Tag Archives: Washington

Hagerty Fall Classic – Day Three

With our final drivers meeting complete for this year, our group hit the road from Prineville to The Dalles for the end of the Hagerty Fall Classic. Despite being the final day for the event, we certainly hadn’t used up all the great roads…and by the time we got to the finish, many of us had wished a second half of the day was yet to come.

Leaving Prineville, we headed west along the Oneil Highway, a meandering journey through golden fields of cut hay. Just as you begin to think about whether the morning will be all rolling hills and fields, the road twists and the towering rocks of Smith Rock jump out into view. It’s a stark, and almost shocking, contrast to the rolling fields. Similar to driving along the plains of Nebraska, only to turn a corner and see an example of the Rock Mountains towering over a tiny town.

From there it was North to Willowdale, where we left the fields and plains for canyon carving. The road twisted relentlessly up onto a plateau where we went through Antelope, the historic towns of Shaniko and Bakeoven, and then tested the brakes all the way down into Maupin.

For the start of the twisties I was following the group of Minis and an Alfa Romeo, with one of the BMW’s and a Corvette behind me. I realized, too late, when the road started to twist and climb that there was no where for me to pull over. The ’58 Volkswagen was going to have to keep up to the Minis and not disappoint the cars behind me. With my foot firmly planted to the rubber mat, I gripped the steering wheel and dove into each corner. As the theme music to a certain childhood movie staring a white car with the number 53 on it played in my head, an old saying came to mind. “Its better to drive a slow car fast, then drive a fast car slow.” No where was this more true than the climb up onto our first plateau.

While the Minis danced their way up the corners looking like a life sized slot-car set, the BWM and corvette behind me appeared to be enjoying the drive while not riding onto my back bumper. In the ’58 beetle I was merely doing the speed limit up the hill, but I couldn’t have found an single extra mile per hour if you had closed the road and called it a race course.

Leaving Shaniko, along a road we’ve used in a previous event, I looked forward to the reverse of our canyon climb, as you drop all the way down to the Deschute River in Maupin. It’s a series of twists and switchbacks that will test the brakes on any car not driven with foresight and planning. Upon reaching the bottom, there’s a beautiful drive along the river, where the slow speed limits allow you to take in the views and watch the white water rafters next to you in the river. Soon you arrive at a stop sign, and turn left…er, right? Hmm, the route book says right…I don’t remember this road?

Moments later were climbing up a canyon twisty that would be far more at home in the Alps vs the middle of Oregon. Every 100ft there was a sign proclaiming “Abrupt Edge”, when it honestly should have read “no shoulder, that’s a cliff.” With zero guardrails, and a sudden drop for hundreds of feet, I was sure happy to be in the driver’s seat and not the co-drivers spot! We crossed the Deschutes river canyon, made our way up through the grass valley and eventually over to The Dalles, where the Columbia Gorge Discovery Centre hosted our finish lunch.

This being our final meal together, it was time for some awards, recognition, and draw prizes. The Hard Luck award will be headed to Duane and Sylvia, who had to head home early in their Jaguar XK140. A float issue was causing one cylinder to flood, and despite a couple of roadside attempts no repair could be made.

The McGyver award went to Bill and David in the BMW. Initially we thought it would be for the way they managed to repair a clutch slave cylinder with a bolt, and rebleed it on the side of the road…but they decided to add to the effect by arriving at the finish with an exhaust system held onto the car with bailing wire, rope and a whatever else they could find in the car. As it turns out, if you see the exhaust system appears a little rusty on your pre-event inspection…you should probably check to see if it’s surface rust or almost all the way through!

The Hagerty Sprit of the Classic award was (unknowingly) in stiff competition this year. Ross flew in from Colorado, to join Jacob in a car they bought together essentially sight-unseen three days before the event. The Mini crew continued to be the life of the evening party, while entertaining us all on the road with their usual parade antics. Jay and Linda arrived as new entrants, but made friends so quickly they were “regulars” before the Thursday dinner had even started. But in the end, we could only award the honour to one entrant.

