2008-10-25~26 Tom's Annual GAG Ride Report
Posted: Sun Oct 26, 2008 10:38 pm
(All photos are mine unless otherwise noted)
I’m not sure how many years I’ve had my GAG (Great Annual Gifford) Ride, but this year topped all the others! It consisted of broken cases, multiple fuel outages, getting lost at night, hunters from heaven, stolen dog, mischievous mice, trail fires, no lights, broken bridges, fouled plugs, lethal switchbacks, duct tape and headlamps, copious amounts of fear, freezing cold night, poor headlights, search & rescue, getting in at 1:30am, premix as motor oil, tequila, saber-toothed-fender-eating douglas fir, loopouts, stunning scenery/weather, good times and no injuries.
Other than that, it was uneventful. Read on for the gory details.
This is an annual, invite-only, no-wimps ride that I host every year. It’s a splendid excuse to ride hard with good friends and party with like-minded individuals. One thing missing from this year’s assault was my bud Dan Hatcher. He had family obligations to attend to, so he had his priorities in check, as family always comes first. It always seems to be a challenge to get a good group of competent riders that keep their machines tuned and adjusted well for this type of area, especially since I always lean to going on the gnarlier trails. My thoughts are that, if you’re not bulldogging your scoot once in awhile, then the trail isn’t tough enough.
I showed up Friday night at the Lower Falls Campground around 10:30pm or so. On my way up, my close bud Frank called and said he’d be there, although it would be late, since he had just flown in from Palm Springs. Cool. I figured my bud Matt would already be there, but tooling around the campground loops, there was nobody. WTF? I figured my Bend connection, Matt, would’ve been there way before me. It turned out that there was yet one more loop I hadn’t taken and sure enough, that’s where they laid claim to camping. Matt brought two of his friends Duane and Jesse, who I’d never met before. Duane was on a Honda 250X and Jesse was sporting a Yamaha WR250. Lucky for Matt he brought is most awesome of pooches, a three-legged wonder dog I dubbed “Tripod”. I love that biscuit burner and will steal her some day! We all of course did the usual bench racing and lying into the wee hours, and got freaked out at the little forest mice that would occasionally dart back and forth along the night ground. Frank finally pulled in around 2am and settled in for the night.
Saturday – Day One
The next morning I woke up around 6:30am and started hand drawing track logs based off what the USFS maps show, to download to my GPS. This would at least get us close to the right trails I figured. Turns out that was a very smart thing on my part for a change. Around 8am Joe and Brad showed up all amped out on coffee and excited. We had a total of seven antsy riders: Duane, Matt, Jesse, Frank, Joe, Brad and yours truly. After milling around, we finally got all the kittens herded together and started off into the trails after 10am. I still had my track log of the same area from last year’s rainy ride, so I took a cool loop that was not used much. We stopped after the first tight trail section and waited for all seven riders to show up. There was a small delay, then Duane showed up with the other riders in tow and his front fender was broken completely off. Now I’ve seen a lot of busted fenders and I’ve even spanked a few myself, but I’ve never seen one completely ejected from the bike, both front and back pieces. So that was the start of the ribbings for the day. I realized about that time that I forgot to fill up my water bag – argh.
The guilty parties.
Then we continued on towards the summit and started to make our way over to Juniper Ridge and Jumbo Peak. The fall colors were emblazoned upon the landscape and were almost a surreal kaleidoscope of colors for our eyes to feast upon! We encountered a few other riders along the way. It’s always great to visit with other riders, but I had a head-on accident in the 80’s that left me with knee surgery, so I’m always filled with angst when leading. I of course had everyone pose for the obligatory Kodak Moment in front of Jumbo Peak. From Jumbo Peak we descended down the north side on the first encounter of gnarly switchbacks. I was planning on coming back via Langille Ridge, but the clock was running short, plus a few riders had reservations about the dangerous switchbacks.
Hey, I even got into the photos for a change! (Joe Fuller photo)
We had to use rope to lower our bikes over this edge - just kidding! These were three guys we met out on the trail - twice.
A shrine to someone along the trail. The name appeared to be Bryan Evans.
Duane was a good man to take his nerfed fender back out of the forest! We hate litterbugs.
The Fall colors were beautimous!
Some other riders we encountered, and a few have even been to our Black Dog Ride!
God's Country, and the Fallen Angels!
Duane at Jumbo Peak.
Jumbo Peak - a spectacular vista with ugly faces!
Descending down the other side.
