Day 8 of 9 completed. Departed Crescent, OR at 5:40 am with
temperature at 38 degrees heading to Canyonville, OR 198 miles through woods
and mountains. Temperature dropped to 30 degrees quickly as we entered the mountains,
and everyone was miserable for several hours until it gradually got warmer
around 10 am. We expected this to be a long day therefore the early departure;
we were definitely correct in this assumption. We arrived in Canyonville around
6:30 pm and if you do the math this was a ~12-hour day. Our two riding groups
came in about an hour apart due to different events that will be discussed in
this post.
Our actual miles covered today was 216 compared to the
planned 198. The additional 18 miles were for detours and backtracks for one
reason or another. It was very slow going due to the terrain, stops to study
maps, rest at fuel stops, etc., so we averaged about 18 mph. At the end of the
day we were all worn out and that’s why I didn’t do my daily Blog update. In
fact, I’m writing Day 8 and Day 9 blogs in a hotel in Portland on 10 July. Even
though day 8 was bad, day 9 was worse but you will read about that in my next
post.
We did go through some very beautiful areas in the deep
forest with lots of switch backs and trails through huge trees right next to
the road. This is clearly Big Foot terrain and the tail end rider was always a
little nervous that he might be snatched and not even be immediately missed by
the rest of the group. I did lose my CamelBak back-pack with my water, maps,
hat and a few other misc. items because I was tail end Charlie and had tied the
pack on top of my GL bag but not tight enough I assume.
We eventually came upon a mud slide that covered all the
trail except for a very narrow path on the edge of a steep drop off. Steve in
the lead tried to sneak-by with his WR250R and barely made it because of his
big bags on back. It was too close for comport so we put several safety guys on
the drop off to help hold the bikes as they worked around the tree roots. See
pictures.
In another stretch the two groups were about 10 minutes
apart and I’m in the rear group. We came around a corner and see the front
group stopped with Steve and his bike off the road on a very steep drop off.
They were trying to hold the bike, so it wouldn’t slide any further down the
slope. We made sure Steve was ok and started to try and get the bike back on
the road. It took all of us (7), two on the slope pushing and lifting and the
rest pulling a rope attached to the front fork to get it back up that slope.
Neither Steve or the bike was damaged, so we asked what happed. Steve says he
came around the corner too fast and hit some gravel and just slid off the road.
He said he just rode it all the way over then just climbed off the bike; very
lucky it didn’t tumble or flip at the edge. That’s when Jeff said that there
was a strap jammed in his rear brake caliper. What actually happened was that a
strap on Steve’s rear bags came loose and then jammed the rear wheel which
locked up and that’s when he lost it on the gravel. Loose straps are killers so
always beware.
We had to work around lots of downed trees with the larger
ones already cut out of the way. Smaller ones required us to ride or jump over
to continue. One huge tree crossed the road with enough clearance to get a bike
under, but someone had cut a notch in the log right where a motorcycle helmet
would pass; very convenient.
Some of the roads were just downright terrible because they
were packed sand/gravel mix but sometime in the past they had been driven over
with trucks while wet thus causing ruts in different directions. Now the road
was dry and hard, but the ruts remained and continually tried to make the bike
go in different directions. It was very tense riding and became exhausting
quickly. We were happy to get back on
gravel again; never thought I would say that.
Sadly, to say the only bike problems were with the two KTMs;
those damn Hondas and Yamahas just kept on chugging away.
My KTM 350EXC-F runs like a well oiled sewing machine and
with the Rekluse clutch I can climb anything in 3rd gear. The Scott
steering dampener is a dream on gravel. My left hand rear brake works great in
all conditions. The start switch is a POS and the bike is hard to start in cold
temperatures. Not sure if the new Lithium battery is helping either. My start switch
is very intermittent and is not reliable. Luckily it does have a kick starter
and I had to use it several times. As for starting in cold weather it just won’t
fire. We almost ran the battery down on both cold mornings but finally got it
to come to life.
Terry’s KTM 690 Enduro has had Rekluse clutch problems from
the beginning starting on our Leg-3 ride in Moab. It just keeps coming out of
adjustment causing the clutch to slip on climbs. He had to adjust it several
times on this trip. I know that’s not a KTM issue. I’ve had 0 problems with my
Rekluse but the design is significantly different on these two bikes. Terry
also started getting a F1 light error code (8 flashing lights = throttle sensor
error). Didn’t seem to cause any difference in performance and after he jumped
a log on one of the trails, the light went off and never came back on. Another
time he started getting a flashing oil light but only while standing still at idle.
While riding the light went off. We checked his oil level and it appeared normal.
