Before starting scenic drives: a planning guide

What to take away

• A scenic designation says nothing about surface, width or services. Read the route page for those.
• Find out where the pavement ends before you drive, not when you get there.
• Legal access is a separate question from a line on a map, and the two do not always agree.
• Plan the turnaround point in advance. Deciding under pressure is how people get stuck.

A scenic drive is a road first and a view second. The planning that keeps it enjoyable is unglamorous: what the surface is, how wide it gets, where you can legally enter, and what happens if the weather turns while you are halfway along it.

Settle the surface before anything else

Ask four questions of every segment. What is it made of, how wide is it, how steep does it get, and who maintains it? A route can shift character several times in a single afternoon.

The BLM's page for the Lower Crooked River Back Country Byway in Oregon is a good model of how this reads when it is written honestly. It describes a 43 mile route where the southernmost 18 miles are unpaved but graded to a standard suitable for a passenger vehicle, notes that much of the byway is open range so drivers should watch for livestock, warns that phone service is limited or unavailable in most locations, and lists nine year round campgrounds along the wild and scenic river section with camping at eight dollars per night for a single site.

That single page answers vehicle, hazard, communication and lodging questions in one pass. Look for the equivalent on every drive you plan.

Check that the access is legal

A road drawn on a map is not automatically a road you may drive. Public land is frequently interleaved with private land, and the connecting piece is an easement rather than an assumption. The BLM's public lands access data project is building a mapped dataset of legal entry points to BLM managed land through acquired easements and access rights reserved in patents, and publishes an interactive map and downloadable data.

The practical instruction on that page is the one to remember: make sure the roads and trails you travel are legally passable. Where a route crosses private ground, treat gates and signs as instructions rather than obstacles.

Build the day around fixed points

Scenic drives go wrong when the plan has no anchors. Set three:

• A start time that leaves you finishing with daylight in hand.
• A confirmed fuel stop before the unpaved section, not after it.
• A turnaround point and a rule for using it, such as rain, standing water or a surface that has changed.

Write those on paper. A rule decided in advance is easier to obey than a judgment made in the moment.

Questions for the managing office

• What is the current surface condition, and when was it last graded?
• Are any gates closed, and does the route have a seasonal opening?
• Where does phone service end?
• Which stops have water and toilets, and are they open this month?
• Is there anything on the road right now that a passenger car would struggle with?

Call the office named on the route page. Websites lag; the person who answers the phone usually does not.

Where to go next

If you want the shape of a real trip rather than a checklist, a two day itinerary built on these principles shows how the pieces fit into daylight. Before you pay anybody for a guided version, work through the questions worth asking at booking.

Common questions

Is a scenic byway always paved? No. Designations cover paved and unpaved routes alike, and many change surface partway. The route page usually says where.

How do I judge whether my car can do it? Match the page's own wording. If it says a passenger vehicle is suitable, believe it. If it says high clearance, do not negotiate with that.

What if the road is not signed at a junction? Stop and check the map rather than guessing. Unsigned junctions are common on back roads and are where most wrong turns start.

Should I drive it in one day or two? Two, if the route has campgrounds and you want to stop properly. Rushing a scenic drive defeats the point of choosing one.