James Pratt

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Riding the Sugar Creek Adventure route in western Oklahoma

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Purgatory Road is well-known as one of the challenging routes in western Oklahoma. It is not terribly challenging on a dirt bike, but can provide quite the thrill for a novice rider or anyone on a big heavy adventure touring bike.

I recently rode the Sugar Creek adventure route on my Suzuki DRZ-400 with my friend Kevin Carpenter. This route follows both paved and dirt/gravel public roads through western Oklahoma south of Hinton. Created by Gared Findley, this route meanders through the hills and red canyons from Hinton down through Binger and Gracemont, then loops back to Hinton. It includes the infamous Purgatory Road – a mile stretch of gnarly, sandy road with towering red and white cliffs, steep step-downs, red rocks, and soft sand that can either be a lot of fun, or a nightmare for the inexperienced rider.

These are our tracks for the Sugar Creek loop, which we rode counter-clockwise. It starts and ends in Hinton, Oklahoma near I-40 and loops south through Binger and Gracemont before returning north through Purgatory Road and back to Hinton.The entire route is public roads so street-legel bikes are required.
The route follows a dirt road underneath heavily-travel I-40.
The entire route is on public roads and wanders past historical sites as well as remote scenic locations such as this waterfall west of Hinton.
An old storm cellar is marked on the route.
Kevin explores a cave that was dug into the side of a rocky hill.
It seems the cows like to use this cave to hide from tornadoes.
Old military cases are often used for feeders on cattle ranches.
I had never heard of Wagon Wheel Mound. It is an interesting place on a dirt road southwest of Hinton.
I am not sure what this structure was at Wagon Wheel Mound.
What came first – the name or the fence?
There are several church camps in the area that is near Red Rock Canyon State Park just south of Hinton.
I had never heard of Green Acres, Oklahoma.
The route travels through the small town of Gracemont, where food is available for the hungry traveler.
Our motorcycles looked good on Gracemont’s Main Street.
It seems Heaven International is based in Gracemont and was closed for business and the sign says “no trespassing”.
There is a lot of sandy roads on the route. They are easy for dirt bikes but some of the sand can get a bit deep for a big adventure bike. Only about 2 miles of the 120-mile route have excessively deep sand and are these roads are easy to bypass.
Purgatory Road is probably the most challenging and well-known section of road. It is easy on a dirt bike, and from this view it doesn’t look all that difficult, but there are some steep drops in places that a passenger car certainly couldn’t navigate. A high-clearance 4WD vehicle should make it without any problems. Big dual sport bikes shouldn’t have much trouble going clockwise on the route, but might find it a bit challenging climbing Purgatory Road counter-clockwise.
It was fairly dry in early January when we were on the ride, but there are several low-water crossings on the route. Some of the roads would be all but impassible during extremely wet weather.
My 20-year-old DRZ worked great on the route. Big bikes can navigate most of the route but might find challenges in the deep sandy sections and particularly on Purgatory Road. We parked at the big empty parking lot across the street from Love’s near I-40.

The Sugar Creek route was developed and is currently maintained by Gared Findley on the Facebook Oklahoma Overland group. You can download our tracks here, but they may not be current since Gared updates the route on a regular basis. Best bet is to download them from Facebook.

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About James Pratt

I am an Oklahoma based writer, commercial photographer, editorial photographer and adventurer based in Oklahoma City. I love telling stories about people. A motorcycle is my preferred means of travel, and I have over 5,000 hours piloting small airplanes. My editorial photography has been published in hundreds of magazines and my commercial photography has been used by dozens of companies worldwide.

Comments

  1. Braylee Hedrick says

    Hi I saw that you posted about the Greenacres Fire Dept. My Grandpa is the founder of Greenacres. If you would like more information please contact me! I would love to share the history!

    Reply

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4x5 film 4x5x365 agriculture Amazon Web Services bicycle Bill Dragoo BMW Brass Ball Bobbers combine Darwin Motorcycles dirt bike drag racing Edmond El Reno film Fortinet Guthrie Ilford Delta 100 Ilford Delta Pro 100 Ilford HP5 Jeep John Deere Kawasaki Kay Pratt Kodak TMAX-100 Lexington Micha Young motorcycle New Mexico Nikon Norman Conquest Oklahoma Oklahoma City Oklahoma Living Oklahoma Living Magazine Oklahoma Today Ride Oklahoma South Canadian River Thunder Valley Raceway Tombo Racing Tommy Bolton Toyo 45A Toyo VX-125 wheat harvest Wrangler
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