 — Elko, NV to Yuba City, CA (528.5 mi, 780 turns, 21,138 ft) Roads: I-80, NV-278, US-50, NV-341 (Geiger Grade), NV-431 (Mount Rose Highway), CA-28, CA-267, CA-89, CA-49, CA-20. Named passes and summits: Garden Pass (6,683 ft), Hickison Summit (6,546 ft), Bob Scott Summit (7,195 ft), Austin Summit (7,484 ft), Mount Airy Summit (6,686 ft), Sand Springs Pass, Geiger Summit (6,811 ft), Mount Rose Summit (8,911 ft, trip high point), Brockway Summit (about 7,200 ft), and Yuba Pass (6,710 ft). Plus seven unnamed.

Day 3 — July 13 — Yuba City, CA to Garberville, CA (238.7 mi, 956 turns, 10,608 ft) Roads: CA-20, US-101, CA-1. Named passes and summits: Ridgewood Summit (1,956 ft, highest point on US-101 in California), the CA-20 summit at the Lake/Colusa county line (1,850 ft), the CA-20 summit west of Willits (2,000 ft), and Leggett Hill on CA-1 (1,894 ft). Plus five unnamed coastal ridges.

Day 4 — July 14 — Garberville, CA to Coos Bay, OR (301.0 mi, 663 turns, 9,175 ft) Roads: US-101, including the Avenue of the Giants. Named passes and summits: Prairie Creek Summit (1,485 ft) and the grade ten miles south of Crescent City (1,250 ft). Plus nine unnamed coastal grades.

Day 5 — July 15 — Coos Bay, OR to Willits, CA (354.5 mi, 781 turns, 12,487 ft) Roads: US-101. Named passes and summits: the Crescent City grade, Prairie Creek Summit, and Rattlesnake Summit (1,791 ft). Plus ten unnamed.

Day 6 — July 16 — Willits, CA to Reno, NV (316.9 mi, 848 turns, 15,579 ft) Roads: US-101, CA-20, Oroville-Quincy Highway (Bucks Lake Road), CA-70/89, CA-89, I-80. Named passes and summits: Ridgewood Summit (1,956 ft), the Lake/Colusa CA-20 summit (1,850 ft), and Bucks Summit (5,433 ft measured, where the Pacific Crest Trail crosses). Plus ten unnamed, including the Oroville-Quincy Highway’s 5,673-ft high point west of Bucks Lake.

Day 7 — July 17 — Reno, NV to Salina, UT (542.4 mi, 210 turns, 18,708 ft) Roads: I-80, US-50, US-6/50, I-15. Named passes and summits: Sand Springs Pass, Mount Airy Summit (6,686 ft), Austin Summit (7,484 ft), Bob Scott Summit (7,195 ft), Hickison Summit (6,546 ft), Pinto Summit (7,376 ft), Pancake Summit (6,521 ft), Little Antelope Summit (7,438 ft), Robinson Summit (7,588 ft), Connors Pass (7,722 ft), Sacramento Pass (7,154 ft), and Scipio Summit (6,004 ft). Plus five unnamed. Longest straightaways: 37.3 miles (Austin to Eureka), 26.4 miles (Sevier Desert), 20.2 miles (Snake Valley), 14.7 miles (east of Fallon), 13.1 miles (Edwards Creek Valley). In total, 393.6 of 542.4 miles were straightaways of a mile or longer.

Day 8 — July 18 — Salina, UT to Denver, CO (456.5 mi, 285 turns, 18,022 ft) Roads: I-70/US-50, with US-6 joining at Green River. Named passes and summits: Emigrant Pass (7,886 ft, highest Interstate point in Utah), Ghost Rock Summit in the San Rafael Swell, Vail Pass (10,662 ft), Eisenhower Tunnel (11,158 ft), Floyd Hill, and Genesee Hill (7,730 ft). Plus six unnamed.

All mileage, turn, elevation, and summit counts were measured directly from my GPS tracks. A turn is any sustained heading change of 15 degrees or more. A pass or summit is any crest with at least 250 feet of climb and descent on both sides. Named passes were verified against published sources.