Baker/Unity/Phillips Multi-Day Loop

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Baker City, OR, US

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Route Overview

Mountain Works Bicycles LLC

Be Happy, Be Healthy, Make a Difference.

122 mi.

9,041 ft.

Isolated northeast Oregon hosts acres of National Forest land crossed with pavement perfect for cycling adventures. A wonderful three-day, self-sustained, pavement adventure starting in Baker City travels by cattle, timber, ghost towns and mine tailings.

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Route Details

## @slice[**Day One - Baker to Unity**](d,282.33,71430.47)

The Geiser Pollman Park in Baker City is a wonderful starting location with shade, play equipment, restrooms, a museum and a library.  Take advantage of the Leo Adler Memorial Parkway through the center of Baker City turning west on Bridge Street as the path ends.  Cycle south on Dewey Avenue, which becomes Oregon Highway 7, traveling toward Sumpter.  Enjoy the slight incline of the lush Bowen Valley for seven miles.  Redwing Black Birds, mules and waving grasses will keep you company as the Powder River sparkles to the east and Elkhorn Mountains to the west.  Just prior to ten miles of travel, @point[turn up Stices Gulch](d,15688.19)  on Highway 245 towards Unity.

Dooley Mountain Highway presents a climb sculpted by foreign physical labor of epic proportions.  There is 1745 feet of elevation gain in a little over seven miles of less than 6% grade making the climb achievable while offering panoramic vistas that make you feel small.  The Dooley Mountain area is full of history based on timber, mining and ranching.  Crossing this section of the Blue Mountains was so desirable and difficult that at one point there was a toll road featuring a mountain house for weary travelers and their beasts of burden.  Recent fires in the 1980’s and 2015 from lightning strikes have opened up the hillsides to highlight volcanic rock bands and bright wild flowers.  The recent Cornet/Windy Ridge Fire of 2015 burned 103,887 acres of land.  Currently there is a lot of salvage logging aimed at the blacked skeletal remains of this part of the Whitman National Forest.

The view from Dooley Pass encompasses numerous peaks and valleys, illuminating the splendor or the Blue Mountains.  The 12.3-mile descent into Burnt River Valley is glorious.  The grade rarely reaches 6% making brakes an unnecessary option as it swoops in and out of various creek ravines.  The cut banks reveal different glistening volcanic minerals including obsidian that glimmer in the sun.  The highway eventually straightens out to follow the wooded Mill Creek to the Burnt River Valley.  Be sure to watch out for the occasional pothole, rock fall or wandering motorist distracted by the beauty that surrounds them.

Upon sighting the Burnt River, travel @point[west toward Hereford and Unity](d,43269.8).  The landscape and smells change drastically for the remaining 18 miles.  Instead of Ponderosa Pine and wildflowers, Juniper and Sage rule the environment and winds.  Various ditches, originally used for irrigation and mining, dominate the valley as do abandoned barns and houses.  Hereford, a once thriving cattle town, boasts an interesting information kiosk in front of the old Hereford Union High that is well worth a read while preparing for the remaining 10-mile gradual incline to Unity Lake.

The final sprint to the reservoir goes through a little canyon carved out by the Burnt River that features Hoodoos full of Cliff Swallow nest and scintillating water.  The Unity Lake Reservoir is a glistening jewel in desert terrain.  The Unity Lake has a @poi[state park](2101502) with wonderful camping and picnic areas.  The town of @poi[Unity](2101503) is an easy five miles from the Lake and has a general store as well as The Water Hole Café where you can get a beer and burger as well as a game of pool.

## @slice[**Day Two- Unity to Bates**](d,69225.56,105909.46)

This short 23-mile day with, two attainable summits, starts at Unity Lake Reservoir State Park with its sparkling water and wonderful camping and picnic areas.  @slice[Travel southwest on State Highway 245](d,66789.31,70647.93) which raises steadily in search of forest and the alluring vanilla like smell of large Ponderosa pines.  The sage and rabbit brush populate the open rangeland that offers splendid views of the surrounding peaks such as Buck and King Mountain.  Cattle, gulches that seasonally fill with water, birds of prey and ground squirrels keep you company onto US Highway 26.  @point[Veer northwest on US Hwy 26](d,70700.94) away from Unity and toward Prairie City and John Day.

