Bare Naked Gravel

5 Star Route / Ridden and Reviewed by Gravel Girl & Captain ‘O‘

Leading out from the parking area on quiet paved roads.
The first sector of gravel. Hard packed and fast and beautiful!
The beginning of the single track. Take the Dry Creek trail to the right.
The single track - smooth, loamy and relatively flat.
For some ... there may be short hike a bike sections.
Evidence of the old railroad grade.
The first stream crossing. No wet feet yet ...
The second stream crossing and soon to be wet feet.
Back on pavement, just after leaving the single track.
Climbing the gravel on NF-64.
Just after the turn onto NF-58, a bit more primitive. ~ Mile 12.
In mid July the flowers were in full bloom.
Mile 14. Done with the big climb. Traversing just below the ridge.
The most primitive section of road. Still on the traverse.
A slight downhill leading into the final climb!
The Bare Naked climb (550 ft, 2 miles).
At ~ mile 19.5, a view of Mt. Adams. To the left of this, and out of the picture, is Mt. St Helens.
The descent starts on gravel ...
... and then transitions to pavement quickly.
Use some caution on the descent. Watch for cracks, dips, and debris.
Low down on the descent, no brakes needed.
The parking area. MikeW ready to go!!
Gravel Girl's ride metrics.

Bear Naked Granola. Barenaked Ladies. And now … Bare Naked GRAVEL. Why? Because this route includes one hell of a good climb up to Bare Mountain. And you’ll be going plenty slow to see the awesome wildflowers and the views and everything the woods wants to offer up…..

But before the climb comes a nice warm up … five miles of fern-whacking single track with a few stream crossings. And after the climb is one wide-smile, twisting downhill … long enough to sing all the Barenaked Lady songs you can remember. Let’s get you started ….

“If I had a million dollars
Well I’d buy you a house
And if I had a million dollars
I’d buy you furniture for your house (maybe a nice chesterfield or an ottoman)
And if I had a million dollars (if I had a million dollars)
I’d buy you a ripping fast gravel bike”
**Click to Read More

Adventure / Gravel Route

– Loop: 32 miles / 3400 ft gain
– Surface: ~ 35% gravel, 12.5% single track, 52.5% tarmac
– eBike Approved: No
– Location: ~ 45 min northeast of Hood River, Oregon
– Rideable: Spring to Fall
– Course by: Captain “O”
– Published: August 2019

Difficulty

Moderate. Due to a climb of 2100 ft over 5 miles (7% average grade) and 4 miles of single track.

The Start

Paved pull out on Little Soda Springs road. To the right.
Lat / Long: 45.837439, -121.946498

Food / Water

None.

Downloads

Cue Sheet / GPX File / TCX File

Legend

Red = paved road
Brown = gravel / dirt road
Blue = single-track

For help with Ride, GPS files, etc see the “Help with …” page. To learn how to download the routes for free, see “Using Our Routes …” page.

Keith says:

January 3, 2021 at 2:57 am

Rode this on 8/23/2020 in recommended direction, started @ 11am. Be on the lookout for hikers on the single track, we came across a lot of them. Super fun ride. Lots of huckleberry picking spots at the higher elevations. It was a super fun ride down the tarmac, but keep your ears open for cars & motorcycles.

Kevin / Co-Founder @ Dirty Freehub says:
January 3, 2021 at 5:33 am
Thanks for the route review! In 2020 things are all strange … when we rode this we saw no one. Ride dirty and smile!!
Reply

Siobhan McNulty says:

July 27, 2020 at 5:17 pm

Thank you for another awesome route, Dirty Freehub. Bare Naked Gravel was a hoot on Sunday, 7/26! Beautiful singletrack, cooling stream crossing (great for a plunge!), loooong climb (up, up, up…up, up, up) and HOLY COW…that descent went on for days. Who knew one could get so exhausted going downhill? And by ‘exhausted’ I mean our faces hurt like crazy from smiling so big.

Word of caution: The large horseflies really enjoy sucking on the legs of cyclists so keep pedaling or eat your snacks really fast.