Idaho City to Crooked River Ranch, OR 10/17/12-10/23/12

Wednesday – Travel Day

We left Idaho City around 10 am.  After a stop at Flying J to get gas and propane, we were on I-84 headed to Ontario OR where we exited and followed 20/26 to Vale and on to Unity OR.  Most of the way was through rolling hills filled with crops and cows.  One section had us following a creek that had outrageous fall colors in the trees along its bank.  

 

 

We had planned to camp at one of the campgrounds west of Unity.  None of them had spaces that we felt we would fit into so we found a gravel pit across from the Oregon CG on FSR 2665. We were surprised to find an ATV trail that leaves from Oregon CG. Hope to check it out tomorrow.  The cats are having a great time going on walks and chasing rodents.

 

 

Wayne with Andy

 

Bailey and Andy join us for a walk

Thursday—Ride Day

It was pretty brisk this morning when we got up, there was ice on the puddle next to the coach.  We had a 27⁰ nighttime low. At least we had propane this time and as a result we had heat.  The last night we spent in Idaho City(IC) we were so low on propane that we opted to do without heat during the night as we had to run the fridge.  That night the outside temp got into the mid 20’s and it was 40⁰ inside when we got up.  Chilly!  Thank goodness for our generator.  Once we were awake we started that puppy up and turned on the small electric heater we carry with us. It took a while, but we did warm up.

Today we waited to get out of camp for our ride until the weather warmed up, leaving around 10:45.  We’ve never been to this location before, and neither had anyone else we’d talked to, so we did a little experiment. While we were still in IC, I used my computer and its Topo program to design 3 different routes.  They inter connected looking like a weird figure eight on the map.  I had found an old (1990) Wallowa-Whitman Forest map when we were packing up the house, and we put it to good use.  I compared the map and computer  and found many of the roads I wanted to use were not on our map so I reworked the routes to match the map.  For most people this would not be an issue, they would have put the routes in their GPS and away they would go.  Unfortunately for us our only GPS is on Wayne’s dirt bike, his Gas-Gas and he was riding his KTM.  We are in the process of researching to find a GPS for my bike.  With a GPS we would not have had to stop to check the map so frequently, and we wouldn’t have missed that turn that would have cut out about 10 miles of highway at the end.

But the votes are in, and the day was declared a great success.  We started up the road we are camped on and then wound around through the rolling hills filled with bright yellow and gold Tamarac/Larch trees. They are so cool looking, with their Fir-like needles that turn color in the fall.  The roads followed small creeks and went through areas that showed evidence that the Forest Service has been brushing and thinning.  As a result, with no underbrush and fewer trees, there is not as much fuel on the ground should a wild fire start.  And the forest just looks cleaner and well-tended.  We also went through some very old burn areas.  I thought of my riding partner of 30 years, Raydonia, a number of times today.  She would have loved the ride we did today.  Each route was about 40 miles long and they each ended on Highway 26 near where we are camped.  All of the roads, even the primitive ones where in great shape and the fall colors were fabulous to see. 

 

We only had one tree down on the road and it was easy to get over, which was good as Wayne’s chainsaw is mounted to his Gas-Gas, with the GPS.  See a pattern here? 

 

 

 

After crossing the highway for the first time, we got on Oregon State Route 7 and went to the site where the Tipton Station used to be located. From there we went back south almost to US 26, but turned and traveled parallel it to the east.  In this section we really missed having a GPS as a road that is on our map had actually been washed completely out.  So we turned around and took a road that the map showed as not going through, but I thought my Topo program had said do go through.  This time the map was right, so we turned around again and headed out to the highway, where we could by pass that area and get back on track. 

