North Cascades Motorcycle Adventure

Day 1

Took off on a tour of the North Cascades Highway on the KLR with my Dad. The highway opened last week and it was the second latest opening on record.  We wanted to ride it while we could get the full snow experience.  We left my place around 11am or so and caught highway 9 out of Woodinville toward Arlington. Most of the trip up to this point was boring city type driving, however, once we got to Arlington, we turned off to Darrington and were greeted by the start of spectacular mountain views for the day.

We fueled up in Darrington – I didn’t fill up my tank before we got started, and I was starting to get a bit low.  From Darrington, we went up toward Rockport and then on to Marblemount.  Stopped for a quick bite to eat at a place near Marblemount.

Down the road a bit we pulled over at a viewpoint above the dam to take some pictures.  Didn’t wander around too long because we left the electronics (GPS & Spot) out on the bikes.  Did get a waterfall picture in.

Cruised toward Rainy Pass and started to see snow on the side of the road. We pulled over so I could change the battery and the memory card on my helmet cam so we were sure to get good videos going over both Rainy Pass and Washington Pass.  Had to get a quick picture in while we were there.

The snow was pretty deep going over Rainy Pass – about to the top of our heads, maybe a bit more.  Washington Pass was pretty spectacular.  Coming down the east side, the snow was incredibly deep where the avalanches had crossed the highway.  You go through a hairpin turn, and there is one avalanche chute that crosses the road twice!  Did not get any pictures, but should have taken some good videos on the helmet cam  – I’ll post them later once I can edit them.

The snow went away pretty rapidly as we descended off of Washington Pass.  We decided to pull over for the night a the Early Winter Campground – it is a small campground with 12 sites, just off of the road.  It is a nice little campground on a stream, and is located at about 2800’.  It was pretty warm when we pulled in- mid 70s or so.  Now (at 11:30p in my tent), it is pretty cool.

We set up our matching tents, notice the guard dog hanging out of the one…

We fired up our Jet Boils to make dinner.  I had a nice teriyaki chicken dish, and my Dad had beef stew.  After dinner, made some hot chocolate and tried to make a fire.  We didn’t have any wood with us (kinda hard  carry on the motorcycles), but there was plenty of twigs/branches from when they cleaned up the campground.  Of course, it was all wet.  After two failed attempts at getting the fire started, our neighbor camper took pity on us and brought over a dry piece of wood so we could get our fire going.

Now it is close to midnight, and I’m writing this on my netbook.  The space bar isn’t working correctly and it is really annoying me right now .  Of course, there is no cell coverage here, so I’m not going to be able to upload this until tomorrow sometime.  Well, should probably turn this thing off and go to bed.

Day 2

Well, shortly after turning off the computer, I ran to the outhouse one last time and the stars were spectacular.   A combination of being away from the city lights, a fairly high altitude, and no moon made for awesome viewing conditions.  I wish I would have strapped my telescope to the back of my motorcycle (well, maybe not).

The night cooled off quickly.  I was in my big down sleeping bag and had it zipped about 1/2 way up to keep warm.  I slept pretty well – woke up when it got light, the fell back asleep.  Got out of bed for good about 7a, and read my Kindle while waiting for my Dad to get up.  He rolled out of the tent about 8:30 or so.  After breakfast of oatmeal and hot chocolate, we broke camp and  were off for the day.

Our first stop was just outside the town of Winthrop at Pearrygin Lake state park.  There are two different campgrounds at the lake.  The eastern most one looks like a cool place to take the RV to camp.  The boat launch had a dock and good access, so we could tow the boat behind the RV without any issues.  The park was having flood issue with some small streams and we had to do some “water crossings”.  Fortunately the bikes were up to it (ok, they were only a couple of inches deep).

Next stop was further down the road at Alta Lake state park.  This one was not as nice as the last, there were a few areas that had some nice sites, but there was also an area that was basically a big field to camp in – no privacy at all.  Did not check out the boat launch here.

We checked out Icicle River RV Park in Leavenworth – Kim and my Dad (ok, maybe me) are doing the Leavenworth 1/2 marathon in October, and this is where we are going to stay.  It also happens to be on a stretch of road that is roughly the first half of the course, so we got a feel for what the mountain run is going to be like.  We pulled over at the trail head that is the turnaround point for the out and back portion of the race.

From Leavenworth we started for home.  At this point it was turning into a long second day.  I think we should have stretched this into a 3 day trip and my butt would have appreciated it a bit more.  Overall it was a ton of fun and would do it again – could be a cool annual trip to do right after they open the highway.

Dirt Bike Riding at Mattawa

Yesterday, we packed up the new truck with the kid’s Christmas presents and went over to Mattawa to go dirt bike riding with a bunch of family for Mark’s birthday.

Let’s start with the truck – we took delivery on Thursday.  It is a fully loaded Dodge 3500 Mega Cab with a Cummins turbo diesel in it.  Cool options include remote start, integrate nav/bluetooth, backup camera w/sensor, heated front and rear seats.

Now, back to the trip – even the ride over was a bit of an adventure.  We had the kid’s bikes in the back of the truck and my honda on a two-bike rack on the back.  Almost all of our riding gear fit behind the back seats – the whole reason for getting the mega cab.  I drove to the rest area near Cle Elum where I swapped out with Melissa, who still only has her learners permit.  She hadn’t driven on the freeway w/a 70 mph speed limit yet, so it was a new experience for her.  The truck doesn’t seem that big when you are driving it, so she handled it without any problems.  We stopped at the grocery store in Mattawa to swap drivers again because Melissa didn’t want to drive down the gravel/dirt roads to get to the riding area.  At this point, the bikes were all fine – I mention this because when we got to the riding area, the TT125 had fallen over and SCRATCHED MY NEW TRUCK!  One of the tie down traps had actually snapped and the bike fell to the outside, the brake lever on the bike put a small scratch in the side of the truck – when I first saw it, I thought it would be way worse.

