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Oddly, I never made it that far east on NR. I wanted to, but always started in Frederick and headed west, so I never got to see Ellicott City. Gilpin Road, on the other hand is something I missed several times and could kick myself because of it. I believe it's part of the Maryland Route 144 system (the route that exists in several sections, all being old US 40, this one being MR 144AE). I guess it's maintained by the state, but not marked as so. Would love to see the pics.

Dave, I'll gladly document the Moses Coulee trip. There's even a chance that I'll be going next week. It really depends on a few things, but it's just a day trip, so no big deal. Any suggestions for a road back? I don't always like to doubleback, but I'm not seeing much of an option here. Also, know anything about the rails to trails train tunnel at Steven's Pass? I'm a sucker for train tunnels. Is there anywhere to learn a bit more about the National Parks Highway? Book? Website? The Cowlitz Trail (if it's the same one I googled) looks interesting. Same with the Landing (if that's the Fort). History really is hidden here. Which is weird because it's not THAT old. I don't have Roadside History of Washington (which looks like it was last published in 1990 - nearly 20 years ago), but I do have Traveler's History of Washington and Exploring Washington's Past. Both are really helpful for finding out just where you are, though not knowing much about anything, I've got no idea if they're accurate. Any opinion on Historical Atlas of the Pacific Northwest by Hayes? Just came across it. The book on Lake Missoula looks like a good one, I'll put it on my list at the library. I hope it's true what you say about Washinton as opposed to Pennsylvania. I'm really looking forward to it. -eric

ALT US 40 in Maryland is one of my favorite roads of all time. Northern Maryland is beautiful. There's so much to see there, especially if you're into Civil War history. NR through PA has got some great stuff as well, like Braddock's Road (and grave!). I nearly ended up living in Wheeling and it's a much nicer town to drive through than it is to live in (my opinion, of course). The NR in Ohio is actually really nice. I hope you get to drive it sometime. There's old brick sections and a few really great old towns. Beats I70 any day of the week. Sorry about the accident though, that's pretty terrifying.

Mga & dave, thanks for checking out the pictures. I tend to over-document my travels (2,000 words a day plus 300-400 pictures when I'm traveling in earnest). Friends and family, I assume, skim over them. It's nice to find people who may not. Dave, thanks for the map and video explanation. That's just cool of you. Thank you! The National Parks Highway is pretty well unknown to me too. I've heard of it, saw a few maps of it here and there, but sort of put it in the back of my mind (like I did with the Old Trails Highway in California when held against Route 66). I would LOVE to be proven wrong about history on the west coast. So far, I've seen little, though what I've seen is great and exciting. History seems to be held in small pockets here. Back east, we have creepy wax figures portraying the Battle of Gettysburg. Maybe the west coast hasn't had time to commodity history like we have back east (though I did see a creepy wax figure in the Snoqualami Train Station). Now, I certainly won't miss that aspect, but I do miss digging for those priceless little gems (like stumbling upon a nearly-forgotten row of monuments at Gettysburg - a spot where tourists don't even know exists and die-hard Civil War buffs have mostly only heard about in passing). In Washington, all of the history seems to be that which you have to dig for. I like that quite a bit, but it's hard to find a place to start. And that's how I wound up being obsessed about Wennas Road vs. Durr Road. Go figure. I'll be headed to Moses Coulee once I'm sure that I can ride over the pass without freezing. Or maybe I can talk Sarah into going in the car. I saw your pictures of it and it seems to be "closed." But I'm never really sure what that means. As with all my travels, I'll document it to ridiculous degrees, so if there's something you'd like me to take a picture of, etc for you, I'm your chap. -Eric Edit - Also wanted to offer whatever help I could with the National Parks Road. Not sure what I could do, but I'm very interested.

Hey Dave, I definitely agree that discovering the old road is best. One of my favorite things to do was find old sections of US 15 through Pennsylvania. There's definitely not guidebook on that. It's a wonderful combination of common sense, wild speculation and a whole lot of free time (for looking at maps). But when I did 66, there was no way to really know where some of these old alignments were. It's easy when you're on a two lane that goes through a cut and there's an older dirt road that goes around the cut. But sometimes the guidebooks come in handy. So I guess I'm in the middle here. But I very much agree with the joy of finding the old segments. My favorite way to explore is on a scooter. You can take it places you can't take a car (and in some cases where you can't take a 4x4). It's light enough to pull yourself out of situations you shouldn't be in too. I've been reading the posts here and am thinking about making a quick run to Moses Coulee. I rode past it last year on my all-too quick ride across the country. I had a bad headache that day and didnt even notice anything but the road. I even noticed a couple of old alignments and just didn't care. So it's definitely worth a second look. Also, I've been to your site before. One of the maps that I used in my bit of research on the YT was one of yours. Thanks! I hope to see more of your collection put up online. Thanks! I've got The Ridge's book and it's really nice. I'm really glad they're doing another one. I've got the Meeks one as well. I've seen a couple of others on the YT site, I'll end up getting those soon. Is there anything on the older named roads in Washington? I found a pretty good map on the .gov site and it was a big help. There doesn't seem to be as big of a historic interest out here as there was in Pennsylvania. The common thought seems to be "we don't have history on the west coast." Coming from the east, I can definitely see their point, but it's not quite true. There's just not as much history out here. You guys have crammed everything into the last 150ish years.