Being many miles from help he had no choice but to continue riding.
Note for all TAT riders using Sam’s tracks. I love Sam’s
maps and tracks and highly recommend their use, but we had many, many instances
in ID and OR where they just don’t match our GPS topo maps. The mountains in OR
have many different roads that intersect, and we spent lots of times at
intersections trying to figure out which track was the TAT. We had to backtrack
numerous times because we took the wrong road.
My theory based on a very good understanding of GPS
operation is that Sam’s tracks were made when the GPS system was degraded for
civilian use. His tracks had a very poor accuracy as a result. Now with
non-degraded GPS signals, the tracks don’t match the roads and can have
significant off-set as a result. Plus, newer GPS units used on our bikes are
much more accurate.
I saved the best for last.
As I stated before we usually rode in two groups with the group
of 4 in front as much as several miles and the group of 3 in trail with the SAT
phone and much of the tools and safety gear. Because of the many backtracks and
detours our two groups got separated by several miles. We could not determine who
was in front of who as a result. Our group of 3 (Mike, Terry, Jeff) was getting
tired when we came on another of SAM’s side tracks off the main road. It looked
very steep and rocky from the intersection. Jeff offered to ride up a way to
see what it looked like past what could be seen from its entry. He didn’t get
very far before he said, “don’t come up this road, I’m trying to turn around”.
When he finally got back to us he said the road was terrible with lots of baby
head and sharp rocks, ruts and steep drop-offs on both sides. He also said he could
hear garbled communication on the intercom but couldn’t tell what was being
said. We 3 decided we would bypass this section and work our way around to hook
up with the TAT on the other side of this mountain. We had no idea where the 4
group was but assumed they were in front somewhere since they always rode
faster than us.
The 3 group rode a long bypass but finally got back on the
TAT close to the motel stop for the night at Canyonville. We were at the motel
for over an hour with no word from the 4 group. We were of course concerned but
we had received “OK” messages from the SPOT provided to Steve for his group of
4. Finally, Woodrow and Jason arrived at the motel, but they did not know where
Steve and Matty were. Shortly afterwards, the last two arrived with everyone
safe.
What happened?
The road that the 3-group by-passed was attempted by the
4-group; Steve in lead, then Matty, then Woodrow then Jason. Once Steve started
up the trail he couldn’t stop or turn around without crashing due to the terrible
terrain. Steve finally made it to the top. Matty continued up the trail by
dropped his bike about 100 yards from the top. Woodrow and Jason both dropped their
bikes further down the trail. Steve tried to warn everyone to not come up the road,
but they were out of line-of-site so could not hear the intercom warning.
Woodrow and Jason finally got their bikes up, turned around and back down to
the bottom but they had no idea what happened to Steve and Matty. Steve had to
walk down to Matty and they both pushed and shoved Matty’s bike up the rest of
the trail and it took almost an hour and a half to make that 100 yards. Now the
4-gorup is two 2-groups with no communication between them. They both had to
make tough decision at that point. Jason and Woodrow took the by-pass the
4-group had taken. Steve and Matty continued over the mountain and had an easy
ride to the bottom. Steve said no way was he going to ride down that trail he
had just came up.
Lots of lessons learned from today’s ride:
·
7 riders are too large a group to maintain close
riding due to the dust and distances required. 4 is as large as I would do in
the future
·
Don’t everyone ride a difficult section until it
has been scouted by an experienced rider; know when to turn around safely
·
Ride to your weakest rider’s capability
·
Carry detailed topo maps for wilderness areas
that show trails and road types
·
Carry a SAT phone (rent it) and SPOT (buy it) for
every group (both our groups had a SPOT but only 3-group had a SAT phone)
·
Don’t ride every mile of the TAT, use common sense
and by-pass the dangerous stuff
We had 7 riders but still got into a situation where we
could not support each other.
We were lucky today no one got hurt or bikes broken but it
did put the scare in all of us.
One more point for this post. Adventure riders usually understand
the concept of conserving resources like fuel, water, etc. but they don’t
consider daylight as a resource. My experience on doing many wilderness white
water rafting trips is that you use every hour of daylight in the morning, so
you have spare in the evening in case of troubles on the river. There was
grumbling among our group of why we had to leave at daybreak in 38-degree
weather when we could wait a few hours, have breakfast and leave when it was
warmer. Today I think justified my view.
Just a few of the many pics we took today.
Ride Safe!
MAPS - The blue line is our actual track while the pink line is the SAM TAT track. I included several blow-ups to show the lat/long where these events happened. The last map is the Steve/Matty mountain map. One more point, that trail made a 1400 climb in about 3/4 of a mile!!
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