IdahoATV

Zombie Ride

2009-08-27T09:12:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-17T22:21:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-13T10:31:00.001-07:00

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

2009-06-03T10:57:00.001-07:00

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

2009-02-13T16:02:00.000-08:00

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

2009-01-19T12:29:00.001-08:00

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

2008-10-23T13:45:00.001-07:00

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.

2008 Long Ride Number 2

2008-10-23T13:42:00.001-07:00

Every year me and at least a couple fellas try and make one good solid wheeler ride. In June we made an attempt at the Magruder Trail. We didn't make it. This was slated to be a 90 mile ride with two nights of camping and two nights in an old unused Forest Service cabin we had rented. We made it 8 miles. The snow was still WAAAAAY to deep for our bikes. We ended up camping out for a couple days, getting snowed on, drinking beer, shooting guns and having big ass campfires. Not a total loss, but not the trip we were hoping for. Fast forward to August. My wife decided to take off with the kids for a couple weeks and go see her folks. Now for one of these weekends she was gone I was on call. But for the other weekend I was totally unsupervised. Say hello to 2008's second wheeler trip. I asked the Wiese brothers if they were interested. Brian was game but Chris had conflicts and couldn't go out on an all nighter. So Brian and I loaded the bikes up wtih camping gear, gas, and beer and took off right from my driveway up Bunco (no trucks). We made it to the HappyHermit resort in Lakeview in time for a delicious lunch and a couple cold beers, went on down to the waters edge in lakeview.

From there we headed south looking for a place to camp. We put about 90 miles on the odometer on Saturday and made camp way down in this drainage. The road was very old and there were a couple dicey log crossings but that pretty much guaranteed us a nice private campsite.

I set my Clark Hammock up just up from the road on an old skidder trail. I was literally within a few feet of the creek that was running through the bottom of the holler. The creek provided a nice change from the 100+ degree temps we were experiencing that weekend. Yeah I know the contrasts between June/snow and August and 100+ degree temps weren't lost on me either.

We put our box of beer in the creek to cool off, had a couple cigars, and some dinner. Set our chairs up in the creek bed and cooled our feet off in the VERY cold water. The water was so cold that we found a frog that was literally too cold to run away. Because of the fire danger we didn't have a fire and as such we were in bed pretty early. I slept like a dead man in my Clark hammock. No suprise it's so damn comfortable you have no choice. I woke up about 05:00 and to my suprise I was able to get Brian's ass outta bed not long after (he's a well known late sleeper). We had some breakfast and broke camp. Then we headed south. We hit a trail that was an absolute killer. Nothing but about 2 miles of jump after jump after jump (more on this trail in the next ride report). Exhausting actually. The trail dumped us out on pavement just above Lake Fernan (way south). From there we headed north and picked up another trail. The second trail was more technical, two track through the trees kinda stuff. The only down side was the dust, hence no pics of the trail. Plus I was having way too much fun.

As we made our way north I saw Hayden lake off through the trees. There was a road that poured off in that general direction, so we headed that way. The view was OUTSTANDING. You can see Hayden Lake and all the way to Spokane.

Stopped off for the obligatory overlook shots

Sorry ladies I’m taken.

Brian then got the essential extended arm overlook shot

Brian IS available ladies. Send me a 20 dollar bill, a pic, your bio, and phone number and if you meet his strict requirements I’ll forward your information on to him.

Brian and I got back to my place about 13:00 and he loaded up and headed home.

Chris showed up not long after we got home and we decided to head back out. We rode up the mountain and stopped off at The Happy Hermit for a couple beers and some dinner. It was getting late so we rode down to the beach in Lakeview and watched the sun go down and had a couple more beers.

Nice huh? Doesn't even do it justice. Not long after we got down to the lake, an old four wheeler and an older rider (Mike) with a bunch of fishing tackle on board showed up.

We had a beer with Mike the "Unofficial Lakeview Town Sheriff" and headed home. By the time we shut the bikes down in my shop it was midnight, and I'd put over 225 miles on my quad in two days.
The plans for next years big ride are already in the works.

