October 3, 2013 Wayne finally takes his DRZ out for a ride!!

We are finally back at our friends JD and Raydonia’s place in Idaho City.  The next Fall Ride is about to start. They expect Walt and Pat on Saturday, Doc and Cindy on Sunday and Michele and John should get here near the end of the week.  Too bad we have to leave on Tuesday to head to Nevada to work for Amazon.com.  To make room for all the rigs I the back, we have parked in our more typical location, in front of the house.

The cats love to be parked out front; they can spend more time on the porch, while still keeping our house in sight.

 Wednesday was our first opportunity to ride; the rain had stopped and we didn’t have any errands to run in Boise.  Wayne and I decided to go check out the damage done by this year’s fires. As this was all roads he finally got a chance to ride his new-to-him DRZ 400. 

This is the bike he will ride when we take our coast to coast ride next summer.

Getting ready to go

Wayne always checks the bikes and takes care of issues before they happen

We left Idaho City in clear but cold conditions (barely 40 degrees) and headed south on Highway 21, taking a left on Thorn Creek Road.  At the saddle we continued down the other side past Cottonwood Campground.  Here we turned upriver along the Middle Fork of the Boise River.

Arrowrock Dam has created this reservoir

Check out the Eagle

Wayne up ahead, I stop to warm my hands

The colors look out of place here with all the gray earth and scrub brush

This hints at what the river must have been like before the dam

We followed the river to the first bridge across.  This take us up Slide Gulch and eventually over the top and into Long Gulch. Did I say it was cold??

Looking back down Long Gulch

Long Gulch takes us to the small town of Prairie, ID, the location of the Elk complex fire.  The Elk Fire resulted from several lightning fires burning together on the night of August 8th.  It burned 131,258 acres in the Prairie, Falls Creek, and Pine area.  We had large fires last year in this general area, but they appear to be very spotty compared to this guy.  We left Prairie and it seemed as if town ended and the fire began. And it was a huge, hot fire.  I’ve never seen so many miles of this level of damage.  It was very sad to see.

Burnt Creek is on the east end of town, pretty prophetic if you ask me

On the same road

Burn in the distance and all around Wayne

We climbed up the House Mountain Rd and saw this along the way.  That is not water, but sand that has washed into the creek bottom.  Imagine what it will be like after a rainy season…

Even in a badly damaged area like this, Mother Nature starts over again

We followed the road down to the Fall Creek area

Fall Creek was hit really hard by the fire. Thirty eight residences and 43 outbuildings in the Fall Creek area were destroyed by the Elk Complex of fires.  The route we usually ride takes us right through their little neighborhood.  Today, only one house was still standing and it looked like someone had wrapped it in one of those fire retardant wrappings they sometime use.  It was pristine while everything else was burned to the ground, leaving only stone fireplaces and melted equipment. 

We continued to ride through horrible fire ravaged areas and past a Forest Work Station that was saved.  The area around it was not.

Shortly past the Forest Service Work station

From the distance you can see the living, the dead and the dying trees

 

We went through some additional damage on private land before we got to Anderson Ranch Reservoir. It was interesting to see that here as well as in Fall Creek, the land owners are logging out the damaged trees that will either cause problems down the road as well as those that are worth some money at this point.  You know they won’t be worth much down the road. 

Anderson Ranch Reservoir is so low that only the river remains at this point 

We continued along the reservoir, heading to Pine. Once on the pavement we continued to see damage.  The large homes in this area were saved, but damage is still evident.  One house had a 2 rail fence, obviously of vinyl based on how loopy and melted it was.  The old (and still in use) one room school house was saved, but the fire came all the way down to the road across from it.  We rode north to Featherville for lunch, checking out the fire damage along the way.

Lunch at the café, hot food and warmth, boy did we need it!  Did I mention it was COLD!!!

Look!  A matched set!

From Featherville we back-tracked a bit to the Trinity Mountain Road and headed back to Idaho City.  This road winds around and up creek drainages to eventually ‘T’ into the Trinity Ridge Road. We were surprised to find the Forest Service logging along this road; they never seem to be that proactive.  It was nice to see them taking a lot of burned trees off the uphill side of the road.  That means less will fall on the road.

This area looks like to may have burned both last year and this year

This trail will need a lot of help

Snow on the Trinities, did I tell you we were cold?

Yes we were very cold

Burr!!!!

The Trinity Ridge Road took us to the Roaring River Road.  This area burned last year. 

You never used to be able to see the road in the distance, last year’s fire made that possible

Steel Mountain got some snow

This creek is making a comeback after last year’s fire

The road is in very good condition despite the fire

The Roaring River Road ends at the Middle Fork of the Boise, and we went down stream, until we got to Alexander Flats.  This is where the old road to Barber Flats on the North Fork takes off. 

Looking down into the North Fork drainage.

We follow the North Fork for about 5 miles, until the road turns up Rabbit Creek and crosses the summit.  This puts us going down into the Morse Creek drainage, Highway 21 and home.

Rabbit Creek Summit

We got back to the motorhome about 5 PM after going 161 miles and seeing a ton of devastation. It was at times very cold, but always interesting and fun.