On Aug 5, Tom Myers, Helge Pedersen, Chris Poland, Perry Murray and Touratech's Alex Guth embarked on a 5-day on/offroad camping trip in the Cascade mountain range of Washington. Tom runs CycoActive Products. Helge, Chris and Perry are riding buddies who met in Chile when Helge was guiding for Pancho Villa Moto Tours. Helge is a famous Norwegian moto-photo journalist, and author of the book, "10 Years on 2 Wheels". Alex is a German friend we met thru business with a motorcycle accessories company called Touratech.Tom created the route on his XR-400 with a BarPack map holder and global positioning satellite navigation (GPSIII+) on a Touratech GPS mount. The ride was named last year after the crown jewel and ultimate destination of the route, "Horsethief Basin", north of Lake Chelan in Washington State.
Helge borrowed a Honda XR650L (#1 stolen Hoss) because his F-650 was enroute to South America. Also, the F-650 wouldn't be suitable on this year's much harder route. Helge brought more camera gear, making the XR as wide and heavy as possible. Chris was on his new DR-350X and Perry rode a KTM 200 EXC. New guy on the ride was Touratech's Alex Guth borrowing (#2 Stolen Hoss) Chris's Suzuki RMX-250. Having less than 24 hours to "street-legalize" the RMX, we opted for the "3-day trip permit method" of licensing. We added useless but legal Acerbis mirrors. However, the final brakelight switch design wasn't up to Alex's standards. The meticulous German wouldn't tolerate a baling-wire contraption thus opted to risk a ticket.
This year we left from Chris's house, with the two-smokes in a truck. Helge, Chris and Tom (equipped with the proper amount of strokes for proper X-Country) took I-90 to Snoqualmie pass where we met up with Perry and Alex. Perry was looking forward to the light weight of his KTM in the forest, but didn't relish the idea of stringing a 50 mph smoke cloud along a 75mph freeway. Alex, whose main squeeze was a 1000cc BMW, didn't know what to worry about. He was only riding "half a motorcycle" but he was twice as happy to be headed for the woods. He was unaware that Tom enjoys taking "beemer guys" out in the woods and beating them up (they seem to enjoy it!).
Alex had traveled to Africa seven times on the R100GS. He inquired often; "are you sure I cannot ride the GS on this Horsethief? One day we could try some tracks....?" (I had no doubts the BMWGS would not be suitable.) In switching to a Suzuki RMX-250 from his trans-africa R100GS, Alex had lost an electric starter, a piston, a couple strokes, hundreds of miles of fuel range, and at least two hundred pounds. He wasn't going to miss the weight.
We decided to start with 30 miles of gravel. The HT99 group left pavement at Stampede Pass in the afternoon Thursday Aug 5th and followed gravel roads to Easton, the only obstacle being a washed-out bridge over Cabin Creek. At Easton we ate dinner and changed countershaft sprockets for the "little uphill" ahead.We camped at the start of North Ridge trail. As we set up camp, a couple bear hunters walked by. We were suprised that there were bear in the area but the hunters said no way would a bear come near a campfire. Alex built a humongous campfire that night.
Day two started abruptly on the North Ridge trail which zigzags up to Windy Pass on Manastash ridge. Both Alex and his RMX boiled over on the climb. Rooty and rocky switchbacks gave everyone a workout, finally easing up when we reached the alpine summit. Alex ran out of gas and Helge pulled over on the supertanker (5-gal Acerbis desert tank) and we mixed up the necessary gas/mucus mix. We followed Manastash ridge over 6300 foot Quartz mountain to Keenan Meadows, where the trail eased up considerably, meandering along the grassy banks of the Manastash river. We camped at Buck meadows, a whopping 35 mile day.
Day three. We left Buck meadows for Manastash lake, the site of the clay hillclimb. Perry zipped up the thing on his featherweight KTM. Alex had more trouble, not really knowing what to do with a semi-worn rear tire, an engine with a lightswitch for a throttle, and no room to slide back on the seat. Chris never has any trouble and Helge's XRL was so loaded down thus rarely at a loss for traction. We finally regrouped at the top of the hill and merged onto jeep roads, which upped the speed considerably, following the ups and downs of Manastash ridge all the way into the city of Ellensburg. After lunch we snuck the two-strokes thru town and seventeen miles of pavement to the Quilomene wildlife area where we followed Whiskey Dick Creek to the Columbia River.