We dropped down into a small valley and that’s when I heard Jesse yelling down to us that he was done, since he had a slow tip over and broke his WR engine case on a rock. This was not a good place to get towed out from – we were in a big bowl.
It was time to resort to Plan B. We put all our heads together for a solution to the problem at hand. Fortunately Jesse had brought some JB Weld epoxy type goo, so the only choice was to clean off the case, rough up the edges, then glop on the epoxy and cross our legs that it would hold. Oh, and the sun was already behind the rock precipice above us, so it was starting to get cold. On a positive note, we all got to see a mountain goat up on one of the rocks. Jesse fired up the ailing WR and we waited for oil to ooze out of the oil check line to the cylinder head. We waited some more – still nothing, so he killed the motor and checked the oil level – nothing. Now what? The ONLY spare oil that any of us had was the two two-stroke guys, Matt and Brad. They had each brought little containers of premix oil and we deduced that, hey, premix oil lubricates main bearings in a two-stroke motor, so it should be okay in a four-stroke mill, right? After pouring both containers in, there was finally oil showing on the dipstick. Plus, Jesse’s epoxy job looked like it was holding and not leaking – woohoo!
Epoxy to the rescue - complete with Polish, five-day condoms! Jesse shows his approval of the high-dollar oil. But choosers can't be beggars!
Hey, it's getting cold and dark! (Jesse Katz photo)
Continuing on through the incredible Fall colors, while the sun sets.
So we tip toed out of that section, continued north and I checked the map for the shortest/easiest way back to camp. That entailed taking the main, gravel Road #29 southward (between Juniper and Langille) and connecting back into Trail #1.
About four miles down the gravel road, Brad’s big KX ran out of petrol. No problem, Matt’s KTM still has a bit to spare, so the siphoning ensued, and we continued up the road again. I’m watching Brad’s thirsty KX and he’s doing everything right – coasting down hills and just riding in the torque of the powerband. Cough, he ran out again, and the Chinese Fire Drill started all over again.
Some serious blow jobs.
Jesse cleaning out his siphon hose by spinning it in a circle emulating David & Goliath.
Now the sun had set and it was the twilight zone – quite literally. Damn, Matt and Brad have no lights, but if they can just keep sipping petrol, they can be sandwiched between the other bikes that do have lights and we could make it. That’s when I realized that we had this one, gnarly, root-infested hill to climb and there was no way around it. I soldiered up the first section no problem, but most everyone behind got stuck and had a Helluva time, so I dismounted and helped roll everyone up that piece. I even took a turn on the big KX. I used to race one, so it was déjà vu all over again, but it did fine. By this time Brad was as whipped as pumpkin pie topping, so he swapped bikes with Joe. I remembered coming down the big hill earlier in the day and saying to myself, “Self, I sure hope we don’t have to go back up that nasty thing.” Unfortunately we had to go up. I remembered seeing a line on one side that appeared better, so I started up the climb on that trail, with Joe and the big, smokey KX on my heels. Hell’s fire, I only got up about 20 before my back wheel dropped into some roots and stopped me cold. This in turn stopped poor Joe and the blind KX in its tracks also, immediately behind me. It took me a few tries, but I finally got going again and worked my way to the summit of the gnarliest part. Then it was time to go help everyone else, and help they all needed. There were roots with one and two-foot drop offs on the lower side. Picture this: it’s now completely dark, there are a few headlights pointing at the trees and the Big Dipper, motors blazing in a smokey cloud, people swearing like drunken sailors and tires spinning on roots like a chainsaw. Crazy!
I was hoping and praying that we could get to the summit and start descending, so we continued on the narrow, mountain-goat trails, and that’s when it happened - I heard on the radio that both two strokes ran out of gas within about ¼ mile of each other.
Time for Plan B. Here they waited. (Jesse Katz photo)
And waited... (Jesse Katz photos)
(Matt Hockin photo)
Dammit. Now time for Plan C. I made the executive decision to leave Jesse with Matt, and Joe with Brad. Frank, Duane and I would find the best way back to camp and return with premix for the KTM and KX and the world would be right again. It was now about 9pm and no moon. We’re talking nothing but stars out, and darkness. We made sure Joe had one of the three radios I brought along, and Frank and I had the other two. Then Frank, Duane and I continued on the trail, turned left and came to a gravel road. We followed it down and it intersected with Road #93. Frank and I double checked our GPS readings and I thought I had the best way back, but as a group it was decided to just stay on the main road #93, since it would probably lead us back to Road #90 and back to camp. Into the darkness we rode. All I had was a low-beam light and it was scary easy to overdrive it. Duane just had one beam on his 250X and Frank had the big light on his Beta 450.
