Day 9 of 9,
TAT completed!!
Departed Canyonville,
OR at 7:30 am heading to Port Orford, OR 127 miles through heavy woods and
mountains. We arrived in Port Orford around 6 pm, 11+ hours later. Why did it
take so long to ride 127 miles? Because we actually ended up riding 210 miles;
details to follow.
The weather was perfect with temperatures starting at 54
degrees. We departed later than usual because of the short day ahead (127
miles) and it was the last day on the TAT so we wanted to enjoy the experience.
All 7 bikes had enough fuel to ride at least 150 miles plus there was no easy
refuel spot on this section, so the support truck would go directly to Port
Orford. We had planned to arrive at Port Orford somewhere around noon, take
pictures on the beach then ride 30 miles north on Hwy 101 to our motel in
Bandon, OR. We would load the bikes at the motel, have a short celebration then
prepare for going home the next morning. My wife Liz would be waiting at the motel
with a 7-passenger van to take most of the riders and the support truck driver to
Portland to catch flights. Terry and Steve would head home in the truck for a 3-day
drive to Little Rock. Great plan but it didn’t work at as planned.
Our starting point for the day at Canyonville was 10 miles
north of the TAT and we had to use an interstate to get there and back. Not a
lot of motels in this area therefore the selection of Canyonville for our day 8
motel. After riding on the interstate in heavy traffic for 10 miles we finally
made it back to the TAT for our Day 9 finish. We were immediately on a gravel
road that continued to climb a mountain for 2000’ feet. For the whole climb we
are on switch backs and in deep forest until we broke out at the top in bright
sunlight. The view was spectacular! We stopped at the top of the mountain in an
area that had been clear cut by loggers. We were looking over a large area
below that was covered in clouds with only mountain tops poking through. It was
beautiful, and we took lots of pictures. One of these will be on my desk in the
near future. I hate to see clear cutting of forest but if it had not been done
here, we would have missed this view. We then started down the other side of
the mountain and soon entered this cloud bank, visibility dropped to ¼ mile for
some time until we got below the cloud layer. Amazing.
We continued descending until we got to a closed gate with
several intersecting roads. It became evident that our track was on the other
side of that big yellow gate. We all stopped to decide how we get pass this
obstruction. There was not a closed gate on the other side of the mountain, so
backtracking was one option. We have actually dragged our bikes under gates
back in Arkansas, so this was another option although it would not be easy for
7 loaded bikes with full fuel. Jeff inspected the gate and found that although
it had a pad lock in place, it was not locked! Solution found. He unlocked the
gate and we all rode through the gate then put the pad lock back in place. We
found lots of roads with this same type gate, but the TAT track kept us on
roads that were not locked but you can never be sure this will be the case.
This is heavy logging country. I assume the many
intersecting roads in these mountains are for logging operations and forest
fire response. They can be very confusing, and it was not always easy to
identify which road was the TAT so we had to try one and if it veered from the
TAT go back and try another one. Uses fuel to do this. At one point we came to
a saw mill in full operation with signs that said, “Private Property, No Trespassing”.
We stopped to discuss what to do when a man came out of a shed and said the
sawmill had bought the property and he gets lots of TAT riders trying to use
the road. He gave us directions for a short detour around the sawmill and we
went on our way.
By far a more dangerous situation occurred later while we
were 7 in trail on a dusty logging road. Jason was in front, I was 2nd
about 25’ behind and the rest were close behind me. We were in a left hand
blind turn when all of a sudden, a huge logging truck came high balling around
the corner. All I remember seeing is a massive grill on the truck heading
straight for Jason and I then everything disappeared in a tremendous dust
cloud. All I could see was a dim red tail light on Jason’s bike come on, so I
jammed on my brakes and called in the intercom that I was stopping. I hoped
those behind cleared the truck and didn’t run into me. Somehow, we all made it
through. Safety note: always expect a truck around blind corners in these
mountains.
We saw lots of wildlife including turkeys but no people. The
logging truck that almost ran us down was a rare exception so that’s way we
were so surprised when it came around the corner.
Although we started out in one large group we soon broke
back into our usual 3 and 4 groups. Somehow and I can’t really say how, the
3-group was in the lead by several miles. We were on track but found lots of downed
trees on the road. The larger ones were cut to make a path, but many were
smaller and just laying across the road requiring us to ride or jump over them.
The 3-group had been on a paved road many miles back but was
currently on a long twisting downhill road heading straight for Port Orford. We
rounded a corner only 13 miles from Port Orford and came upon a massive mud
slide that had filled the road with trees, rocks and dirt. No way were we
getting pass that mudslide. We rode back 7 miles uphill to the first intersection
with another dirt road and stopped to decide what to do. We weren’t sure where
the 4-group was but knew they had to be behind us somewhere. We dragged limbs
and rocks to block the road to the mudslide and left a note saying it was
blocked so they wouldn’t waste fuel going down that road. I had lost my map the
day before when my backpack fell off my bike. It did not have enough detail
anyway so no great loss. Our GPS topo maps showed several roads that may work
but many were dead ends and there was no guarantee they would not be blocked
also. All the mountain roads in this area had lots of downed trees. We decided
to backtrack even further to the paved road and then try to get out of the mountains.
