We headed East out of Portland and Walla Walla this summer, towards Missoula, Montana. This is a common part of many people's routes, since Missoula is the home of Adventure Cycling. There are two ways in to Missoula. One is over Lookout Pass, essentially on I-90, and the other is Highway 12, over Lolo Pass. It seems like Lolo pass is the route of choice, or maybe the route that Adventure cycling advocates.

Adventure Cycling does not seem to give explicit criteria for why they choose one route over another. We suspect low traffic roads could be part of it, but it does not seem that hills and whether or not there is a shoulder figure too much.

Last summer we chose the Trail of the Coeur d'Alenes, followed by Lookout Pass. (see our Crazyguy blog, days 20-27). So now that we were heading out in the van to Missoula, we thought we would have a peek at Highway 12.

Around Lewiston Highway 12 follows the Snake River for a bit , and later it hugs the Clearwater. This river section is flat and extremely picturesque. We began to kick ourselves for not coming this way on the bikes. However in due course the road leaves the Clearwater and begins about a 70 km ascent up to the Lolo Pass. This is not a killer bit exactly, but seemed like it would feel like cycling into a headwind, for a long time. Finally there was about a 10 km steep section to the top of the Pass. For the entire river portion and pass portion, there is little or no shoulder, and quite a bit of traffic on the river portion. Further, once you leave the river, there are few or no services, for 100km or more. Overall, it would not be a pleasant experience.

I-90, by contrast, may have more traffic but it also has a super wide shoulder. And once you follow the very moderate and well serviced Coeur d'Alenes trail to Mullan, you only have a few km to be over the Pass. From there it's basically downhill to Missoula.

So our assessment: thumbs down on Highway 12. We are sticking with our route through the Palouse, through Plummer Idaho to Wallace and Mullan, and on to Missoula. And when you get to Missoula and make the mandatory pilgrimage to Adventure Cycling down on Pine Street, tell them we said so.