Heading south in a few weeks. 5 or 6000 miles. Priorities on this one: Good secondaries, inspiring terrain, funky campgrounds, hot springs, as little interstate/traffic as possible, good bakeries, a Bodum of good coffee brewed each morning from my tent preferably.
From home here in Canmore Alberta so far the plan unfolds thus: Idaho via Lewiston, Nevada via Elko down to the 50, Cali via Lake Tahoe 395 south hopefully Tioga Pass will be open, Death Valley, Joshua Tree again (I love it), Anza-Borrego, up the coast to Eureka, cut back east having previously riden the Oregon coast, probably head north up to ride the Columbia gorge from Portland eastwards to around Walla Walla or so, B.C. then home.
300 to 500 mile days is usually my style.
There's a crazy ass 8 mile set of steep twisties just north of Lewiston ID, Bodie ghost town, life size  dinosaur and dragon metal sculptures in the Anza-Borrego, the Golden Gate bridge the Lost Highway on the northern Cali coast. Any way you get the picture. If you've got any ideas please share. Thanks

Doesn't look like you are going thru AZ much but Easily rivals sights in the rest of the south west.  There is the mile wide meteor crater,  sunset crater volcano,  Sedona's a beautiful resort town with red rock buttes.   Obviously the grand Canyon. 

In Cali,  The giant Sequoia trees,  any of the mountain passes between valleys will be great riding.   Glamis is cool in a desolate way(where they filmed the sand dune scens in Star wars. you can also catch some interesting dune jumping motorcycle guys once in a while),    I always liked passing the windmill farms of palm springs,  Windmills as far as you can see.

Such a variety of scenery that you can spend weeks out there and not take it all in.

Hey Elf,
AZ was the original focus of this trip which naturally pulled in the four corners area so rather than having to blast through AZ, NM and CO those three states will have to be postponed for another monster run. I`ll google the locations you mentioned in CA. Clement Salvadori authored an good motorcycle route guide to Cali and Baja which I`ve been drooling over for a while now. The route ideas and description are inspiring but it's geared mainly towards the hotel restaurant crowd. This is a dedicated dirtbag run for me this time. Want to see and experience as much of the land as time will realistically allow.
 Sequoias and sage good, slab and speeding tickets not. Saw those huge wind farms outside of PS a few years ago on a J-Tree climbing trip. Wow. Thanks

Just a suggestion...since you mentioned the Old Spiral Highway and Lewiston...leaving Lewiston take Hwy 129 South from Clarkston to Enterprise, OR...you'll get to ride Rattlesnake Grade...which is sorta like the Lewiston Grade on steroids...and, you can continue on towards Nevada from Enterprise...

Hey CR,  Good tip thanks. Yeah I`m planning on continuing south from Lew to Enterprise. There's a forestry road southwest of there that wanders down towards the Snake but doesn't typically open til late May. Don't have a map with me at the moment but IIRC its the 39. Have riden the road down to Elko via Mountain View??/Owyhee. Nice. Probably do it again this run.
 From Elko I`ve camped in the Rubies and am trying to figure my route southwards towards Eureka and NV 50 westward. From Elko it looks like I have to cut back west a bit on slab to pick up the next paved road south.

Hot Springs Mt is my goal/campsite for day 1. I trying to locate scenic cheap camping somewhere around 400 miles south of Lew on the route described previously. Never be good at just sniffing out good BLM ect locations. Probably need to develop better hunting skills in that regard while in the saddle. Safe, secure, easy, time saving campgrounds work but invariable my most memorable campsites happen by chance and fluke. Ideas?

Yeah Glamis goes on the list, looks good. If I head out from Yuma in the early morning the light on the dunes will hopefully make for good photography. The Rattlesnake grade sounds worthwhile for sure. Thanks CR

Hey CR,  Good tip thanks. Yeah I`m planning on continuing south from Lew to Enterprise. There's a forestry road southwest of there that wanders down towards the Snake but doesn't typically open til late May. Don't have a map with me at the moment but IIRC its the 39. Have riden the road down to Elko via Mountain View??/Owyhee. Nice. Probably do it again this run.
 From Elko I`ve camped in the Rubies and am trying to figure my route southwards towards Eureka and NV 50 westward. From Elko it looks like I have to cut back west a bit on slab to pick up the next paved road south.

I think your memory serves you well...NF39...we're going to ride it going from Boise to Lewiston in August...here's a link:

http://oregonmotorcyclist.com/ridepage.php?page=fr39

Enjoy!

Hey CR nice link and report thanks. I`ll consult that OregonMotorcyclist website further. One other road featured on that site is the Cascade Lakes Hwy. Going over my road map just last night I was thinking that road had possibilities.
From Portland to Maryhill a buddy has given me some good ideas but I still need to figure the route roughly NW from there up to BC/Alberta. Have previously really enjoyed WA 20 that cuts East West across the northern portion of WA. Anyone got recommendations for either WA routes or WA state route info/sites?