Frank checking his GPS. Brrrrr it's cold!
That’s when my 450X went on reserve.
We descended down, down, down the road and I would routinely see where the GPS waypoint arrow was pointing for camp and it wasn’t good. This road kept taking us AWAY from where we needed. Then Duane’s 250X went on reserve. We went for miles and miles in freezing cold darkness and it was inevitable that Duane and I were about ready to completely run out of gas at anytime. I stopped and noticed there was a shortcut road that went from #93 to #90 and we took that. The road got rough in spots and was peppered with potholes, then Duane got nervous and suggested let’s go back to the main road. I convinced him that the GPS showed this road going through and it should only be about three or four miles to #90, so we continued. And that’s when we saw the hunters from heaven. They had a massive campsite consisting of a huge fire pit, with wood surrounding the fire drying out, a massive tarp over the top and all manner of hunting supplies everywhere. These guys were set! I walked up, introduced myself and asked if we could beg, borrow, buy or steal enough gas to get to camp. These gentlemen were so kind! They allowed us to get a good dose of gas, and refused to take any of my money, which I was MORE than happy to pay high dollar for. We practically had to pull Duane from their fire, it was so cold out. And I was so cold that I forgot to get their picture - dang!
We continued up the road, crossed the river and finally got on #90. Then Duane scared the heck out of me when he suddenly started yelling and driving over at me! I then realized it was just that he was so elated to see this road that he just wanted to high five me! It was yet another icy-cold ride back to camp that must have been at least eight miles, but we finally arrived – yes! We all immediately went to our respective trailers, I turned on my trailer’s heater and that’s when I noticed that a damn forest mouse had snuck inside my trailer and eaten a package of instant cocoa. Great, now I got a damn rodent hitchhiking in my Skank Trailer like it’s a party RV! Duane says that his knees are killing him (he’s had surgery on both of them) and requested to stay if possible, so I told him to build up a big fire and have plenty of hot food for everyone whenever we get back. He also informed me that Matt’s wonder dog, Tripod, was missing – not good news. Then Frank and I found some one-gallon water jugs, filled them up with premix, loaded up some survival sandwiches, flashlights, LED lights and duct tape. We topped off our bikes and headed back off on what appeared to be a considerably closer route back to our stranded compadres. Now it’s after midnight. Wow, was it cold heading back out again, but we had to go, as our buds were depending on us. While we were heading back out, I remembered that Matt was showing off his new fire-starting tool, so I knew they at least had the capabilities of making a fire – good.
About the time we got off the road and hit the trail, I thought I’d see if I could radio Joe. Sure enough, Joe answered and said they all were doing just fine and each had fires burning. That was very comforting to hear! Frank and I continued on at a snail’s pace, due to my girly headlight beam, but at least it was something.
When we finally arrived, there were some happy, smiling faces, as they figured they were probably going to have to spend the night out there. I was just hoping we didn’t drive up and see them all spooning to stay warm – yikes! Frank and I separated to each empty bike, topped them off, stomped out the fires, herded everyone up and started our way back to camp.
An elated Jesse realizes he doesn't have to snuggle all night with Matt. Here I am, to save the day! (Jesse Katz photo)
Wiring up some makeshift lights.
Joe and Matt must’ve had quite the Braille experiences using those minimal flashlights. At one point, poor Brad looped out Joe’s Honda in spectacular fashion, but he was okay.
Matt riding by Braille. (Jesse Katz photo). Brad using Braille also.
When we FINALLY rolled back into camp, it was after 1am, and Duane thankfully had a very hot fire burning and had hot chili and taco fixings draped across the picnic table for everyone. Oh, and there was of course some liquid anti-freeze (rum and tequila) too! And Duane had found Matt’s chow hound, Tripod! Evidently Tripod was tangled up in her rope and some people came by and took off with her. Duane went searching and calling around the campground and snagged her back - weird. Man, that chili tasted sooooo good! We all just hung around the fire, warmed up, and marveled at all the obstacles we encountered for the day and how lucky we were that it all worked out! Then Joe and Brad packed up and headed out around 3:30am and we all hit the hay. Frank originally was going to head to the Goldendale 24-Hour GP Race to help out, but I was sure grateful that he was there with us to help out – thanks Frunk!
Joe and Brad.
Duane and Jesse.
Matt and Frank.
