Zombie Ride

Another at least partial week of night shifts means yet another ride to delay the onset of sleep. I've started calling these "Zombie Rides" because when I get home that's a pretty good way to explain how I feel.

I WAS slated to work another night shift, but just before I was supposed to go to bed for the day I found out the work had been cancelled. Aha! Nice day for a ride. So I put a couple beers and a sammich in my cooler and took off for the Bernard Peak Overlook. Spent a couple hours just hanging out and enjoying the quiet, watching boats and birds.

Turned an otherwise some what wasted day into something else entirely. Not bad I says.

Grassy Mountain And Back

When we were on the Father's day ride we stopped at Grassy Mountain. I made an error and failed to turn on my GPS and look to see if there were any geocaches nearby. Turns out there is one RIGHT there. So I decided that I needed to take a trip out there to get it. I worked nights all last week and the absolute best way to get back to sleeping at night is to stay up until you just can't take it any more. Sitting around the house won't work need to keep moving and doing stuff, but it can't be anything that requires a whole lot of mental capacity.

So I decided that after my Thursday night shift I'd take a run out to Grassy Mountain. I invited a bunch of people and in the end only Larry could make it.


On the way out we took a side trip up to the Spyglass Lookout. See video below.

I also should mention that I finally got a helmet cam. Played with it quite a bit on this trip. Need to monkey with it's placement a bit, but overall I'm pretty happy.

We made it to Grassy Mountain and back in short order. 125 miles on the ODO and pretty much the perfect day for a ride. A little rain, and NO dust.

2009 Father's Day Ride

When we started talking about this years long ride we realized that the ATVNation national ride was going to be in Wallace the week of 6/22. That pretty much made our minds up. The rough plan was to ride from Athol to Wallace hopefully meet up with some of the ATVNation folks then continue heading south if we had the time and make a run through Avery, and back up through Enaville. Little overly optimistic as it turned out.

I met Chris at the Country Boy Café in Athol for breakfast. We were a little worried about the weather, for 10 days the weather man promised it would be crap on 6/22 and supposedly it was going to be pretty nice for the rest of the week. But nobody likes to start a week of sleeping outside with the first night being a rainy one. As it turned out the weather man nailed it. This was just about as bad as it got the whole time. Overcast all day the first day and then beautiful the rest of the time (save one thunder storm later in the week but I’ll get to that)

We made camp just down stream from the Berlin Flats campground right on the river. Awesome camp. We put the beers in the “fridge” made camp, then busted out the chainsaw and put up some wood for our fire.

Then we got down to the business of relaxing It was still overcast and ugly when the sun went down. About 23:30 or so I looked up and saw one lone star, at 00:00 I looked up again and the sky was completely clear. Things are looking up.

Day two’s goal was to make it to Murray and back into the woods. On the way we did some general screwing around and exploring

We got to Murray just about lunch time so we had a couple beers and a pizza. Loaded up and headed back out. We stopped at the Murray graveyard and wandered around looking at the head stones.

It was getting on the late side so we decided to head up Potosi gulch and find a place to spend the night.

This was supposed to put us in striking distance of a trail we wanted to run (151) that poured out in the Burke area.

We broke camp without eating breakfast and started down the road. We found the last bits of snow at about 5,000’ or so in the shady corners

Turns out the trail 151 was completely choked off with downed trees and just looking at the first couple yards it was apparent that we’d have to spend most of the day clearing trail. Not something we wanted to do so we back tracked and rode pavement down to Wallace (siggggh pavement on ATV’s is just horrible for the soul.

We restocked gas, beer, and ammo for our .22 pistols (camp diversion) and took off for the woods again. We didn’t want to go the same way we came in so we did a little more road riding to Osburn and took off up the Two Mile Creek road. There was an interesting little trail on the map that looked like it would get us to a good camp site right on the river. The trail was a blast lots of technical two track stuff with enough off camber action to make it interesting on a heavily loaded ATV.

As it turned out it did get REALLY close to the river but that was about all it did. That side of the river is steep as hell and while the trail got us to within 50 yards of the river a couple of times there was just no way to get close enough to make camp.

So we just kept moving. This is what makes these rides fun is that we really don’t have any kind of plan and we’re free to move around and do as we please. Since it was getting on the late side we were a little rushed when we decided to make camp. But I did have time to make us some delicious tacos.

After dinner we set about our nightly routine of sitting around the fire and having a few beers. About 21:30 it started raining. Early night. It rained off and on for a few hours and then about 01:30 the lightning and thunder came to visit. It was a pretty impressive if not short lived show. I was kicking myself for not taking my camera to bed with me, because the view of the sunrise from inside my hammock was stunning.

