Tom led the ride on his trusty XR-600, sniffing the route with a BarPack map holder and a GPSIII on a Touratech GPS mount. Dominic was on a stolen hoss ('85 XR-350). Helge rode 450 lbs of BMW F-650, and is quite likely the first BMW to ever pass thru Horsethief Basin. Chris was on his DR-350 and Perry rode an XR-650L. The ride was so named for the crown jewel and ultimate destination of the route, "Horsethief Basin", north of Lake Chelan. It's remote, roadless and breathtaking.
The trip Started in Seattle from the clean and well-lit headquarters of CycoActive Products. We took I-90 to Easton, then gravel roads towards Ronald, crossing the Cle Elum River at an abandoned
bridge. Forest Road 4305 took us over the Cle Elum Ridge and into Teanaway valley. We followed Bear Creek trail, and crossed Teanaway ridge into Swauk Creek on the Iron Creek trail. We spent the night at Swauk Campground where friends Marco Prozzo and James Steward had a fantastic Salmon dinner waiting for us on the fire. So much for roughing it......Day two started on the fantastic, twisty and paved "Old Blewett Pass Hiway". From there we crossed the valley to the east and climbed up to Tronsen Ridge trail. Tronsen Ridge trail dropped us out at Haney Meadows where we got on Forest Road 9712. It was lovely, mostly dirt, twisty, and provided spectacular views of Devil's Gulch. FR 9712 ended all too soon on the paved road at Mission Ridge Ski area, and we followed it into Wenatchee. After a brief scuffle, we settled on Subway for lunch due to time constraints and blasted outta town, burning pavement all the way to Chelan. We bought some maps in Chelan and continued on to Manson for a final gas-stop.
From Manson we headed North on FR8200, 30 miles of bliss, as it had rained the day before, and there was not much dust - just firm sandy smooth flattrackin' heaven. We arrived at the Safety Harbor trail at 6:00PM. Safety Harbor trail started out as
an old road grade, with a 500 foot drop on one side, and views of the 50-mile long Lake Chelan 3000 feet below and to the rear. Safety harbor trail soon turned into tasty singletrack thru the woods, with tight rocky uphill switchbacks, which pretty much wiped out the crew. We made it over the top at Sunset, only to face Deadman's pass in the twilight.Deadman's pass is so named for the two or so hapless horsemen, drunk, or otherwise mentally incapacitated, who thought they'd ride their horses down it into Horsethief Basin. It's steep, and they didn't make it. We muscled down the fifteen or so
switchbacks, arriving into the basin at dark. We camped about halfway thru the basin, on the saddle, two miles from our intended destination near Boiling Lake at about 9:30PM. It would have been nice to get there a couple hours earlier.Sunday morning started with Helge's famous oatmeal breakfast. He asks you if you want "cinnamon-raisin", or "maple and brown sugar" and he will even tear open the bag for you. It's not too special
unless you are hungry and anxious to ride again, then the sheer speed and ease of this meal becomes quite appetizing. We rode off to Boiling Lake, our intended destination campsite and found it unoccupied. We talked to a ranger on an XR-200 who was somewhat amazed that we rode such big bikes in there, then he saw the BMW......The climb out of Horsethief Basin was arduous, but not as hard as the highway ride (for the dirtbikes) back to Seattle over Hwy 20 then South past Darrington on the Mountain Loop Hiway. We rolled into Seattle Sunday night about 9PM, a total of 505 miles.
For more photos of the action click HERE
