HALFWAY AND BACK

Halfway is a town in Baker County, Oregon, in the northeast part of the state. The town took its name from the location of its post office on the Alexander Stalker ranch, halfway between Pine and Jim Town. The population was 351 at the 2020 census. The closest town of any size is Baker City, 54 miles to the west. 

A couple of years ago my riding partner, Sam, and I visited this quaint little town on one of our motorcycle trips. Almost all the homes in town appear to have been built in the early 1900’s when the town originated but have been maintained in great shape. Most of them have fantastic flower gardens in the yard. In fact, most of the yards are flowers.  

I was so impressed with this little town that I wanted my son, Clint, to experience it. We departed Friday, the 25th of July heading south from the Lewiston-Clarkston valley on WA highway 129. This becomes OR Highway 3 when it crosses the the Grande Ronde River which is state line at the bottom of Rattlesnake Grade. Rattlesnake Grade and Buford Grade up the other side are two of the premier motorcycle grades in the country. I’ve ridden in every county in the West and ridden such famous grades as The Million Dollar Highway near Durango, CO, and Beartooth Pass on the northeast side of Yellowstone, and they have nothing on the Rattlesnake and Buford Grades. 

 I have a new GPS (Garmin Zumo 396 LMT-S) and I wanted to see if I could incorporate it in my geocaching activities. I uploaded the caches in the Zumo to take me to the general area and then used my Garmin 64SX handheld unit to zero in on the cache. We stopped before reaching Enterprise and after parking our bikes on a rough side road hiked about a ¼ mile back to the cache at the edge of the canyon which presented a fantastic panoramic view of mountains around Hells Canyon. At Enterprise, OR, we turned west on Hwy 82 and rode it over to the Island City area where we got on Hwy 203 which is a beautiful little country road. We stopped for lunch on this road at State Creek Park campground. It was almost full but we found a nice shady table to relax and eat lunch. 

Boars

It was beginning to get hot. It was about 63 degrees when we left home and 94 by the time we reached Halfway about 2:30. We stopped for gas in Baker City and proceeded east on Hwy 86 to Halfway, stopping for three more geocaches along the way. 

 After settling in at the motel we toured the town including the old cemetery on foot. We had a good meal at “The Main Place” and after leaving the waitress ran me down to deliver my hat which I typically had left. 

Mike & Camel

 We got an early start the next morning and rode east to Oxbow Dam on the Snake River. After lingering a while and reading the information signs at a kiosk we retraced our route a few miles back to Hwy 39 and the Wallowa Mountain Road which took us northwest to Joseph, OR. This road is a motorcyclist dream with many sharp curves and hills all the while surrounded by forest. We stopped just before Joseph and on a side road and picked up another cache and then rode the short way over to Enterprise before retracing our route back home getting to ride those two fantastic grades again. We got home about noon so avoided most of the heat. It was a great trip. M/W

Pictures are of yards and art work in Halfway.

Typical Halfway Yards

Part of the museum (wasn't open)

Historical Display

More Halfway Artwork