US Highway 26 bisects the Blue Mountains and skirts through the Malheur and Whitman National Forests.  The steady climb from Unity Lake continues thirteen miles with 1284 feet of elevation gain.  With each pedal stroke the sagebrush and Juniper trees disappear and are replaced with statuesque Ponderosa pines, Fir and Larch.  There are multiple Wallowa Whitman Campground options on the way up the climb for places to take a pleasant break.  Do not count on them for water.  Upon reaching the 5109 foot Blue Mountain Summit, the scenery supports the main historical industry shift from cattle to that of forest harvesting.

Enjoy the view on the five-mile glide into Grant County past iconic meadows like Sullens Cow Camp and Phillips Meadow.  Dixie Butte looms in the distance promising more adventures and heralds the volcanic landscape to come.  Between Phillips Meadow to Camp Creek there is a snotty little climb that reaches a 7% grade.  Spin into Austin Junction and enjoy a meal, snack, dessert, drink, trinket purchase or just a cultural adventure.  If you are planning on @poi[Austin Junction](6254869) for food make sure to call ahead and confirm they are open due to seasonal hours.

Leave US Highway 26 at Austin Junction for State Highway 7 traveling toward Sumpter and Baker City.  There is a short one-mile glide between Austin Junction and Bates State Park which turns onto Middle Fork Lane.  I suggest camping at @poi[Bates State Park](6254865).  
___
*The early 1900’s was the perfect time to make a fortune in lumber.   The now vanished lumber town of Bates is a perfect example of the process.  Two businessmen, one from Utah and one from Portland, bought vast tracts of land in the Blue Mountains and started the Oregon Lumber Company.  They started with a small sawmill in Baker City then focused on pushing the @poi[Sumpter Valley Railway](6254868) into existence.*

*With an effective mode of transportation in place, another mill was constructed in the nearby town of Austin.  After eleven years of milling, the partners once again changed their main location of operation.  A short mile west of Austin multiple creeks converge into the John Day River allowing for a log pond to be formed and ease of transportation of logs to the mill.*

*The next 40 years were great for Bates as the lumber mill thrived.  A school, church, dinning hall, hotel and various other businesses supported the 400 plus citizens who lived in little company houses or reconfigured railcars.  In the 1960’s the Oregon Lumber Company sold to another company who continued the boom another fifteen years before closing Bates.  Many workers bought their houses for a dollar and moved them to neighboring towns.  The mill and kiln were also dismantled and moved.*

*Now there is a beautiful meadow and State Park, where the mill used to stand.  There are hiking trails, Bates Pond as well as the John Day River to take advantage of on this short day of travel.  If by chance 23-miles of fun were not enough of an adventure, I encourage you to visit the @point[nearby ghost town of Austin](d,106626.93).  Unlike Bates, the ghost town of Austin still stands tall with its beautiful sun worn skeleton on display.*
____
## @slice[**Day 3 - Bates to Baker City**](d,109032.17,186954.43)

Hasten out of Bates State Park to the east and onto Oregon Highway 7 that travels northeast to Baker City.  The traffic on the Whitney/Tipton Highway is seasonally oriented around summer tourism and hunting.  As a cyclist, I prefer to avoid this stretch of road during the summer weekends that suggest camping like July 4th and Memorial Day.  Though the shoulders of the road are adequate, drivers mostly friendly and traffic relatively slow, parades of mobile homes are not my favored riding companions.

After a pithy mile and a half leg warm-up, Tipton Mountain Pass at 5124 feet of elevation beckons.  The scenery becomes more wooded and volcanic as you leave the meadows and flats of Bates gaining 1032 feet in little over five miles.  The grade is fairly constant and doable only breaking the 6% incline a couple of times.  This climb is not as majestic as the Dooley Mountain ascent, due to how direct the route is, but the view looking down the other side is fantastic.  Relish the three-mile plunge to the North Fork of the Burnt River with a view that reaches beyond the Blue Mountains to the Eagle Caps.