The warm campfire - finally. (Jesse Katz photo)
Part of the tasty chow. (Jesse Katz photo)
Tripod, the wonder dog, was found!
I’m not sure how many years I’ve had my GAG (Great Annual Gifford) Ride, but this year topped all the others! It consisted of broken cases, multiple fuel outages, getting lost at night, hunters from heaven, stolen dog, mischievous mice, trail fires, no lights, broken bridges, fouled plugs, lethal switchbacks, duct tape and headlamps, copious amounts of fear, freezing cold night, poor headlights, search & rescue, getting in at 1:30am, premix as motor oil, tequila, saber-toothed-fender-eating douglas fir, loopouts, stunning scenery/weather, good times and no injuries.
Other than that, it was uneventful. Read on for the gory details.
This is an annual, invite-only, no-wimps ride that I host every year. It’s a splendid excuse to ride hard with good friends and party with like-minded individuals. One thing missing from this year’s assault was my bud Dan Hatcher. He had family obligations to attend to, so he had his priorities in check, as family always comes first. It always seems to be a challenge to get a good group of competent riders that keep their machines tuned and adjusted well for this type of area, especially since I always lean to going on the gnarlier trails. My thoughts are that, if you’re not bulldogging your scoot once in awhile, then the trail isn’t tough enough.
I showed up Friday night at the Lower Falls Campground around 10:30pm or so. On my way up, my close bud Frank called and said he’d be there, although it would be late, since he had just flown in from Palm Springs. Cool. I figured my bud Matt would already be there, but tooling around the campground loops, there was nobody. WTF? I figured my Bend connection, Matt, would’ve been there way before me. It turned out that there was yet one more loop I hadn’t taken and sure enough, that’s where they laid claim to camping. Matt brought two of his friends Duane and Jesse, who I’d never met before. Duane was on a Honda 250X and Jesse was sporting a Yamaha WR250. Lucky for Matt he brought is most awesome of pooches, a three-legged wonder dog I dubbed “Tripod”. I love that biscuit burner and will steal her some day! We all of course did the usual bench racing and lying into the wee hours, and got freaked out at the little forest mice that would occasionally dart back and forth along the night ground. Frank finally pulled in around 2am and settled in for the night.
Saturday – Day One
The next morning I woke up around 6:30am and started hand drawing track logs based off what the USFS maps show, to download to my GPS. This would at least get us close to the right trails I figured. Turns out that was a very smart thing on my part for a change. Around 8am Joe and Brad showed up all amped out on coffee and excited. We had a total of seven antsy riders: Duane, Matt, Jesse, Frank, Joe, Brad and yours truly. After milling around, we finally got all the kittens herded together and started off into the trails after 10am. I still had my track log of the same area from last year’s rainy ride, so I took a cool loop that was not used much. We stopped after the first tight trail section and waited for all seven riders to show up. There was a small delay, then Duane showed up with the other riders in tow and his front fender was broken completely off. Now I’ve seen a lot of busted fenders and I’ve even spanked a few myself, but I’ve never seen one completely ejected from the bike, both front and back pieces. So that was the start of the ribbings for the day. I realized about that time that I forgot to fill up my water bag – argh.
The guilty parties.
Then we continued on towards the summit and started to make our way over to Juniper Ridge and Jumbo Peak. The fall colors were emblazoned upon the landscape and were almost a surreal kaleidoscope of colors for our eyes to feast upon! We encountered a few other riders along the way. It’s always great to visit with other riders, but I had a head-on accident in the 80’s that left me with knee surgery, so I’m always filled with angst when leading. I of course had everyone pose for the obligatory Kodak Moment in front of Jumbo Peak. From Jumbo Peak we descended down the north side on the first encounter of gnarly switchbacks. I was planning on coming back via Langille Ridge, but the clock was running short, plus a few riders had reservations about the dangerous switchbacks.
Hey, I even got into the photos for a change! (Joe Fuller photo)
We had to use rope to lower our bikes over this edge - just kidding! These were three guys we met out on the trail - twice.
A shrine to someone along the trail. The name appeared to be Bryan Evans.
Duane was a good man to take his nerfed fender back out of the forest! We hate litterbugs.
The Fall colors were beautimous!
Some other riders we encountered, and a few have even been to our Black Dog Ride!
God's Country, and the Fallen Angels!
Duane at Jumbo Peak.
Jumbo Peak - a spectacular vista with ugly faces!
Descending down the other side.
We dropped down into a small valley and that’s when I heard Jesse yelling down to us that he was done, since he had a slow tip over and broke his WR engine case on a rock. This was not a good place to get towed out from – we were in a big bowl.