We found the OHV trail several times

We found the OHV trail we had seen the start of in that campground.  This road took us to the Unity Reservoir where we once again crossed the highway, and went south on Cemetery road.  This T’d into the South Fork Burnt River Rd.  We found another OHV trail off this road. This road connected with roads we had been on earlier in the day.  This is where we missed a turn. We should have turned right, but the road had a different number than listed on the map, so we by passed it.  A GPS would have shown us that this was the right road. That road would have taken us back to camp; instead we ended up back on the highway.  I was a little bummed that we didn’t see much wild life on this ride, just one coyote and a single doe late in the day.  It was a 130 mile ride, and we had a great time.

Crossing Highway 26

 

Along Unity Reservoir Rd

Fire in the distance

 

Friday—Travel Day

Silly Deer

Today we headed to our friend’s place in Crooked River Ranch, outside Terrebonne, north of Redmond.  We left camp before 10 am under cloudy skies that held a hint of smoke from the fire we could see while riding yesterday.  US 26 is a beautiful highway, lined with evergreens and Larch.  Shortly after we started I came across a small herd of mule deer in the road.  Even after they jumped off to the side, they still didn’t run away.  Don’t they know it is hunting season?  I flashed my camera taking this picture, and that made them run up the hill, thank goodness. 

We drove through rolling hills, mountain passes with 7% grades and through really cool, narrow slot canyons. Despite issues with my Tom-Tom we managed to get to Bob and Cindy’s around 3 PM.  We’ve known them for years through riding, and stay at their place in Quartzsite AZ in the winters, but this is the first time we’ve been to their Oregon home.  Bob and Cindy have a great collection of old cars and trucks, in various stages of life, as well as dirt bikes.  They have a dual sport ride planned for tomorrow.

Cindy's Model A

Bailey and the deer in Cindy's yard

The deer know the rules, no hunting in the housing developement

 

Saturday—Ride Day

Today we went for a ride with Bob, Cindy and their friend Bob to Mitchell for lunch.  After a quick side trip to Terrebonne for gas, we headed out on Highway 97 to catch a road to the east that took us out through the ORV park and over into the range and ranch lands.  We saw some huge working ranches, including the Hay Creek Ranch.  We then went over to Ashwood, this little town that has rest area where we stopped to add more clothing layers.  It was cold at this point, but not near as cold as it would get before we got to lunch.  From Ashwood the other Bob took over the lead and took us up(it’s colder the higher you get) and over to Highway 26, down to FSR 22, where we turned and went even higher up in elevation.  It was so cold I couldn’t clear the fog from my helmet shield, so I had to ride with it tipped open.  Talk about cold!  There was snow on the ground, but at least it wasn’t falling from the sky!

 

We had lunch at the Little Pine Café in Mitchell; hot food and hot coffee really hit the spot.  From there we went a different way back to Ashwood.  We went down the highway to the Painted Hills road that goes out to one of the John Day Fossil beds.  We didn’t stop to look, because it was way too cold.  That was also why I don’t have many pictures of this ride, too cold to stop and take my gloves off.  We saw lots of deer on this section, some in sets of 2 or 3, and one herd of about 20. 

 

 We did stop at this one ranch, look closely at these horses, the third one from the right is actually a cow elk.

 

On the way back we were in race mode.  We were racing the sun, racing the rain, racing birds and racing cows.  We beat the cows, but it sure was funny to see Bob herding these 2 cows while on his bike.  Cows are so dumb.  They manage to get off the road, but they keep running alongside us.  If they would just stop, we would be by them and be gone.  But this one cow decided to keep running and when we stopped around the corner  to look at some rock formations, she was still running and went right by us again.  Racing birds is fun; they swoop down, fly for a while at head level, and then soar back up and away.  We lost the race with the rain clouds.  We got caught by this one storm cell, but rain gear came out and all was good.  We almost beat the sun; it had just gone down by the time we got to Cindy & Bob’s place about 6:30 pm so we did come back in the dark.  At 237 miles, it was officially the most miles I’ve ever put on a dirt bike in a single day.  It was a great day.