The road along Whiskey Dick creek was a blast, but by the time we got to the river we were hot, dusty and sweaty. Within a few short minutes we hear the bellow of a naked viking. A young couple necking in a speedboat misread the situation. While the danger level was low, their solitude in this remote bay was shattered by the bellowing Norwegian and they left hurriedly. Alex and Tom figured that if Helge can take time for a bath, so can they. Perry and Chris elected to wallow in their sweat but at least Chris had the initiative to snap some illicit photos of the three hedons.We left the Columbia river, (three of us refreshed) and climbed to the top of Colockum Pass (5400 ft) to camp. We found a fully stocked horse camp, with an ample supply of firewood. The day's jeep trails were voted to be the most fun. Tomorrow there would be more!
On day four we headed towards Wenatchee thru the Colockum Wildlife reserve where we saw coyotes, deer and a small herd of Elk. Nearing Wenatchee, Alex again ran out of gas but since we were on pavement, Chris just pulled out his TowDowns and dragged the guzzling two-stroke seven miles into town (at 50+ mph)! We gassed up and managed to sneak thru Wenatchee, then on to Chelan and Manson (all on the highway) without getting the attention of the local constabulary. Pavement wasn't in the plan but here it was the fourth day and we were still a hundred miles away from the far point (Horsethief basin).
From Manson we headed toward Horsethief basin on the picturesque Forest Road 8100 which crosses four large drainages on its ascent. We ducked into Safety Harbor trail but sadly there were too many blowdowns blocking the trail to continue. We had to detour to South Navarre campground, where we found more blowdowns. The illustrious leader convinced the crew to press on, lifting the loaded bikes over the logs. It's actually fairly easy for five people to get a motorcycle over even large, angled logs. The biggest problem is the danger of being "outvoted" thus having to backtrack, which is always a disappointment. But not making it into Horsethief basin was already a major disappointment as Chris and Helge had to return to Seattle the next day.On day five we headed back towards Chelan on the fabulous forest road 8200, which was even more fun than FR8100. By this time, Alex had fully bonded with the RMX. But before dropping down into Chelan, Tom had to break away from the group and head for Horsethief basin (solo). Alex would have come, but without the supertanker, we would have fuel problems. So Helge, Chris, Alex and Perry dropped off the southside of the ridge towards home and Tom went north for a daytrip into Horsethief basin from the (cleared) Foggy Dew side. The basin was lush and beautiful as always, but the mosquitos were voracious and besides there was no one to enjoy it with. So Tom had his chili for lunch and blasted outta there, climbing the recently reamed-out Horsehead pass in six minutes.
With the group broken up, there wasn't much left to do but punish the sorry lot for desertion with a fantastic "shouldda been there story". Tom headed for the Entiat valley in search of trail, but got stopped again by blowdowns in the Mad River drainage. Bath #2 on day 5 fouled the Mad river horribly, but socks, shirts, and pants dried easily by 10AM the following morning, and Tom headed home over the Entiat Summit road, past Wenatchee lake, and along Forest road 6700 to Rainy Pass. FR6700 was closed due to avalanche but the XR400 made it easily over the slide.
Forest Road 6700 ended at Highway 2, but luckily a powerline road appeared a mile westward. Tom veered off the pavement onto the good stuff, and found............an abandoned train tunnel. What to do? Let eyes adjust to pitch black. Remove spare-tube fenderbag, and stuff it behind headlight cowling to make the headlight point down at the ground. Continue on, increasing speed as eyes adjust. Two-point-six miles later, there's the other end, pretty well blocked by timbers and such, but with enough railroad ties laying around to construct a path out of the tunnel. A small victory for the solo adventurer!Six days and 700 miles later, Tom arrives home 300 miles short of the 1000 mile goal. Next year it will be 1000 miles.
See more photos of the action by clicking HERE
