2013 Adventure Ride, Day 4 (July 23)

  Today's the day we're riding Macgruder Corridor and we're all pretty stoked.  It was a good night for sleep and the day was already getting hot...it was time to hit the road!  We thought about taking the camp chair and tent, but we decided against it...karma, you know?

Rainy's not much help around camp...

Hwy 14: South Fork of the Clearwater River

  I was keeping an eye out for critters since we were riding in the morning next to the river, and I spotted this doe with her two fawns...

  We were to visit Elk City for a large breakfast and quick shopping for that night's dinner.  There are two places to eat....the 'diner' (yuck) and the Reno Club (bar).   Reno is a great establishment...typical bar in this neck of the woods with good food and cold beer.  It was too early for beer, but the food was amazing!  The portions were the typical American bar-size - ginormous!

The Reno Club

Scott's Chicken Fried Steak and Mike's Pizza Omelette (huge!)

  Mike again made small talk with the bar's owner and told him we were headed over Magruder.  The owner told us there were forest fires in the area and we may not be able to make it over the pass.  He even called the ranger station to confirm that the road was closed.  We decided that we hadn't come this far to just do an about-face without at least trying, so we hit the grocery store and headed east to the pass.  Not too far into the ride we came upon a group of three people on horseback and a couple in a covered wagon.  No kidding, a real covered wagon...and the driver looked a perfect match for the ride.  I wouldn't be surprised if he was packin' a Winchester lever-action under the seat.  These people had a LONG ride ahead of them...

Covered wagon

  As we neared the top it became apparent that this area had suffered a huge forest fire in the last couple years.  I remember being in this exact same spot two years ago...there were a lot more trees back then: Adventure Ride 2011: Magruder Corridor

The pass lookout

The pass lookout

Panorama of the pass lookout

  We had made it over the main pass, so we had a pretty good idea that we were going to be able to make it all the way through.  I maybe worried a little bit when I saw this:

...but we kept riding and didn't get stopped.  We planned on camping out on one of the outlooks on the east part of the pass, but since it was extremely hot and all the shelter had been burned up we decided to move on.  Here are a few videos of the Corridor from the pass east:
Magruder Corridor 1
Magruder Corridor 2
Magruder Corridor 3
Magruder Corridor 4

Over the Magruder Corridor

Mike and Scott

Scott and I

   The plan was to head south toward Painted Rocks Lake to find a campsite for the night. After seeing some of the amazing rock formations the name of the lake started to make perfect sense.

Painted Rock - wow

It's like there's mustard in 'em!!

    It turns out the lake was actually a reservoir, but it was still pretty scenic...

Painted Rocks Lake

Painted Rocks Lake - the dam

  The first campsite we came to surprised us all...$20 per night for camping?!  Joo gotta be kiddin' me mang.  No way...we hoped that the farther south we moved along the river it would get cheaper.  We finally found something more reasonable ($7 I think?) with good cover and very limited access to a small stream.  I don't know what kind of trees these are, but they were HUGE...
 

Gigantimous Conifers

  We had another great combination for dinner: steak with a dehydrated lasagna meal.  Again, very scrumptious.  Really it was a pretty uneventful day but a great ride.  I like Magruder Corridor, but due to the forest fires I don't think I'll be doing the ride for at least 5 or 10 years.

Day 4 GPS track: 144 miles

Day 4 Elevations

2013 Adventure Ride, Day 3 (July 22)

  As we emerged from the tents we found deer hoof prints everywhere and the deer had left.  Day 3 had begun...I was groggy and hungry!

My McGyver cooking setup...

   I had brought a bit of oatmeal for breakfasts in the morning, but try as I may I could just barely get it down the gullet.  It was quite disgusting...no amount of cinnamon, sugar, and raisins could get me to eat that again.  I decided I was going to replace it with soda or whiskey in the side bag as soon as we made it back to civilization.  I was thankful I still had a few oatmeal raisin cookies (thanks again, honey!).
  The previous day I noticed there was a sign for a lookout just four miles further up the road.  That night I stated that it would be really cool to get some sunrise pictures from the lookout, so we decided to go check it out before continuing up the motorway the following day.  Here's a video of the ride up to the lookout the next morning: Lolo Motorway 4 (lookout).
 

