Highway 101: Avenue of the Giants to Coos Bay

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Avenue of the Giants

   The Avenue of the Giants is a thirty-one-mile stretch of old highway that runs parallel to Highway 101 through the Humboldt Redwoods State Park, and the moment you turn onto it the light changes. The trees are coast redwoods, the tallest living things on the planet, with trunks as wide as a small room and tops that disappear a hundred metres overhead. The air is cool and damp, the forest floor is thick with ferns and sorrel, and sound seems to vanish into the huge trunks. It is the sort of place where riders instinctively lower the revs.

   Read the complete Avenue of the Giants write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Avenue of the Giants is where the day begins. Next is Eureka.

2. 2. Eureka

   Eureka is the biggest town on California's north coast, a place of about twenty-seven thousand people on the shores of Humboldt Bay, and it is a very good place to stop and refuel before or after the Avenue of the Giants. The town grew rich on redwood in the late nineteenth century, when lumber barons built ornate houses and shipped their cargoes down the coast to San Francisco. The finest of them is the Carson Mansion, a gabled, towered Victorian pile that stands on a corner near the water and is probably the most photographed private house in California.

   Read the complete Eureka write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Eureka comes up about 136 km into the recorded legs. Next is Crescent City.

3. 3. Crescent City

   Crescent City is the last real town on the California coast before Oregon, and it carries its history in an unusual way. In March 1964, the great Alaska earthquake sent a series of tsunamis racing across the Pacific, and the fourth wave, arriving hours after the first, struck Crescent City with devastating force, destroying much of the downtown and killing eleven people. It remains the worst tsunami disaster in the contiguous United States, and tsunami evacuation signs are posted along the roads. The harbour was rebuilt, and today it serves a fleet of fishing boats and a population of about six and a half thousand.

   Read the complete Crescent City write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 404 km into the recorded legs you reach Crescent City. Next is Brookings.

4. 4. Brookings

   Brookings is the first Oregon town you meet coming up Highway 101 from California, and it greets you with unusual warmth. A quirk of the terrain and the warm winds that come down the Chetco River valley make it the mildest spot on the Oregon coast, nicknamed the banana belt, with winter temperatures that are several degrees above anywhere nearby. That climate suits flowers. More than ninety per cent of the Easter lily bulbs grown in the country come from fields around here, and in early summer the farms along the road are a sea of white trumpets.

   Read the complete Brookings write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Brookings, about halfway. Next is Gold Beach.

5. 5. Gold Beach

   Gold Beach sits at the mouth of the Rogue River on Oregon's southern coast, a small town of about two and a half thousand people strung along Highway 101 and the harbour. The name comes from the gold that miners found in the black beach sands in the 1850s, and the town has spent the years since selling something less glittering but more lasting, the river itself. Jet boats run up the Rogue into the wilderness from here, carrying visitors past bald eagles, ospreys and black bears, and the river is one of the original eight in the national Wild and Scenic Rivers system.

   Read the complete Gold Beach write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Gold Beach sits at 692 km, late in the day. Next is Coos Bay.

6. 6. Coos Bay

   Coos Bay is a working harbour on the Oregon coast, and the working is visible. Stacks of timber and wood chips wait on the docks, ships load cargo, and the town's main street faces the water, with a mixture of old brick buildings and low modern shops. About sixteen thousand people live here, making it the largest city on the Oregon coast, and the bay itself is the largest natural harbour between San Francisco and the Columbia river, a fact that drove the logging and shipping industries for more than a century. A slow decline in timber has pushed the town to find other ways to earn a living.

   Read the complete Coos Bay write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   The route ends here after 865 km.