The day started off well enough. Even the weather was decent. My friend (Rick) had called and wanted to go riding, but no to the crappy place I always go. That place had too many rocks and had scratched his bike up and dented a rim. He wanted to try something new.
Being a good sport and open to adventure I agreed on scouting a new place.
We loaded the quads and headed to an ORV park that he had heard about but none of us had been to.
Upon arrival we were shocked to see very few other riders. What GOOD FORTUNE! no crowded trails! this would be great. The trail started off in a fairly mountainous area and I laughed to myself as we raced along the wide path. This was 10 times rockier than where I ride, huge rocks and other obstacles were strewn in the trail. It was fairly technical work picking our way as we decended into the valley below.
Our first sign that things were not as they should be was when we reached the valely floor. There was a toyota down on the same trail we were on. The ORV parks in Washington share trails between ATVS and Jeeps but I hadnt been on one that did double duty. This truck was built, not some fancy toy, it was a business truck, dented and wearing tree bark in many places. We gave it wide berth as we navigated the terrain.
Kim (my wife ) was the first to get stuck. Trying to cross a small boggy section with a steep climbout, she couldnt get through. Rick and I had to push and pull for 20 minutes to get the warrior unstuck. It was a battle but hopefully this was the worst of the trail.
We were making progress albeit slow. the 3 of us would pick through one obstacle after another. Deep mudhole that had to be skirted. Rutted muddy mess with difficult climbout. Deephole with a sharp 90 up and out over big rocks. I felt like a trials rider!
My dale is geared 14/42 for racing and I was killing the motor a lot in the technical terrain. Never riding for more than a few minutes at a time before having to get off and get someone unstuck, including myself. I could hear the battery winding down each time I killed it and tried to restart it. I mentioned this to Rick and Kim and left the bike running when ever I had to dismount to assist someone else.
Deeper we went. There was no turning back, not after the stuff we had been through. I knew that I would have lost the battery trying to negotiate back the way we had come given the terrain. My only hope was to continue forward and hope the trail, if you could call it that, got better.
It finally happened, and over something rather easy. I had cleared a 90 out of a hole. That was the tough part. It was steep climb over massive tree roots and big rocks, I got got to the top and trying to get it in neutral to help my wife, I killed it... and it wouldnt restart.
We were in pretty bad shape. even if we'd had a tow rope, which we didnt, there was no way we were going to be able to tow my bike out, it was too hard for a single quad to make it through let alone tow an additional 500 pounds of quad and rider.
Pushing it was simply not an option, we were exhausted from unsticking our bikes and even if we had been fresh, there was simply too much elevation change will significant technical obstacles to accomplish with simple man power.
We sat and pondered what to do.
That's where we were when the Toyato we had seen earlier came crawling through the same trail we had just crossed. We all sat in awe as this truck articulated over boulders and through deeply rutted mudpits and cralwed out over massive tree roots.
He stopped when he got near and filmed his freind in another toyota coming through the same area. It was amazing to see.
I asked him if he had anything to help me get my bike going and he produced a portable battery pack. In 2 seconds I was running!
I thanked him profusely and asked if he knew what the he!! the deal is with the trail we were on. Why was it so freakin rough?!
"This is the second most difficult 4x4 trail in washington and it's ranked fifth in the Nation"
:eek:
I had to use their battery pack about 4 more times before we made it out. We made it to the truck about 4 hours after we hit the trail head. We'd only covered about 3 miles of trail before we hit the loggin road back to the truck.
That place was he!! and I cant believe we made it through on our 2 wheel drive rigs. I fear that any harescramble will feel tame after that
I didnt get any pictures, thank God I forgot the camera, we would have lost it, along with my coat, which is buried in some nameless mud pit. I did a search on the net for the ORV park "Elbe Hills" To post these pictures. Sorry none of the bike, but you get the picture.
