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