Scott at the lookout

Scotty made it to the top first (surprised?), but no Mike.  We figured he forgot about the planned trip to the overlook so he took off to meet up with his pops.  I stuck behind to take more pics...

Panoramic pic of the lookout

Killer on the lookout

Enterprise awaiting the return of landing party...

The Blazer

  We razzed Mike a bit for not remembering the lookout and moved on up the Lolo Motorway.  The road was good....for a while.  Then it turned into a rocky and rutted SOB with the occasional ATV and truck traffic.
  The path is riddled with these signs:

  There were quite a few sections that were just plain rocky, while other sections were almost like highways.  As we came to this sign I knew we were in for a rocky section:

...and boy was it rocky, holy moly.  There was one section in particular that particularly sticks out  in my mind.  The section was a pretty smooth one so I might have been going a bit fast, and then in a little dip in the trail that was a little covered with bushes was a section with baby-sized boulders.  I wowed 'er up as much as I could but still managed to blast through the rocks, which pin-balled my but all the way over to the edge.  It all happened so fast I don't know how I didn't end up going off the road (and frankly don't care)...I'm just happy I stayed on course.  This was only one of many instances where the stiffer springs in the front and rear of the bike was a godsend...
  After the rocky section, it turned into almost a highway!  Well, some of it did anyway.  Poor Mike got nailed by another stingy-thingy too.  Here's a few videos of this section:

Lolo Motorway Video 10 

Lolo Motorway Video 11

Lolo Motorway Video 12 

 Man it was nice with purdy views like this one:

  We finally made it to Gass Creek, which was a bit of a milestone for me.  See, this is as far as we got coming from the other direction two years ago.  We ran into multiple snow drifts and decided to head back.  So to me this mean that I had finally ridden the entire Lolo Motorway.  Pretty cool...

While we were setting there, Scott noticed a leak in his gas tank that was coming from a little valve on the bottom of the tank.  The team mechanic was all over it...

  They got the leak fixed (or at least stopped) and we headed onward.  This is the spot we were planning on staying the night before, but we were glad we didn't.  There was already a trailer in the spot and not too many other places to camp.  Not to mention that would have been a bit of a ride late in the day.  It all worked out.

We made our way into Kooskia for a bite to eat and hit the first bar we could find for an ice cold beer and set our next plans.  The next leg was to continue down highway 13 and head east on highway 14 toward Elk City.  We had heard that this highway was an awesome ride and there had to be a campsite somewhere along the river.
  To the surprise of Scott and I, Mike was so hungry he helped himself to a $0.50 hot dog at the bar.  Scott and I decided to hold out for real food, which we were told was just down the road.  After the beer we headed in search of said 'real food'.  And let me tell you, we walked the entire damn length of that hot-ass town to find only one diner.  That was okay though, the diner had AC and cold water...and sorta good food.  I'm sure the patrons weren't too impressed when we sat down and started shedding clothing, including hot stinky boots!  After eating and cooling off as much as we could we walked to the supermarket for some steaks before we got back on the road again.
  Highway 14 is all it's cracked up to be - the road is curvy and the scenery is pretty.  We found ourselves an uninhibited camp site and set up camp...

  The first dip in the river is ALWAYS the worst, so it's best just to get it over with.  After that initial dip the river was really inviting.  There's nothing like sitting in a river drinking a bit-o-wiky.