They began the weekend as new entrants, but not only quickly made friends…they made it a mission to get to know as many people as possible. Each night they were seen dining with new people, finding out all about what made them join our adventure. On the road, when their center console of their Camaro became a gear-oil volcano through the shifter, they were unfazed. Together with help from other cars, they created axle stands from rocks, diagnosed where the oil fountain was coming from (a torn shift boot) and worked out a system by which the co-driver was now in charge of both directions and oil deflection. When the problem couldn’t be solved on Saturday night, rather than head home directly, they decided that an adventure such as our should be finished! Besides, the whole underside needed to be cleaned anyways…what’s another day of oil? All smiles as they shared stories of their adventure at the finish, Aaron and Zafera were the perfect choice for our Spirit of the Classic award!

RWM & Co. graciously donated two gift certificates worth over $300 each for use at their Delta BC restoration shop. Len Swanson and Aaron Aaron will be making good use of their certificates in the coming winter!

With our event almost complete, it was time to draw for the two Roue Watches which had been asked about all weekend. Bill Eastman, winner of the McGyver award, will be able to time their next repair using his new SSD model Roue watch. Helaine has found the perfect early birthday present for her husband Curt after having her name drawn for the CHR model watch. We think it will look pretty good with his Hyabusa powered Lotus Seven!

All too soon it was time to say good bye until next year. We’ll be back for next year’s Hagerty Fall Classic, and you certainly won’t want to miss out on the fun. Events, much like slow cars driven fast, are much better experienced in person vs. reading about it!

Thanks, once again, to Andrew Holliday Photography for another stunning preview of images from today’s adventure.

Hagerty Fall Classic – Day One

Imagine, for a moment, that you just spent the day hanging out with your best friends. Perhaps you haven’t seen them for a few weeks, months, or even a year…but the time that has passed simply doesn’t matter. By the end of day one, that’s exactly what the Hagerty Fall Classic was, hanging out with best friends who haven’t seen each other in a year, or maybe ever before!

Alright, in fairness the Hagerty Fall Classic started last night with the “unofficial, unorganized” Thursday night party. These started a few years ago as a way for the out-of-town guests to connect the night before an event, but have become so popular that the local guests are sure to make their calendars free so they can attend. Last night we jammed a local Italian restaurant beyond capacity and got to know one another over rich pastas and Italian reds.

Despite our dinner the night before, however, after the driver’s meeting this morning I was wondering if we had started to gel as a group. Usually I can barely keep the group together until the end of the meeting, they’re briskly walking to their cars to get a head start before I finish. This morning, though, there was a lull. It turns out everyone was trying to work out which friends they were going to start the event with!

We started out in Troudale Oregon, and headed for a taste of the Columbia Gorge, with it’s wonderful roads that twist and turn around both sides of the canyon. The route was quick to head south, in order to give our entrants fantastic views, and the twists and turns, through Mount Hood National Forest. From there it was north to Hood River, where many of us stopped for lunch before crossing North into Washington.

In Washington we carved north through the pine and oak forests of Trout Lake and Klickitat, before heading east, and into the desert scrub region. At one point you’re high up in the trees, the air thick with the smell of pines and, in just a single corner, the road twists and suddenly its dry prairie grasslands. Between the rugged river canyons, the high alpine meadows, the pine and oak forests, and then the dry deserts it felt as though we had driven through four different planets today.

As the group gathered amongst the cars before dinner, one thing was clear; the roads were fantastic and we couldn’t have had better day. Interestingly, by dinner time you couldn’t tell who was a new entrant and who has been here for a few years or more. By the start of dinner, it was clear we were just one big happy family of collector car enthusiasts, a sentiment that spilled out into the parking lot party that went on until midnight. Bed time came, not because we wanted to sleep, but simply because we wanted to be ready and alert for tomorrow’s adventure!

A selection of photos from day one, provided by Andrew Holliday Photography, are below.

2016 Hagerty Fall Classic – Day Three

We awoke in Omak Washington to a beautiful fall morning in the desert. Across the valley the mountains were tinged with golden light, and while a little chilly on our shaded plateau, you could tell the weather was just going to be fantastic. A few of us checked the weather radar, and while they were calling for rain to hit the west-coast, it looked as though we might finish the event without getting wet. 