Sunday and Monday:  Rest days

You’d think after a day like yesterday we would have slept in and rested.  Oh no, Cindy and Bob go to breakfast with friends every Sunday at 7:30 in Redmond.  So we set an alarm and got up at oh dark thirty and had a great breakfast with them and their friends.  We spent the rest of the day doing maintenance on the bikes, up-loading stuff to the blog, and visiting Sue, another friend of ours who also lives in Crooked River.

We spent Monday in Bend shopping at Costco and finding this cool little shop called The Growler Guys.  They are located in the building at the Shell station across the street from Costco.  They have a wall of beer taps, like about 20, and they have all local microbrews.  We had brought our growlers with us, so we had them fill 4 with good beer.  That should hold us for a while!

Tomorrow(10/24) we plan to leave Crooked River Ranch heading for our next major stop in the Reno area.

Idaho City, Idaho - 9/28/12-10/17/12

Friday: Move Day

We moved from the Pine Flats campground to our friends place in Idaho City.  We took our usual spot in the front yard; Bob is out in the back. We are really lucky to have such good friends.  Each time we are in Idaho we always spend several weeks with JD and Raydonia.  Sometimes we come 3 or 4 times a year.  The four of us have been riding together for more than 30 years.  About 8 years ago they bought a home in Idaho City where they spend roughly 6 months each year, arriving sometime after Easter and returning to their place in the San Juan Islands just before Halloween.   Since I’ve retired I think we have spent as much time at their Idaho City place as we did at ours in Salt Lake during that same time.

 

Saturday:

Ricky came for a dual sport ride today.  We went to check out the Trinity Ridge fire area, as much as they would let us.  After starting up and over Rabbit Creek we went up-river along the North Fork of the Boise River. We had planned to use the Barber Flats road to get into the next drainage, the Middle Fork.  Surprise!  We could not cross the Barber Flats Bridge.  Fire suppression and repair work was still going on there.

So we by passed it and went up to Swanholm.  The fire was visible is some places.  Most of the time it looked like it roared through at ground level, just burning up the underbrush.  Other places looked like it settled in and burned everything, turning the ground into black space dust. At the Phifer Road Bridge, we took a break and saw this tree that had exploded.

See on the hillside?

Bet that made a big noise!

Boom!

From there we rode up the Middle Fork road to Queens River where we turned north and went up to the China Basin road.  This primitive road goes up and over the ridge to the mining town of Atlanta.  We stopped at the Riverside Campground for lunch.

 

 

 

 What kind of nest is this???

After lunch and a quick tour through Atlanta, we went up the James Creek Road to Rocky Bar.  Rocky Bar has a population of about 4. They are trying to restore as many of the remaining buildings as they can.  The fire could have taken everything from them.  Firefighters saved the town by reducing the fuel around the buildings and setting back fires in the area.  All this work makes Rocky Bar look better than it ever has and very well-tended.  Featherville was also saved, and looks much the same as always.  From there we went to Prairie for a beverage and played with the Border collie Rosie.  We came back to Idaho City via Long Gulch, Cottonwood and Minneha.

Tuesday: Afternoon Dual Sport:

 

 

The next ride I took was with Wayne.  He has always wanted to ride on the Clear Creek Road. We started down Highway 21 and turned off at Robie Creek road and headed to Clear Creek.  We got distracted and decided to turn on Tollgate Rd and went out to a ridge that overlooks Boise.

We connected this with the Bogus Basin Road, and then the Boise Ridge Rd.  From there we went down Pine Creek Rd to the Grimes Creek Rd.  When we got there Wayne still hadn’t been on the Clear Creek Rd, so we took a right and ended our day where we began, on the Robie Creek Rd.

 

 

Saturday:  Trail/Road Ride

Wayne, JD and Bob have been trail riding every day this week.  Saturday was a trail and road ride with Norm, Ricky and John.  They came back with more details of the burn area.  They think Sheep Mountain has a chance of recovering, but not so much for some of Brown’s Creek and some of the other trails in that area.  We heard on the news that the Boise National Forest was given about $5 million for recovery uses, including reclaiming roads and trails.  We hope some of that money goes to trails we ride.