As we were heading to the paved road we came upon the
4-group. We had a long discussion at that time on our options. My main concern
was fuel. The Hondas with the smallest tanks were already using gas from their
rotopax. So was Jeff on his Yamaha. We figured they could go another 30-40
miles max. Some of the bikes with larger tanks could maybe go 60 miles. Jason
had the biggest tank and could probably go 80 or more miles. We still had 2 rotopax
with 1 gal each unused. Our Topo GPS units gave us several routes on the mountain
roads, but our concern was they could also be blocked, and we would use precious
fuel just to have to backtrack to where we were now. Final decision was to
continue to backtrack another 18 miles to the paved road and follow it out of
the mountains. This route was at least 69 miles to Port Orford, we were not
going to make it on the fuel we had with us. It was also late in the afternoon
and we wanted to get everyone off the mountain before dark.
At this point I pulled my SAT phone out and made a call to
Marty in the support truck. I told him we had a significant fuel problem and gave
him the route we would use to get out of the mountains. He was to fill up the
two 5-gal fuel tanks on the trailer and wait somewhere with cell service for my
next call. Once we got on the paved road and headed out we would continue as
long as we had fuel using the two remaining rotopax until the Hondas or Jeff’s
Yamaha ran out. I would then call him to give him our Lat/Long, so he could
bring fuel to the bikes. We wanted to stay on a road that the support truck could
use because many of the mountain roads were just too rough or narrow for the
truck and trailer.
These mountains and woods are wilderness and you need to
understand you are a long way from help. Fuel is a major concern and you should
carry enough to backtack many times and still get out of the woods.
We reached the paved road and it turned back into gravel a
mile down the road, great. It still looked like a main road, so we continued.
We were getting pretty close to the range of the Hondas when we hit pavement
again. Soon afterwards we rounded a turn and there is a fish camp, small store
and two gas pumps! We filled up all the bikes and since we had cell service
here, called Marty and said we would meet him on Hwy 101. Our new route
followed the Rogue River to Hwy 101 then we had 30 miles of max speed riding
north to Port Orford with highway traffic to contend with. When we reached Hwy
101 we stopped, and I called my wife Liz who was at Bandon 30 miles north of Port
Orford. I asked her to bring the van down to Port Orford to meet us, so we
would not have to ride another 30 miles on highway. Luckily, she was waiting in
Bandon and immediately headed south.
We passed the support truck on Hwy 101 and he followed us to
Port Orford where we also found Liz waiting. We rode in trail to the Port
Orford Park where the TAT ends right next to the Pacific Ocean and a broad
sandy beach.
Not sure who was in the lead, but the four core riders moved
to the front as we headed to the beach and rode down the short sandy ramp to
the beach. All 7 bikes rode out onto the beach and immediately determined the
sand was not firm enough to ride on. Several of us made it to the wet sand next
to the water thinking it would be more firm, wrong. I know Steve and I got so close
that a wave hit us both and came up halfway to the seat. We quickly got the
bikes away from the water, but everyone was now axel deep and stuck! I have no
excuse, I’ve watched enough TAT videos to know this was a bad idea. I even
announced it over the intercom before we went on the beach, but everyone was too
excited to stop.
We eventually pushed all the bikes back off the beach and up
to the parking lot, but it was hard work after a long day of riding. We took
lots of pictures then got to work loading the bikes onto the trailer. One
picture shows me bowing in front of my wife. She says it was showing who is
really the boss but I was really just resting after getting my bike out of that
sand.
We were still in our riding clothes, dirty and sandy and
tired but piled into the van and truck for the 30-mile ride to Bandon and the
motel. As we checked in a package had been sent to Terry form his brother Ernie
and nephew Cutter that included several bottles of very expensive bourbon.
Ernie and Cutter rode on Leg-2 and we really enjoyed having them on at least
one leg of our TAT ride. We finished off one of the bottles at the motel!
One note: I was asked to include in my blog was that the
only two riders NOT to drop their bikes on this trip were Terry and Jeff, big
deal. They evidently didn’t ride as hard as the rest of us.
The trip back home for everyone was just tiring and in fact
the truck and trailer doesn’t get back to Little Rock until late on 12 Jul.
We started this adventure the fall of 2015 when I asked
several of my co-workers if they would like to have a real adventure and ride
dirt bikes coast to coast rather than watch football on the TV. Three said yes
and all four of us completed the TAT together! Thanks guys for a great time.
I’ll make several more post to give reviews on our gear and
maybe some descriptions of problems we encountered and our solutions. I’ll
state once again that our approach to the TAT worked great for us but it’s
probably not for everyone. Those riding non-stop and camping are the real TAT
riders, but we still feel our ride was a pretty good achievement, especially for
a 70-year-old man.
Ride safe!
Maps: The blue line is our actual track and the pink line is
the planned route. We had to make several re-routes and then the big re-route
out of the mountains. You can use the Lat/Long in the maps for your planning.
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