_MG_0345cca-XLWith the driver’s meeting out of the way, we departed the hotel and headed south towards highway 20. Typically the organizer doesn’t depart in the first half of the group, instead staying to ensure cars get fired up okay. Today, as I closed the driver’s meeting, I almost went for a Le Mans-style dash to my car…I had to be near the front! Leading most of the group onto Highway 20 West, it soon became quite evident why. The climb from Okanogon up to Twisp via the Loup Loup pass is fairly steep. One might say “very steep”, if you find yourself with only 60 horsepower behind you. It wasn’t long before I was using every pull out possible to let our entrants by. I may have started in the front, but by the time we arrived in the town of Winthrop, I was very nearly the last car in the group. 

_MG_0397cca-XLWinthrop, though, was a planned stop for the group. The route book tells us that in 1972 the town residents agreed a ‘theme’ should be created to attract visitors traveling the soon-to-be-finished Highway 20. An “old-west” theme was chosen, and bylaws written requiring every business and building to appear period correct. The sidewalks are boardwalks, even the gas station appears as though it was one of the first in the early 1900’s. With tourism thriving, it makes the perfect morning stop for coffee and pastries, and/or simply walking around to take in the sights.  Having once again caught up with the group, I used it as my opportunity to lead the charge towards the finish. 

_MG_0421cca-XLFor the first thirty miles I began to wonder if i had left too early. Even with just 60hp, the Beetle simply rocks along the flats, easily wrapping the speedometer needle into the police-issued ‘performance award’ territory. But soon enough, the climb towards Washington Pass began. This would be the steepest, longest climb of the entire weekend. It wasn’t long before I was passed by an E-Type. The gang of Mini’s appeared in the rear view mirror, with a Mercedes mixed in for good measure. Our speed differential made it seem as though the whole group was escaping a bank heist. A pair of Alfa Duetto’s went by with a Citroen DS, followed soon by a Spider Abnormale. About halfway up I pulled over to check the engine temperature on the beetle (if you can hold the dipstick for more than 30sec, you’re okay!), and was passed by the rest of the group, including a 1950 Jaguar XK150. Oh sure, it has a bazillion more cylinders than I do…but it was all those aluminum body panels that did the trick. 

_MG_0467cca-XLYou would think that crawling up the hill in 2nd and 3rd gear, being passed by all your friends, would be a disappointing part of the day…but in truth, it was absolutely incredible. I got to see each of our entrants today, enjoying the roads together and in new groupings of cars. It wasn’t just the Alfa’s traveling with the Alfas, everyone had been mixing it up and driving with new friends. And while I may have been the slowest one to the top, I did make it! And that’s probably the most important part. I did my best to make up some time on the way back down the passes, but between the speed limits and the swing-axle rear end, I was destined to enjoy the day alone.

Highway 20, on which we were travelling, is known as the “North Cascades Scenic Highway”, and for good reason. Starting in desert scrub, you climb up into the most majestic views of the Cascade Mountains towering above you. Moving West through the mountains there are crystal blue lakes, stunning waterfalls and view, upon view, upon view. The highway twists and turns for two and half hours, all the way to the town of Concrete. Here our route turned onto the old Skagit highway, where the trees are so tight it’s like driving through a tunnel all the way to our finish. 

IMG_0859cca-XLArriving at our Golf Course finish, it turns out I was ‘just’ behind the group, and many of them were still unloading having just parked their cars. The row of cars, each plastered with insect remains, sat otherwise gleaming in the sunlight. The weather had held out for us on day three, the perfect ending to a weekend of driving. Together we dined outside on the patio, overlooking the Skagit Valley. 

Geoff Akehurst, in the 1950 XK150 was the “hard luck” award winner, his Jaguar having shed one it’s spats along the road…it’s going to need a wee bit of a paint, and possibly more attention from RWM&Co. His co-driver, Tony Bradwell, won the “Macgyver” award, our way of giving the two a hard time for being the only car needing the hood up during the weekend! Our final award, the coveted Hagerty Sprit of the Fall Classic, was awarded to Deanna Kitchener in the Mini Pickup truck, for her endless enthusiasm in getting others involved with the event. 