We broke camp after a hearty breakfast of bacon and eggs and headed towards the Magee area. This is a part of the drainage that we know like our own back yards so we were definitely on the home stretch.

We stopped at the Spyglass Lookout which for a change wasn’t completely clouded in.

We made camp right on the river and settled in for our last night “out”

We got up to yet another absolutely gorgeous morning, made a big pot of coffee, and finished off the last of our bacon and eggs. Stopped for the obligatory shot at the Magee ranger station.

Did some screwing around and generally took our time heading home.

All total we did 300 miles in 5 days and had a blast. Can’t wait until next year. All of our gear worked flawlessly, no issues of any kind. Once again I'd like to say just how much I LOVE my Clark hammock, four nights of sleeping in it and I was kind of dreading sleeping in a real bed. That SOB is THAT comfortable.

Ride to The Happy Hermit For Dinner

So like all great ideas this one was born out of desperation and in the shower. I wanted badly to take off and go for a ride. So I was standing there one Thursday morning taking a shower and thinking "Rather go for a ride than go to work" when it occurred to me what with the longer days I could do both.

A couple emails and or text messages later it is done. Me and the Wiese brothers made plans to take off in one weeks time right after work and ride to the Happy Hermit Resort in Lakeview for dinner and some beers

Due to the road already being kinda dusty we split up and Brian took point. We got to the Hermit by 20:00. One hour for dinner and beers...perfect.


The whole gang made it in one piece and with time to spare.

Inside the Hermit waiting on a delicious meal.

After dinner we did what we ALWAYS do when we get the chance, we went down to the water in Lakeview and watched the sun go down.

Before too long we decided it was time to take off and make for home.

We got back to my place a little after midnight (mighta been later I wasn't keeping track) had a few beers in the shop, and called it a night, or maybe I guess to be technical it was a mornin'. Matters not. Dirty, and tired.

'nother tough day at the office

Yup got another chance to get out on the sleds AND get paid for it. Sucks huh? Well not for me. Didn't suck at all.

First off we made a quick run up Canfield Mountain. Too bad it was so foggy, because the view from up here on a nice day is really quite a thing to behold. You'll have to just pretend. But if you look close you can kinda see town waaaaaaay down there.

Next up? Little Blacktail Mountain. Now the cool thing about Little Blacktail are the views of Lake Pend Oreille. Again it was fogged in pretty bad, but if you look just past the sleds you can see the lake.

Some frosty trees and the lake behind.

I stopped on the way back out to snap this last picture. You can't miss the beauty of the lake in a picture like this. There were three or four boats our fishing, but you can't make them out from this distance. Nice day for fishing. Now if I could just figure out how to get paid for that.

Did. Not. Suck.

Winter Adventure

One of the side benefits of my job is that once in a while I get asked to go on snowmobile rides. The purpose of my going is to be a "safety rider". I really offer nothing in terms of techincal help, because the cell site side of our business isn't something that I really know a whole lot about.

Last week I got asked to go among other places to Black Mountain, which is southwest of Bonners Ferry Idaho. Here are some pics.


Abandoned fire lookout, and a tower. Both encrusted with ice and snow



Looking North towards Canada. Beauty Eh?


Northeast.


Pretty much looking East.


The town of Bonners Ferry is down there underneath the clouds.


Ice encrusted tower.


Back in the trees, on the way to the top.


Beats the hell outta sitting at my desk. On days like this it really does not suck to be me.

The 802

When Brian and I had been on the long ride in August we had as I mentioned found a couple really cool trails, one was all jumps for two miles the other was tight, twisty two track goodness.

Chris, Brian and I got to talking and decided that a ride up from Brian’s house through the Canfield mountain trail system to the top of Burnt Cabin Saddle was a dang good idea. We could hit the trail and have some good old fashioned fun. As a plus it was only a day ride so we’d be traveling light.

We took off from Brian’s house about 09:00 and headed up the mountain. First order of business was the jumpy section of the 802 that goes down to Fernan Road.




I dunno who built these killyhumps but they ought to get medal of some sort. This trail is just too much fun. Nothing sketchy, nothing technical, just two miles of jump, after jump after jump.










We turned around at Fernan road and went back through the jumps a second time back to Burnt Cabin Saddle. From there we headed to the more two track type parts of the 802.



















Eventually the 802 tops out at the top of Spades Mountain where there is an old lookout tower.




It started raining pretty hard and we headed back towards Canfield. On the way we found some mud, and took some time to play for a bit. Brian and Chris spent 10 minutes roosting each other. I backed off and tried to get some action shots but it was getting too dark and from that far away it just wasn’t turning out.













We got back to Brian’s house about 18:00 with another 100 miles on the quads.