It was time to resort to Plan B. We put all our heads together for a solution to the problem at hand. Fortunately Jesse had brought some JB Weld epoxy type goo, so the only choice was to clean off the case, rough up the edges, then glop on the epoxy and cross our legs that it would hold. Oh, and the sun was already behind the rock precipice above us, so it was starting to get cold. On a positive note, we all got to see a mountain goat up on one of the rocks. Jesse fired up the ailing WR and we waited for oil to ooze out of the oil check line to the cylinder head. We waited some more – still nothing, so he killed the motor and checked the oil level – nothing. Now what? The ONLY spare oil that any of us had was the two two-stroke guys, Matt and Brad. They had each brought little containers of premix oil and we deduced that, hey, premix oil lubricates main bearings in a two-stroke motor, so it should be okay in a four-stroke mill, right? After pouring both containers in, there was finally oil showing on the dipstick. Plus, Jesse’s epoxy job looked like it was holding and not leaking – woohoo!
Epoxy to the rescue - complete with Polish, five-day condoms! Jesse shows his approval of the high-dollar oil. But choosers can't be beggars!
Hey, it's getting cold and dark! (Jesse Katz photo)
Continuing on through the incredible Fall colors, while the sun sets.
So we tip toed out of that section, continued north and I checked the map for the shortest/easiest way back to camp. That entailed taking the main, gravel Road #29 southward (between Juniper and Langille) and connecting back into Trail #1.
About four miles down the gravel road, Brad’s big KX ran out of petrol. No problem, Matt’s KTM still has a bit to spare, so the siphoning ensued, and we continued up the road again. I’m watching Brad’s thirsty KX and he’s doing everything right – coasting down hills and just riding in the torque of the powerband. Cough, he ran out again, and the Chinese Fire Drill started all over again.
Some serious blow jobs.
Jesse cleaning out his siphon hose by spinning it in a circle emulating David & Goliath.
Now the sun had set and it was the twilight zone – quite literally. Damn, Matt and Brad have no lights, but if they can just keep sipping petrol, they can be sandwiched between the other bikes that do have lights and we could make it. That’s when I realized that we had this one, gnarly, root-infested hill to climb and there was no way around it. I soldiered up the first section no problem, but most everyone behind got stuck and had a Helluva time, so I dismounted and helped roll everyone up that piece. I even took a turn on the big KX. I used to race one, so it was déjà vu all over again, but it did fine. By this time Brad was as whipped as pumpkin pie topping, so he swapped bikes with Joe. I remembered coming down the big hill earlier in the day and saying to myself, “Self, I sure hope we don’t have to go back up that nasty thing.” Unfortunately we had to go up. I remembered seeing a line on one side that appeared better, so I started up the climb on that trail, with Joe and the big, smokey KX on my heels. Hell’s fire, I only got up about 20 before my back wheel dropped into some roots and stopped me cold. This in turn stopped poor Joe and the blind KX in its tracks also, immediately behind me. It took me a few tries, but I finally got going again and worked my way to the summit of the gnarliest part. Then it was time to go help everyone else, and help they all needed. There were roots with one and two-foot drop offs on the lower side. Picture this: it’s now completely dark, there are a few headlights pointing at the trees and the Big Dipper, motors blazing in a smokey cloud, people swearing like drunken sailors and tires spinning on roots like a chainsaw. Crazy!
I was hoping and praying that we could get to the summit and start descending, so we continued on the narrow, mountain-goat trails, and that’s when it happened - I heard on the radio that both two strokes ran out of gas within about ¼ mile of each other.
Time for Plan B. Here they waited. (Jesse Katz photo)
And waited... (Jesse Katz photos)
(Matt Hockin photo)
Dammit. Now time for Plan C. I made the executive decision to leave Jesse with Matt, and Joe with Brad. Frank, Duane and I would find the best way back to camp and return with premix for the KTM and KX and the world would be right again. It was now about 9pm and no moon. We’re talking nothing but stars out, and darkness. We made sure Joe had one of the three radios I brought along, and Frank and I had the other two. Then Frank, Duane and I continued on the trail, turned left and came to a gravel road. We followed it down and it intersected with Road #93. Frank and I double checked our GPS readings and I thought I had the best way back, but as a group it was decided to just stay on the main road #93, since it would probably lead us back to Road #90 and back to camp. Into the darkness we rode. All I had was a low-beam light and it was scary easy to overdrive it. Duane just had one beam on his 250X and Frank had the big light on his Beta 450.
