Eclipse?

Add a day to your stay and you'll have a great time. I'll even give you some road numbers to "collect" in the vicinity...I think it's the Y2K syndrome redo.

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I'm trying to stay as far away as possible. I saw the last one (1979?), so I'll take 99% on this one and be happy. Assuming it's not cloudy.

 

Are you flying into town or driving down
If driving from the airport, PDX, you may want to travel east to The Dalles and head south to Redmond.
At this point getting a rental car might be an issue.
Getting here a day early and staying a day late might be the ticket.
By Monday morning I am thinking I-5 south from Seattle will be a mess.

 

You are correct about parts of Idaho. At least one county (Payette) has already declared a disaster due to the expected influx or people.

One thing to also be aware of, is there are a number of fires in Oregon and Idaho that are causing a lot of smoke in the area and blocking visibility. I am planning on going to the family cabin up in the Idaho mountains, but due to the fires the sky is far from clear.

You should really check a couple days ahead of time before making the trek. It would suck to go through all that and have poor visibility when you get there.

 

Projects.oregonlive.com
Current wildfire map, updated every 30 minutes.

 

Portland can't handle the traffic it currently has. Increase it by 4x and it will be gridlock on a 24 hour scale. My advice, get were you want, bring plenty of supplies, and wait it out.

 

That's my advice too

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You probably have two options heading south.
I-5 south, and hwy 90/82 heading SE out of Seattle.
Then hwy 92 toward The Dalles, then hwy 197 south takes you into Redmond.
I have this gut feeling that I-5 between Seattle and southern Oregon will be jammed the whole weekend with serious traffic issues.
As mentioned above, Portland is in the top 10 nationwide for BAD traffic.
Avoid Portland or pay a heavy price

 

I agree with Tomy. I would head east, maybe through Yakima, and then south to somewhere like John Day. I'm sure there are no hotel rooms to be found down in that area, and no campsites either.

I think the 19th won't be so bad, it will be the 21st which will be a problem.

 

The best route to the Bend/Redmond area (assuming you don't fly into Redmond direct) from SeaTac airport will be to take I-405 North to I-90 East to I-82 through Yakima to Highway 97. I'd still expect a fair amount of traffic on 97, but will be way better than through Portland and I-84.

Just my $0.02

 

I live in Bend. We're expecting this to be an absolute clusterfuk.

 

I live in Portland but will be traveling to Sisters (near Redmond) for the event. I'm leaving on Friday the 18th and planning on bad traffic then. Carrying (in my very off road capable Jeep) 10 gallons of extra fuel, 5 gallons of water, food, etc. 97, starting some time on Sunday, is predicted to be a parking lot. Lots of concern about places running out of fuel, food, etc. and then resupply trucks not being able to get to them. Redmond/Bend/Sisters area worried about power grid going down--so that could be cell services as well. I'm not going to try to get back to Portland until the following Saturday, though I expect things will be back to normal by then.

The issue is this a hurricane evacuation type of scenario or Y2K? No one really knows.

 

Eclipse-pocalypse!

I'm guessing (with low confidence) that it will be much less of a big deal than everyone is imagining. I think the smoke and the fears of major traffic are going to bring down the crowds. Doesn't mean the traffic won't be bad, just that it won't be apocalyptic.

 

The DEQ monitoring station in John Day list the pollution as moderate and the issue is particulates (as is usually the case for smoke). Oregon DEQ: AQI

You can also look at trip check.com and look at the road cams around John Day--those views appear to be hazy as well.

I seriously doubt there would be enough smoke to totally mess up the eclipse view (in fact, it might make the colors even better) but it may cause eye burning, breathing issues, etc. And keep in mind that shifts in the weather and/or new wildfires could make it worse (or even better).

 

I'm beginning to think it is going to be location/situation specific. On Highway 22 between Detroit Lake and Santiam pass (one of the major routes to central Oregon and the path of totality) there were areas of road construction (which I hope they would suspend around the eclipse, but I haven't read that), fire traffic, and area of extremely heave smoke when I drove the route yesterday. That really screwed up relative light Thursday morning summer traffic--and more volume is only going to compound things.

Unless the new fire at Warm Springs gets knocked down smoke and fire traffic is going to impact Highway 26 (it is already), which will not only bottleneck that but shift volume north to I84, which will then overload other northern routes into central OR.

I think if you stay put, or arrive early/leave late it won't be much of a big deal. But for folks planning on doing something akin to a surgical strike I think it is gonna be pretty ugly.

 

My BIL was going to make the trek to some po-dunk town in Oregon for the eclipse and after reading about all the gridlock that is expected, he
was almost certain that he would bag the trip. After playing a round of golf with a couple guys who 'escaped' Woodenville, OR. for a couple of
weeks who told him they want nothing to do with any of this, he decided not to go.

OK, it would be pretty cool to see total darkness for 6-7 minutes, see the stars during the day while the birds go to sleep, but this sounds like
a gridlock disaster on a grand scale. Stores are expected to run out of food and gas stations expect to run out of gas!

 

My older son is driving to Bend from Portland Friday night.
Going kayaking over the weekend with his younger brother.
Betting his Sunday night drive from Bend back to PDX will be less of a chore, than the trip down there.

 

If you have time to kill, and are far from the urban centers, you could make it work. There is a lot of open space in central and eastern Oregon

 

Data point from a friend in central Oregon. He had to go to four gas stations in Bend to find gas (the first three were out) and had not yet located an ATM with available cash (he had tried two). This is Wed Aug 16th am.

 

KTVZ (the main Bend TV station) is talking about gas lines 10-30 minutes long, and places being out of gas. Clearly, gas is available, but it isn't a swing by and score some quick kind of deal. Other shortages popping up as well. Plan ahead.

 

My son got cold feet, waiting until next weekend to head down to Bend

 

Update from central Oregon. Bend on Friday was actually "slow", no lines for gas, taco place not very busy, traffic in town lighter. State highway between Sisters and Bend flowing well.