2008 Magruder Road Attempt

2008-10-23T13:39:00.000-07:00

The seed for this ride started with this web page.

http://www.jeffhead.com/magruder/

Since we figured it was an election year we figured there was a pretty good chance that this road would get closed again (50/50 chance really) so the decision was made to make a run at it. Not the longest of rides, but re-supply was not an option so we loaded heavily for the trip. The plan was pretty simple We’d take off from the Elk City side of the road spend a night in the woods and then spend a couple nights in the Magruder ranger station, then ride back towards Elk City and again sleep outside one night. The idea was we could fool around on any trails around the ranger station while unloaded and have some fun on the various trails and side roads off the corridor road as well.

What we didn’t anticipate was that we were in for a sumbitch of a winter. Third worse in recorded history actually. As it got closer and closer to our anticipated departure we were doing more and more praying that we’d get lucky. We figured we’d have SOME snow to contend with, maybe in the dark corners towards the top of the pass here and there kinda snow.

We drove down with a borrowed trailer and all our gear.

Unloading, left to right Me, Chris, and Brian.

We unloaded and Brian, Chris and I started up the road. About 8 miles in it became readily apparent that we flat WEREN’T gonna make it to the other side.

We turned around and head back down the mountain to a campsite that we had seen just off the road. The idea was that if it stayed clear overnight maybe it might get cold enough that the snow would crust up and we might, MIGHT be able to save our trip.

Yeah that didn’t happen. Instead of staying clear, it SNOWED. Keep in mind this is mid-June.

So we stood around the campfire

Did some shooting

And rode the one trail we could find and actually get on to.

Morning number two we awoke to find more snow…

Our fire tarps failed due to the snow load, and we all decided we’d had enough.

Brian looking happy at our getting out of the snow.

Breaking down my hammock.

We broke camp and loaded up.

Look at the snow on the top of my truck!

Again IT’S JUNE!

After driving down the mountain we went into Elk City for some breakfast and headed home. Our adventure was over just yet. Just north of Cottonwood Idaho I noticed some water vapor behind the truck, at first I thought it was just coming off of the fenderless trailer. Seconds later my dashboard lit up and it became apparent that we were overheating.

Fortunately Brian has an old college homey who lives in Cottonwood, he called him up and he played taxi down to the parts store and back with a new radiator hose. Naturally the parts store didn’t have the EXACT hose I needed but they had one that was close enough to get the job done. With that fixed we headed north again. Defeated by snow. Oh well we set out for adventure and we got some.

2007 Bunco To Enaville

2008-10-23T13:37:00.000-07:00

For 2007 we decided to stretch our legs a bit more and head south. We unloaded at the bottom of Bunco road again and proceeded to head east on the first day we made camp next to the river near the old Magee Ranger station. Chris and I had some problems with everyone else’s schedule so we decided that just the two of us would do this one.

As is standard operating procedure we had a nice fire. Nice and BIG! The first day and night was beautiful for camping the sun was shining, and it was warm. Chris had been having some issues with his rear brake (as in none) so we did a quick fireside rework of his brakes. Ate some dinner, drank some beer and crashed pretty early. We got up to a beautiful, foggy mountain morning.

Day 2 we started our swing south. The plan was to make it to Enaville (right off I-90) in time to have some lunch at the SnakePit restaurant. At some point I stopped at an intersection for a little map consultation. Naturally Chris being the mature one, decided it would be a good time to do donuts around me while I looked the map over.

A little further down the road just outside of town the road turns and runs parallel to a small creek, so we jumped off and took some pictures of the water.

Also for some reason people had started the whole “stacking rocks” thing next to the road. I don’t really know what this is all about but it’s kinda cool. So we did the logical thing and kicked them all over…no actually we stacked some ourselves. You know when in Rome.

When we got to the SnakePit the place was packed with bicyclists all jazzed up in their spandex pants and what not. We were dirty, smelled like smoke, and out of place with the rest of the clientele oh well.

Ride your own ride I always say.