Thursday: Town Day  and bike ride

“And now, for something completely different” – Monty Python’s Flying Circus

One of my favorite quotes to use, but it does kinds of date me…  But that was what we did today, something completely different for us.  We went for a bike ride, of the pedal variety.  Boise has a great Greenbelt Trail system that parrallels the river on both sides in places.  We road on the north pathway, starting at Veterns Memorial Park going east to the Lucky Peak/Barber Park ‘T’. With the return trip according to the milage painted on the path, we went more than 16 miles.  Took us 2 hours, but I am slow and out of shape.  However my post surgery knee (meniscus and arthritis issues) loves it when I ride my bike. So I guess I have to look at it as physical therapy.  The path was paved, and  every road crossing was done with a tunnel under the car roads.  It was really nice, no stopping to wait for traffic lights.  There were all sorts of different people on the trail, moms and/or dads  with kids walking and riding, the lunch crowd out for a lunchbreak walk in the sun and lots of other bicycles. 

We road through many parks with huge old trees.  Many of them are starting to show their fall colors.  It is much warmer at night in Boise than in Idaho City.  The night time lows have been in the teens for most of a week in IC, barely freezing even once in the valley.  It shows.  One park we went through on Warm Springs road is the site of the old Boise Nat.  It was a spa and health club of the 1900’s variety.  It was no where to be seen now, but the park was still open. 

Saturday: Dual Sport

The Forest Service has opened more of the Trinity Ridge Fire area to recreational use.  Just in time for the opening day of hunting season.  We went out to see more of the burn area.  So did a lot of other people. All the roads had traffic on them, even the one we found that was open at the top, but barricaded at the bottom.  Go figure.

Back at Barber Flats Bridge

We started the same way we did two weeks ago, Over the Rabbit Creek road and up the North Fork to the Barber Flats Bridge.  This time the tape and signs were gone, so up we went to look at the damage.

As we went up the pass, we could look through the burn area down to the North Fork-Boise.

Evidence of the fire was everywhere.

Before the fire this area was covered with underbrush, now there is blacken ground covered in all the pine needles these damaged Ponderosa Pines are dropping.  We’ll have to wait for next year to see if the trees will keep any of their needles

Black sticks are all that is left of the underbrush in some areas

The fire was very spotty in some places.

Once on the Middle Fork Rd, we headed upstream to the Phifer Rd.  This road goes up to the ridge that takes you to the heart of the Trinity Lakes fire.  It was very stark in places.

 

 

Roaring River Road was open at the top and it was beginning to snow, so we changed our original plans that had included going higher in elevation (to where it really was snowing) to heading down the canyon.  We found this little creek that was previously hidden in the brush, none of us had even known it was there before and some of us have ridden this road for more than 15 years.  It will look fantastic next spring when the grasses and fireweed start to grow.  The green is such a great contrast with the black of the ground and tree trunks.   This is the road from which the Sheep Mountain Trail starts.  The area we could see from the road is grasslands and yes it looks like the fire raced through there too, but the boys say the trail is still in good shape.  Makes me and my lady riding friends happy, it is one of our favorite rides.  When we got down to the bridge across the Middle Fork, we found the road barricaded, but not signed as closed.  I guess the car we saw on the road must have moved them in order to cross.

Hidden stream uncovered by fire

It doesn’t take long for the land to start to recover; the fire is less than a month old at this point.

We followed the Middle Fork down river to the Cottonwood road, then up to Thorn Butte and over the ridge and down to Idaho City via old roads, ATV trails and some single track trails.  It was a great, true dual sport ride.

Evidence of a much older fire

More really old fire

Thorn Butte Look Out in the distance

A great day

This is the end of our riding in Idaho City this year.  We head for San Diego on Wednesday.  We have about 3 weeks to get there so we are taking the long way around, through Redmond Oregon to visit friends, and then we will go south on Highway 395 through Oregon and California.  We hope to drive one day and explore the next.  It should be beautiful, if we don’t get snowed out!