  As we set to cooking dinner a car came rolling into camp and a couple got out to scope the place out.  They asked us how long we were planning on staying and explained that they wanted to reserve a spot for their family that weekend.  In Mike's good nature he let them set a tent up right next to his.  And with his good nature comes a little good ribbing like 'well, what's in it for us?!'...in which they had the reply '...well, we have a camp chair ya'll can use.  It's broken but...'.  After they left we were enjoying the extra chair around the fire and just thinking...'wow....really?'.  The whole situation just had to make us giggle.
  We cooked up our steaks and in typical Mike fashion decided to mix it up with a dehydrated beef stroganoff meal.  I have to say, that was mighty damn tasty.  Hat's off to master combiner Mike!  Later that night we were about to head to bed when a car stopped at the entrance of the camping area and didn't move for a bit of time.  That got us a bit worried and we went into ninja-vanish mode.  Little did they know that we were ready with lead for whatever they were planning.  It turns out they went away after about 20 minutes which I chalked up to one of the longest pisses I've seen.  It must have been a real drunk dude on his way home...or another bar!  You can never be too careful or assuming in the woods...some crazy shizzle happens out there...
 

Day 3 GPS Track

Day 3 Elevation Curve

2013 Adventure Ride, Day 2 (July 21)

  Day two baby!  We broke camp seemingly early due to some unexpected traffic on the road.  I don't know what was going on, but some peeps were hauling culverts up the road.  If our camp were made by the same people I can only imagine what type of fort they were building up there. 
  Right off the bat, we crossed this really cool bridge with an awesome view of Deception Creek...

   Heading up the first ridge I had my first encounter with some damn stinging bug.  All I saw was something big fly over my windscreen and then I felt hit my neck.  Seconds later the slow growth of pain started...ow...ow...Ow...OOW...OWWWWW!  Good thing Mike was behind me with his magic sting-remover pencil-thingy (really don't know what it is, but it works good).  I have to get one of those.
  As we started climbing it became apparent that there was no end in sight to the mountain ranges.  Every ridge we passed over presented another ten.  It really puts things in perspective...

  As you can see, there must have been one heck of a fire years back...and wind storms had created a few harsh microbursts that flattened trees on one side of some of the hills.  The road/trail was pretty good aside from a few large obsticles like this:

  We continued south and eventually popped out onto trail 500: Lolo Motorway baby!

Lookin' good, Rainy...

  
We were getting low on fuel and I was quickly burning through the few homemade cookies I had for breakfast.  I have to give a shoutout to my wifey for being awesome and baking me oatmeal raisin cookies...they were WAY better than oatmeal for breakfast!  Not to mention she's awesome for letting me do this ride altogether...thanks honey!. 
  Well, as I said, it was time to head to Powell to recharge...as we dropped into the Selway it got pretty hot, and all I wanted was something cold to wet my whistle.  There were bikes everywhere and I assumed the owners were riding the Lolo Highway (which is one of the funnest rides on a road bike BTW).  We headed to the lodge for a bit o' refreshment.

MMmmmmm....ice tea!!!

 ...and this is where I learned something about the Harley clan...many are made up of the guys you see on the couch behind Mike...PASSED OUT.  I think they wore them wee little selves out!  Poor fellers...  I will henceforth refer to these speciments as the "OTHR's" (Old Tired Harley Riders).

Really cool lodge...complete with dead animals on the walls

Looky...more of them OTHER's

  It was too early for beer, so we had ice tea with our burger and packed the camel packs as full of ice and water as we could.   After filling the chops at the only pump within 60 miles we decided it was worth a detour to Lolo Hotsprings for a little firewater for that night's events.  ...and...well...why not have a beer while we're here, right?  After sipping a cold one and packin' our 'cola' we headed back the way we came.  I couldn't wait to get back up in the mountains...it was HOT!  Plus seeing all them sleeping dudes (OTHER's) around was making me aweful drowsy.

Back on the Motorway...

  As we got to the top of the pass Scott noticed his left turn signal wasn't working.  The fact is 'Blazer' rode so fast that his blinker just couldn't keep up.  My guess is it got hit by a rock or just plain rattled loose.  Either way, it was hangin' by the wires.  Good thing the team mechanic was nearby...
 