Continue to glide into the beautiful high mountain meadows of Whitney Valley.  Whitney Valley, once a booming center of industry, has acres of meadows crossed with tiny creeks, cattle, sagebrush, pines and more. 
The town of @point[Whitney](d,128480.79) is a classic ghost town with beautifully weathered wood, impressive sagebrush bushes and tons of sky.   A timber town with a mill and the Sumpter Valley Rail Road running through it, Whitney was a main source of materials and transportation for ranchers and goldminers alike.  They made Whitney a busy town until the railroad stopped travel in 1947.  There is an old cemetery a short distance northeast of the ghost town on an unmarked forest service road.  The pioneer cemetery, designated prior to 1905, has been abandoned with few written records and only a couple tombstones.

Leave Whitney Valley to clamber around Huckleberry Mountain enjoying the variety of sedges dispersed among the Ponderosa Pines.  Oregon Highway 7 bumps up through 822 feet of elevation gain at a 4-5% grade to then drop into the Sumpter Valley.  Sumpter Valley and the surrounding areas once contained at minimum 9 million dollars of gold ore, miners, wild towns, railroads, mule trains and all the sins and celebrations of the gold rush.  As the precious metals left the area so did many of the inhabitants.  Mined through the 1950’s the area still shows the scars left by the dredges and dynamite.  To the south of the road, the Powder River wanders among the glistening tailings made beautiful by the brilliant sun, infiltrating greenery and birds.

As the descent off the flank of Huckleberry Mountain comes to an end, the town of Sumpter lures hungry cyclists on a brief detour from Oregon Highway 7.  Three short miles up the fairly flat Sumpter Valley Highway gives way to the town of @poi[Sumpter](6254867).  Wild stories of ghosts, gunfights, robberies and fire are all part of the town of Sumpter and on display at the local museum and various historical markers.  The end of Sumpter’s glory days began in the summer of 1917.  That hot summer more than tempers flared and the resulting twelve block-blazing inferno, somehow brought to heel by the introduction of dynamite, started the exodus.  As the mines and logging became less productive and the automobile replaced the train, Sumpter lost its boom.  Now listed as a notorious ghost town, Sumpter is a sleepy town that plays on its mining history and the seasonal hunters to keep the town in the black.

Upon returning to Oregon Highway 7, keep an eye out for Huckleberry Loop and the Sumpter Valley Railroad.  The @poi[Sumpter Valley Railroad](6254868) is a discontinuous narrow gage rail line offering day adventures traveling from McEwen to Sumpter via restored passenger cars pulled by a meticulously refurbished steam engine.   Philips Lake Reservoir is also worth a visit with its sparkling water, campgrounds, numerous birds and resident deer.

The last 13 miles from @poi[Philips Lake Reservoir](6254866) to Baker City is almost all on a gradual downhill grade as the road runs alongside the Powder River.  The canyon is beautiful with its sparkling water, rock bluffs, homesteads and trees.  Winds notoriously love canyons such as these and are therefore frequently influential on how quickly cyclists arrive at Baker City.  The journey is practically over as the vistas finally open up in Bowen Valley for a quick glimpse of the Elkhorn Mountains before ducking back into town.

If your thirst for history and minerals has not been assuaged by the three-day adventure through eastern Oregon be sure to visit the @poi[Baker Heritage Museum](2103427) in the heart of Baker City.  The Heritage Museum does an excellent job of portraying the rough and tumble history of the area and what everyday life used to look like.  They also exhibit an incredible collection of minerals, fossils, crystals and rocks.  Two world-traveling sisters from Baker procured much of the collection starting in the 1930’s.  The collection now weighs in at more than 18-tons.

Baker/Unity/Phillips Multi-Day Loop

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