And with that, we closed the 2016 running of the Hagerty Fall Classic. Once again our incredible images come from Andrew Holliday, who spent the weekend jumping around the maps and route in his collector-plated Mazda Miata.

2016 Hagerty Fall Classic – Day Two

CCAfallclSat_011-XLI awoke for Day 2 of the Hagerty Fall Classic at about 5:15am, roughly two and a half hours before my alarm. The anticipation for today’s route was too much, suddenly I was awake and the next moment I was reviewing each road for the day in my mind. While we’ve done remote routes and destinations in previous events, today’s roads put a whole new meaning into “out there”. Fuel and food was widely spaced, and careful planning had gone into working out a route that would ensure cars, and their person contents, wouldn’t run out of fuel. Despite weeks of going over the timing in my office, here I was lying in bed at 5:30am doing the math all over again

CCAfallclSat_016-XLBy our 8:45am driver’s meeting, I had nothing but pure anticipation and excitement in my head. Often, when creating a route for Classic Car Adventures, the process begins with a single road, or destination in mind. When we find brilliant road, the puzzle becomes whether or not we can mix that road into a three day event, and do it at just the right moment. Leave the road too late in the day, and your entrants could be too tired to appreciate it. Start the event off with the best road, and you’ve potentially wasted the ‘wow’ moment before there could be any buildup. For us, designing the perfect event is far from simply booking a few hotels and drawing a squiggly line through the map. As the moment of the ‘perfect road’ nears, the anticipation of having it all work out is like a big adrenalin rush. And so, with that rush in my head I opened the drivers meeting…

Together as a group, the route book map was consulted, and the suggested lunch location was highlighted. We worked out the vast areas of “nothing” we would travel, so fuel and snack plans could be roughed in before departure. With a promise of good food in a remote town you might not find on a traditional map, we hit the road. Rarely does a drivers meeting get backed up so perfectly in the first hour of driving. As we made our way North we turned off onto a short winding road to warm the group up. The winding road is fantastic in it’s own right, a short six mile jaunt the twists and turns before dropping you down into the valley through a series of switchbacks. In a curious case of coincidence, the road was littered with tumbleweeds. Nothing says ‘you’re leaving civilization’ better than dodging tumbleweeds on a forgotten highway!

CCAfallclSat_010-XLAt one point this morning, I was looking out the windshield of my ’58 Beetle, following a pack of Mini’s and a ’58 Alfa Romeo Spider. I was being passed by a Mercedes 280SL working it’s way up the pack, and as I looked in my rear view mirror a Jaguar XK120 had just come into view. You simply can’t spend a Saturday in any better way!

The route today traveled up the Methow Valley, across the Okanogan Valley and into the Kettle Mountains, where we turned North towards the Okanogan highlands. As we traveled into the Kettle mountains the temperature dropped, and a touch of rain fell here are there. Chilly enough that convertible tops went up, wet enough that the wipers were turned on, but mild enough on both accounts that the driving and enjoyment wasn’t dampened.  We arrived for lunch, having passed through the rain, in the small town of Republic. Here the group overwhelmed a local BBQ joint, and in true Classic Car Adventures fashion simply rolled with the punches and helped the staff to see the humour in being so swamped for lunch. One entrant was heard explaining that he would have called ahead, but until this morning had no idea even where he was going!

CCAfallclSat_018-X2With lunch over, the time for our chosen road had come. We’d be heading West,  through the highland mountains back into the Okanogan Valley. To find the turn the route book simply described a ghost town, gave a mileage estimate and then marked the lone road sign you hoped your co-driver didn’t miss! Fortunately, everyone seems to have made the turn. Our signature road combined every element of the “perfect adventure” into one road. There were mountain passes, tight twisting sections, open flowing sections, lake side driving with cliffs right next to you…this road had it all. 

I can hear you now, saying to your computer screen, “What road was it?!”, “Where could they have gone?”. I would love to tell you, but now you can appreciate the level of anticipation I had about how much everyone would enjoy it. That burning question which cannot yet be answered. That, my dear friends, was what my morning felt like. 