Thanks, Dave! I'm in the midst of planning a trip around Washington for this summer. I'll probably end up doing a sort of Yellowstone Trail loop. If that's the case, I'll have to figure out as many of the old segments as possible. The 1917 strip maps are gems. Have you thought about scanning them and putting them online? I fell in love with Route 66 and the Lincoln Highway right away, but the Yellowstone Trail still hasn't won me over. I don't "get" it yet. Hopefully that will soon change. -Eric

Hi there! Just stumbled across this forum and wish I had found it earlier. As a kid, my family traveled around Pennsylvania and down the shore quite a bit - even to Florida and New England once. But as an adult, I've taken it to a whole new level. In the past 10 years, I've hit all of the lower 48 states. I've traveled Route 66 from Chicago to LA three times over four trips in four years - the last being done as part of a 11,000 mile trip on a Vespa scooter. I blogged about that here. My focus is on history and specifically on abandoned sections of highways. In and around Pennsylvania that could mean Lincoln Highway, National Highway and older ones, like Braddock's Road. I've recently moved to Seattle and have taken up a little obsession with the Yellowstone Trail. I can't stay put for too long and sooner or later, another large trip will come up. I need to visit my son in Miami in the next year or so - the "Hypotenuse Trail" looks mighty tempting. -Eric

Greetings! This is my first post. I have recently moved to Seattle and have taken up an interest in the Yellowstone Trail. My focus on any old highway is abandoned alignments. I traveled Route 66 three times in total (over the span of four trips in four years) and got to travel a lot of dirt/mud roads. So when I moved here, I decided to change my focus to the Yellowstone Trail. I traced it using Googlemaps, mostly, east, from Seattle, over Snoqualami Pass to Cle Elum then to Ellensburg and Yakima. The Trail "basically follows" interstate 90. But "basically follows" means that there's probably a good chunk of it still out there. Sure, I-90 was laid over top of it in some spots, but not in most. Many of those old traces were easy to find (or easy to assume that I'd found them). So a couple of weeks ago, I set out in a car to travel some of those roads. I wasn't expecting the five feet of snow on the pass, so some roads were buried, though, to be honest, I don't know which roads were and were not the Yellowstone Trail - there were sometimes multiple roads that could have been. One road that has become a mini-obsession with me is the stretch between Ellensburg and Selah, WA. I-82 carries the traffic today and US 97 did, along what is now Canyon Road for the longest time. Before that, this windy squiggle of a road was part of Washington's Inland Empire Highway. There are different sources on this, but Canyon Road seems to have been built and put into use around 1922 - that's the earliest date on a bridge. The Yellowstone Trail appeared in WA around 1915, so if that road wasn't there, I should find which road was. A road called Old Durr Road was built in the 1880s as a turnpike. I found the book "History of Yakima Valley" (written in 1919) online and read the section on Durr Road. It says "Mr. Durr's road was laid over the Umptanum hills on a good deal the general course of the present highway." The "present day" highway was the Inland Empire Highway and the Yellowstone Trail. But my weird little obsessive theory is that that's not quite true and that this book has caused some confusion to the actual alignment of the Yellowstone Trail in this section of the state. The first road through this area seems to have gone through the town of Wenas. But Wenas isn't on Durr Road. Durr created his road because it was about ten miles shorter than the route through Wenas. However, it was a fairly crappy road that cost money, so it didn't last long. Most of the road is still there today, but you need a high clearance vehicle and some mighty fine luck to drive it. There is a map from the 1890's that refers to Durr's road as "Old Durr Road," which is telling since it wasn't all that old. The 42 mile route through Wenas is there as well. A 1915 road map shows the Inland Empire Highway (and thus the Yellowstone Trail) as going through Wenas. A 1921 map of the Yellowstone Trail in Washington doesn't mention Wenas, but calculates the miles between Ellensburg and Selah as 42miles, ruling out both the 30 mile Durr Road and the 52 mile Canyon Road. The road that goes through Wenas (a 42 mile trip), in my opinion, was the Yellowstone Trail. At least till 1922, when it was probably moved from this road to present-day Canyon Road (though a historical marker claims it to be 1932, which is obviously incorrect). Of course, in 1925 the whole Trail was moved to its northern alignment. The reason I mention all of this is because I've read in a few places (including the really great book "On the Road to Yellowstone") that the YT was on Durr Road till 1920 when it moved to Canyon Road. But I don't believe it was ever on Durr Road. And that's just fine by me, because, heading south from Ellensburg on Umptanum Road and then Wennas Road to Selah provides 42 miles of basically drivable Yellowstone Trail. We were in a Chevy Cavalier and had no problems at all. The same cannot be said for Old Durr Road. There's even a couple older alignments to look at (can't drive them). One especially nice one is just south of Wenas. While I'm pretty sure I've sorted this all out, that leaves the rest of the state. I was hoping that there would be a book or website that details a mile-by-mile, turn-by-turn modern day routing to find the old Yellowstone Trail in Washington. There doesn't seem to be. If there is someone working on such a project, I'd love to help out. Summer is coming and I'm up for anything. If you like, you can see the pictures we took of our trek to find the Yellowstone Trail. They are here. Thanks for reading. Any corrections, help, etc is definitely wanted. -Eric