It took a while to get the bikes unloaded, but once we did, Taylor started riding and really didn’t get off her bike for any extended period of time for the rest of the day – she pretty much rode for 6 hours straight.  Melissa was learning how to use the clutch on this trip.  She started out on her grandmother’s 110, and after she warmed up, she moved over to her bike – the TT125, which fit her much better.  She did awesome.

I did manage to take off with Mark and Jeremy for about an hour and a half.  We did some hill climbing on a bunch of trails while working our way to the very top.  The rocks seemed to have bred since the last time I was here – or we did a poor job of picking trails, because the rocks were nasty.  On top of that, there were cows everywhere – and they would run in random directions when you spooked them.  The exciting part of the ride happened on the way back to our base camp.  I was cruising along pretty good when I started to notice this huge sagebrush “bush” (more like a small tree) next to the trail…well I looked at it for too long, and sideswiped it.  The trail had a bit of an edge on that side and it caught my shift pedal, which busted off.  So, now I’m stuck in 3rd gear, with a bike that doesn’t like to start while it is in gear.  I catch up with Mark and Jeremy and we pick a trail that we think is going to take us toward the road so I could get back.  Well, it didn’t go back to the road, and we found ourselves pinned between the boundary fence and a big sandy hill that I need to climb.  Climbing a hill like that in 3rd gear was not fun – killed it multiple times – nothing like having to kick start the bike in the middle of the hill and then killing it immediately because I’m trying to start in 3rd gear. Did eventually make it back though, and fortunately it was the end of the day, so I didn’t really miss out on any riding.

The drive home was uneventful, although we didn’t get there till almost 11p, which made for a pretty long day.  The truck worked out great – got 15.9 mpg for the trip, which isn’t too bad for going back and forth over the pass.  Overall it was a great trip – just need to fix my bike now .

California Dualsport Ride

I’m down in the Palm Springs area and had the awesome opportunity to go on a dual sport ride with the Mike and Dave from Get Dirty Dirt Bikes.  I’ve got to start out by saying these guys are spectacular.  If you are ever in the Palm Springs area, and want to rent a dirt bike or go on a tour you should definitely go through these guys.  They set me up with a KTM 450, which turns out to be built like a tank, given the number of times that I crashed, and it continued to work.

The plan for our trip was to start in Banning, make our way through the back county to Idyllwild for lunch, and then head back to the truck.  Mike was leading the pack of us, with Dave following the pack, helping people (ie mostly me) when they dropped their bikes.

The trip started off pretty easy – dirt road with some small ruts in it.  We made it about 2 miles in when decided to cut one of the corners and climb a small hill and drop back to the road.  This was the first time (of very many) that I dropped the bike – at least I wasn’t the first person (by about 30 sec).  Dave told me that I could stay on the road if I liked…

The road got more and more difficult with lots of ruts and washouts.  Managed to ride my way through it without crashing again.  The next leg of the trip was through a single track trail – this is where things started to unravel for me.  I made it about 100’ into the trail and dropped the bike.  I start picking up the bike, and my pants game unsnapped.  So I snapped them back up, through my leg over the bike, and they unsnapped again. Barely managed to get them snapped while on the bike (I’m in a hill), go about 5’ and drop the bike again.  And my pants came unsnapped again.  Snap pants, get on bike, pants unsnapped again.  Struggle to get pants snapped.  Head down the trail a bit pants unsnapped again.  This time I just leave them that way…All this time, Dave is patiently hanging out with me while everyone else has ridden ahead.   I go for about another 2 minutes, get hung up in a rut and dump the bike again.  At this point I tell Dave I need a break to get in a better mental state – he rides ahead to let people know that we are taking a break, while I cool down.  Dropping the bike and snapping my pants are driving me crazy.  After my little break, I snapped my pants (which were not a problem for the rest of the trip), and I finished out the trail without any issues.

Now we are back on the roads, there are still ruts all over the place that you have to be careful navigating through, but I start to get in a groove.  I’m going faster and faster…went through a turn a little fast and the bike got off the road – at which point, it gets hung up on a branch at stops instantly.  I however, was standing on the pegs and did not stop until my face hit the ground…did I mention there was about a 3 foot long section of mud that I landed in…the only mud in sight on the stretch of the road.  My protective gear was worth every penny I paid for it.  I did mess my thumb up pretty good – thought it was broken at first, but it wriggled so I called it good.  Other than that, I was just fine.

Along the way, there were several stream crossings that we had to do.  This one was probably the coolest one.  There was a bit of a waterfall off to the left (not pictured).  I was surprised that we were in the trees, I expected to be in more desert like conditions for the entire ride. From this point to Idyllwild, it was like riding through the mountains.  When we madeour way to the top, there was a bunch of snow.

Eventually, we made it to the town and had some lunch.  On the way back, we cruised down the pavement a bit to make up some time.  Even riding the slab was a bit tough because there was crushed rock on it left over from the winter.  Made cornering a bit interesting.

We split up with a couple of the other guys taking the road all the way back to the rig, while the rest of us hit the dirt again.  We went down a few roads that were different than the ones on the way up, but it was still the same type of terrain – dirt roads w/ruts.  We went down one of Mike’s “secret” trails on the way back.  I dumped the bike a couple more times but made it home.  Overall the trip was about 75 miles, and I was dead tired when we were back.

Injury wise, I came away pretty good given the number of times I crashed.  My thumb is purple and I can’t grip things tightly, so it should be ok.  I’ve got a bit of road rash on my butt from having the bike slide out from under me once.  Outside of that I feel pretty good.