Frank checking his GPS. Brrrrr it's cold!
That’s when my 450X went on reserve.
We descended down, down, down the road and I would routinely see where the GPS waypoint arrow was pointing for camp and it wasn’t good. This road kept taking us AWAY from where we needed. Then Duane’s 250X went on reserve. We went for miles and miles in freezing cold darkness and it was inevitable that Duane and I were about ready to completely run out of gas at anytime. I stopped and noticed there was a shortcut road that went from #93 to #90 and we took that. The road got rough in spots and was peppered with potholes, then Duane got nervous and suggested let’s go back to the main road. I convinced him that the GPS showed this road going through and it should only be about three or four miles to #90, so we continued. And that’s when we saw the hunters from heaven. They had a massive campsite consisting of a huge fire pit, with wood surrounding the fire drying out, a massive tarp over the top and all manner of hunting supplies everywhere. These guys were set! I walked up, introduced myself and asked if we could beg, borrow, buy or steal enough gas to get to camp. These gentlemen were so kind! They allowed us to get a good dose of gas, and refused to take any of my money, which I was MORE than happy to pay high dollar for. We practically had to pull Duane from their fire, it was so cold out. And I was so cold that I forgot to get their picture - dang!
We continued up the road, crossed the river and finally got on #90. Then Duane scared the heck out of me when he suddenly started yelling and driving over at me! I then realized it was just that he was so elated to see this road that he just wanted to high five me! It was yet another icy-cold ride back to camp that must have been at least eight miles, but we finally arrived – yes! We all immediately went to our respective trailers, I turned on my trailer’s heater and that’s when I noticed that a damn forest mouse had snuck inside my trailer and eaten a package of instant cocoa. Great, now I got a damn rodent hitchhiking in my Skank Trailer like it’s a party RV! Duane says that his knees are killing him (he’s had surgery on both of them) and requested to stay if possible, so I told him to build up a big fire and have plenty of hot food for everyone whenever we get back. He also informed me that Matt’s wonder dog, Tripod, was missing – not good news. Then Frank and I found some one-gallon water jugs, filled them up with premix, loaded up some survival sandwiches, flashlights, LED lights and duct tape. We topped off our bikes and headed back off on what appeared to be a considerably closer route back to our stranded compadres. Now it’s after midnight. Wow, was it cold heading back out again, but we had to go, as our buds were depending on us. While we were heading back out, I remembered that Matt was showing off his new fire-starting tool, so I knew they at least had the capabilities of making a fire – good.
About the time we got off the road and hit the trail, I thought I’d see if I could radio Joe. Sure enough, Joe answered and said they all were doing just fine and each had fires burning. That was very comforting to hear! Frank and I continued on at a snail’s pace, due to my girly headlight beam, but at least it was something.
When we finally arrived, there were some happy, smiling faces, as they figured they were probably going to have to spend the night out there. I was just hoping we didn’t drive up and see them all spooning to stay warm – yikes! Frank and I separated to each empty bike, topped them off, stomped out the fires, herded everyone up and started our way back to camp.
An elated Jesse realizes he doesn't have to snuggle all night with Matt. Here I am, to save the day! (Jesse Katz photo)
Wiring up some makeshift lights.
Joe and Matt must’ve had quite the Braille experiences using those minimal flashlights. At one point, poor Brad looped out Joe’s Honda in spectacular fashion, but he was okay.
Matt riding by Braille. (Jesse Katz photo). Brad using Braille also.
When we FINALLY rolled back into camp, it was after 1am, and Duane thankfully had a very hot fire burning and had hot chili and taco fixings draped across the picnic table for everyone. Oh, and there was of course some liquid anti-freeze (rum and tequila) too! And Duane had found Matt’s chow hound, Tripod! Evidently Tripod was tangled up in her rope and some people came by and took off with her. Duane went searching and calling around the campground and snagged her back - weird. Man, that chili tasted sooooo good! We all just hung around the fire, warmed up, and marveled at all the obstacles we encountered for the day and how lucky we were that it all worked out! Then Joe and Brad packed up and headed out around 3:30am and we all hit the hay. Frank originally was going to head to the Goldendale 24-Hour GP Race to help out, but I was sure grateful that he was there with us to help out – thanks Frunk!
Joe and Brad.
Duane and Jesse.
Matt and Frank.
The warm campfire - finally. (Jesse Katz photo)
Part of the tasty chow. (Jesse Katz photo)
Tripod, the wonder dog, was found!