Scotty's explaining the issue as Mike sets to work

  Scott had a replacement blinker (I wonder why), but it was decided that it would be pointless to put it on until we had to hit blacktop again.  So we motored on...

See the smoke?  I didn't think about it until later, but it may be from the McGruder Corridor fires.  More on this later...

  On one of the passes, there was this really cool outlook.  The following sign explains the deal.  Excuse me for making it ginormous, but I wanted to make it readible.

Mr. Clark sounds pretty miserable...

  It was getting late and we still had quite a few miles to the camp we had in mind for the night...until we happened upon a sign saying 'Horseshoe Lake'.  Well, looky here!  Dar be a lake down dere!  With hopes of some fishing and maybe a swim we were off...

Horseshoe Lake

  Well, it turns out there were NO fish and it was little more than a mosquito-infested puddle.  Oh well, we were there so we made the best of it.  The only thing worse than the mosquitos were the bees.  I managed to get stung on my hand while setting up my tent.  I MAY have yelled a bit after it poked me with it's butt...I CERTAINLY wouldn't qaulify it as a SCREAM...damned bugs...
  I set to making a cooking fire and put a can-o-chili next to the flames.  This chili was to be 'combined' (this is Mikes area of expertise) with a dehydrated Lasgna meal.  Now, you have to understand something here.  I grew up WAY different than these two gents.  Most (if not all) of my camp cooking was done by white fuel on a coleman stove.  I actually learned how to cook chili in the can in a fire from Scott.  Ok, back to the story...
  Scott was rumaging around in his tent, but as I placed the can in the fire I asked Mike if I should crack it first.  "Naw, it'll be fine" he said.  About that time Scott joined us and saw the can in the fire.  His next question both puzzled and worried me a bit...here's how I remember next series of evernts:
Scott: "Did you open the can?" 
Phil: "No...?"
Scott: (shaking his head) "Not a good idea..."
  At this point in time papa Mike started one of his lectures "I have cooked HUNDREDS of can's of...." 
BAM!!!!!   The lid blew clean off.
  That's right folks, right off it blew.  All I could do was paste the 'O' face and fight the urge to look up where I was certain steaming hot chili was to rain down upon our shocked little heads.  To my surprise, no chili fell...at least not ON us.  But about  ten seconds later I heard the lid fall approximately 50 feet behind me.  Laughter ensued and Scott went to look for the lid...
 

...and the lid he found...

It could have been worse I guess...at least we had half a can of chili left!

  I'm sure Mike will remember these 'pop-top' types of cans from now on.  Apparently he was used to the normal cans that require a can opener.  Personally I felt we all came out on top with this experience - nobody got hurt and we figured out yet another way to make a bomb.  Who knows when you'll need knowledge like this...

Horseshoe Lake with striving pine tree

Camp

  Well around 10:00 that night I started hearing noises around the camp fire and my jittery senses instantly had the hand-torch out scouring the trees for glowing eyes.  We were in luck...it was only a deer...or two...maybe more.  They seemed to be very friendly and somewhat confused about the fire, but we had similar experience with deer on the last Adventure Ride 2011.  After hittin' the sack and almost instantly falling asleep I was awakened by stomping...no...deer-hopping on the ground all around me.  To clarify, when deer run they don't gallop, they 'hop' with all four legs.  These deer seemed to be congregated particularly around where Mike's tent was set up.  Every time any one of us turned over, sneezed, coughed, or scratched our butts they spooked and loudly hopped back into the woods...just to return ten minutes later.  I know for a fact we all thought of shooting something sometime during that night.  As for me, I've never skinned a deer and I didn't want to figure it out at two in the morning-I thought that was pretty good thinking that time of night.  Anyway, this endless game seemed to go on all night.  I don't know if or when they ever left us alone.  I just know I was extremely fuzzy the next morning...

Day 2 GPS track

Day 2 Elevations