We had a delicious lunch and then made our way down to the interstate for a fresh load of the old go go juice. About the time we were turning around from the gas station and headed back into the woods the weather was turning fast. We hauled ass back up into the mountains. At first we were toying with the idea of camping in one of the formal campgrounds, but then we realized that they wanted money for a camp site, annnnnd fire wood. Negative Ghost Rider, Full Power Go Around. We found a seldom used side road (see note at the bottom) that took off up the side of the mountain. As we went up there was a ton of dead fall that went across the road. At one point there was a tree 3’ in diameter across the road that required I get off my quad and crawl next to it as it barely squeezed underneath. We figured that would deter anyone from crashing our party so just around the corner we set up camp right in the road. The weather was turning bad with the quickness, so we didn’t have time to take pictures. As soon as we had everything up and the fire going it started raining. It poured for the next 18 hours. We spent the evening sitting under the same piece of black poly we used the year previous. Since the weather sucked so bad we were in bed pretty early.

At about 01:30 I started hearing someone yelling my name. You know that place where you are asleep and something is happening around you but your just can’t quite switch your brain on? That’s where I was. I finally wake up and Chris is saying something about his tent failing and needed to join my in my nice dry tent. I did a little house keeping and in he came.

In the morning it was STILL raining so we hung out by the fire for a couple hours jus to see if the weather would break. Eventually it did

We had to attend to a flat right rear tire on Chris’s bike and we were off for home. As we rode on the weather stared to improve to the point where we were once again having fun. We stopped and took some pictures at a couple nice overlooks.

On the way back we happened on a ATV trail that was so much fun we rode it twice. Tight, twisty and muddy, with a handful of jumps just for good measure. This trail was an absolute blast and we made the decision that we would have to come back and ride it again.

We got back to the parking lot at just about sun down and loaded up in the trusty BlueDa and trailer. Keep in mind that this is mid-June so sun down is pretty dang late in the day.

This was another ATV milestone because it was the first time we broke the 200 mile mark on a ride.

Note-I’m pretty sure that this guy http://www.spokesmanreview.com/blogs/hbo/archive.asp?postID=25718 was cutting wood on the road our camp was. There aren’t too many roads in that area that I would call seldom used.

2006 Ride To Montana Border

2008-10-23T13:36:00.000-07:00

Chris and I had been talking for years about the idea of doing longer ATV rides. We had decided that these rides should include at least one overnight camp out. In 2006 we took the first of these trips. The plan was relatively simple. We were going to leave from the bottom of Bunco road, and ride to the Idaho, Montana border. As usual with the best laid plans there were some time conflicts so it was decided that Brian and I would leave first, set up camp at a predetermined location, and then Chris and Pat would meet up with us later in the day.

Here’s Brian and my quads overlooking Lake Pend Oreille on the way to our camp.

Brian and I made our way to camp and we could tell that weather was on it’s way. We found a suitable camp site and started getting things together. Tents up, check. Fire started, check. The weather was turning rapidly at this point, so I busted out the 10’x10’ piece of black poly that I’ve been keeping on my quad for the last couple years and put it up close to the fire so we could keep warm AND dry. Then the rain came, and boy did it come. It POURED for at least an hour and then slowly tapered off.

Here’s camp after it stopped raining.

Chris and Pat showed up mid-afternoon and we proceeded to eat some grub, drink some beer and then we called it a night. In the morning we broke camp and headed east. We stayed on the highroad the whole time and made it to the Idaho, Montana border about lunch time.

There’s a large rock cairn right at the border (or close enough for us to call it that anyway) so we took the celebratory pics to mark our achievement. From left to right we’ve got Pat (McGroin), Brian (Dr. Kenneth Noisewater), Chris (Warm It Up), and me

After quick lunch and a top off on fuel we headed back west. Instead of staying on the high road we headed down through the Jordan Creek area so we wouldn’t have to go the same place twice.

All total we did right around 100 miles and had a ton of fun. Except for the rain storm on the first day it stayed mostly dry and we started planning our ride for the next year.

ATV Rides

2008-09-23T08:42:00.000-07:00

I decided to dedicate a page to our ATV rides. This won't be getting updated all that regularly, just when we go for rides, and when we get some pics that are worth sharing. I've got some catching up to do on a couple rides from years past.