David (fitness2go) and I headed up there Sunday morning with directions and guidance from Russ (homefinance). Perfect weather (45-50 deg) with the seasonal rain leaving us alone for the day. Russ had warned us about the first hill that must be overcome to enter the trail network from our staging area, boy he wasn't kidding! Greasy, steep and full of big rocks and ruts. Well, David made it up on the 1st try however, I wasn't so fortunate, hehe. Not a good spot to get slow with knobs and try to start up again. Well, after that fun we worked our way through some really nice, scenic trails including 4x4 and single track with plenty of water and steep grades mixed in. Stopped for a well deserved break on top of a ridgeline after negotiating some pretty tight and steep switchbacks. This little fella was hard at work watching us and stuffing his mouth with nesting material. Wasn't the least bit concerned with our presence. Edit: crap I hit submit instead of preview Yep, it really is that long We're feeling pretty good at this point and enjoying the views when possible. Somewhere along the way (several hours into the day) we figured out we were going to have to turn around and make our way back. Well, we took the LONG way back as it turned out. The sun had just set and we finally found that steep descending trail back into the staging area. The ride had started at 9:00 a.m. and we rolled up the the trailer at 6:00 p.m.! We were some tired, sore, dirty, hungry monkeys as the plan was not to stay out anywhere near that long! Looking back, neither of us had a GPS or map and there was no cell service in the area. Fortunately, neither of us got hurt or broke down. Both of us had messages on the cells when we got signal driving home, and families were a bit concerned. On a good note, both Husky's held up great. I bent the rear chain guide, handlebars and a footpeg. The new 3 gal. IMS worked like a champ, I went all day on 1 tank of gas and it took 2.34 gal. to top off. We rode about 60 miles as it turns out so not too bad. David's bike only suffered a nice thick coating of mud. Not a bad day and we both learned a lot.
That is one of my favorite rides. I rode it last Tuesday and the conditions were perfect. How did you guys like the run up 943a to the top? Russ
I am too! I'm feeling a lot more confident on this fire breather now that I've got some good seat time on her. Russ, I can't remember which trail was 943 as we really hit a lot of good ones (941, 943, 864, 945, 947, 1388) throughout the day that were surprisingly long. Hopefully David will chime in with a better answer. Had a cow elk run across the trail in front of me as well as a group of 3 deer. Lots of good scenery from the ridge lines. Funny you mention that as David just talked me into going to a Pirelli MT43 sometime soon. I just can't overlook all the positive comments about them with the conditions that prevail here and experiencing the spinouts with my stock knobbie. He said Russ was having very good success with his so.... Hope I can keep the front tire on the ground!