CCAfallclSat_017-XL…and besides, this particular road is just as good in the opposite direction but for a whole different reason. It slowly builds, as you travel West to East. Tempting the driver first with a corner set here, a corner set there. But as it nears the Kettle mountains the driving experience becomes like a symphony racing towards the crescendo. It tightens and twists into a brilliant mountain pass before crashing down alongside a lake in a ribbon of turns to the finish. And that, will one day be a feature road of a future Hagerty Fall Classic.

Today’s images are once again provided by the talented Mr. Andrew Holliday.

Fall Event Entries Opened!

Are you looking for another driving adventure? Good news! Our Fall Driving experiences are ready to go, and the entry forms are now live! Don’t miss your chance to join one of our September Driving events, spaces can fill up quickly and entry lists are limited.

The Hagerty Fall Classic is our Washington/Oregon event, starting September 16th 2016 and ending three days later on September 18th, 2016. This year we’ll be starting in Snoqualmie Washington, and we’ve cooked up roughly 700 miles of twisty, mountain backroads and highways for you to enjoy. This year marks our fifth year for a West-Coast Fall driving adventure, so you can be sure we’ve got some celebration plans in store for the event. Full event information, including entry forms are now posted on the Hagerty Fall Classic Event Page!

Our second September Event happens on the other side of North America, in beautiful Ontario Canada. The Hagerty Maple Mille is running September 23rd to 25th 2016, and explores all new new roads in the Ontario countryside. This year we’ll be starting in Peterborough Ontario, and our three day adventure has roughly 900km of phenomenal backroads and byways for our guests to explore. This year’s route book is being planned with optional road additions, which will bring the total mileage up to 1200km for guests who absolutely love the twisties. This late fall event is late enough for quiet roads without tourist traffic, but just in time for the early fall colours. Full event details, including the entry forms, are now posted on the Hagerty Maple Mille Event Page!

2015 Hagerty Fall Classic – Day 3 Preview

Great Roads. Great Cars. Great People. These are the reasons we started Classic Car Adventures, and the thing that keeps us coming back again and again for more. Today’s Fall Classic wrapped up both our event, and our slogan in such a neat package. We traveled from The Dalles to Yakima, snaked beside rivers, over mountain ranges, and worked the steering wheels to exhaustion. At the end of our day, we found great friends (who had “hard-lucked” out of the event) waiting to greet us at the finish.

Post finishing lunch, we consulted maps and realized the fastest way home wasn’t the best. Even though the event was over, groups of people drove together on the twistiest roads they could find heading for home…

A quick preview of today from Andrew Snucins Photography:

 

 

2015 Hagerty Fall Classic – Day Two

Day two on the Hagerty Fall Classic was filled with phenomenal roads and scenery. Warwick, the route-master for this year’s event, truly out did himself with the day’s selection. We began on flowing touring roads through farmlands, and then wound our way up and down various desert canyons. More than a few times today, the road appeared appeared before us like a section of rope tossed out onto the countryside, free to twist and curve wherever it liked.

The day was full of surprises, but perhaps the most unexpected was the town of Shaniko. In the early 1900’s the town was the “Wool Capitol of the World”, producing 14 million pounds a year. While creating the route book, however, it was clearly a ghost town. Imagine our surprise to arrive on Saturday afternoon to the Shaniko Classic Car show, and the streets full of classic cars and car nuts! Many of the group stopped for lunch and a viewing of the show, with at least one car pulling in and parking right in the show!

Our final surprise for the day was Warwick’s Mini. Entering into the final stretch, the front driveshaft decided upon an unscheduled disassembly and spread it’s pieces out upon the pavement. Hagerty roadside assistance took care of towing the Mini to the hotel, and our entrants sprang into action for a solution. The local parts supplier, craigslist, Oregon shops and the Oregon chapter of the mini club were all contacted by various entrants to the event. With parts sourced, a vehicle was loaned and Warwick was off to collect them. The evening ended with a parking lot repair party, some of the group actually working with Warwick on repairing the Mini, and the rest of enjoying a round of cold beverages and mechanic heckling.

A quick preview of today from Andrew Snucins Photography: