Years ago, much of the area was logged for it's primo timber and as a by product, a number of logging roads were carved into the terrain. The trick is how to connect those roads into a cohesive route. David McKay who runs www.griptwister.com has done the work and linked the various forest service, logging, and paved roads into a way to ride around the peninsula. He sells a self-guided GPS tour which notes not only the routes, but a number of scenic viewpoints, campgrounds, lodging, food, and fuel. In addition, once a year, he leads a tour using his routes and opens it to anyone who's purchased the tour. Back in 2007 I did the northern half of the tour with 4 friends, but couldn't get back to finish it in 2008. So when the tour came up for early September, 2009, I purposed to do it. It would be 3 days riding and 2 nights of camping. This report will document that ride and be accompanied by a few pictures. In the end, I found the last two sections to be so nice that a few weeks later, Bart (who I met on the tour) and I returned to re-ride those two sections plus a bonus section. That report will be part 2 of this blog.
The riders assembled in Hoodsport for a briefing. The riders formed natural groups to ride at the different speeds and interests.
Here's Paul from Touratech doing a little repair using my tools in my tool roll
Rick from Kalama is on the right (he rode with Bart & I on the 3rd day)
David (on the left) is instructing the riders
As for me when I'm dual sport riding, I'm more of a "flower sniffer" and like to take lots of pictures. Bart on his new BMW 1200GS hadn't ever been on a dual sport ride and Jim was on his Vstrom with street tires. Both indicated a desire to do the ride at the pace I was planning; and since I had done much of the first part, they agreed to ride with me. BTW, I really don't recommend riding this tour alone as much of the time, one is in very isolated areas.
So off we headed up into the hills. The first part of the route was paved, but soon the pavement ended and we began travelling on Forest Service (FS) roads. Here's an early vista of Lake Cushman.
Stepping to the edge of the lookout point, I spotted a little carnage down about 100 feet from the edge.
And it was not long until we encountered our first washout of the trip. There were a number of them ahead of them. Here's Bart traversing the washout.
There's about 4-5 feet of travelling width to work with. Just look where you want to go and take it easy.
There were lots more scenic vistas including these of Hood Canal.
And on every ride I try to take a mirror shot. Here's one from Day 1.
It wasn't too long before we reached our first obstacle and Bart's 1200 decided it was time for a nap.
And here's why one purchases Touratech engine guards.
We got Bart's BMW lifted up and back on the road. Going a little farther we encountered the following obstacle and decided to turn back.
Leaving the gravel and Leg A, we were on US101 for a short distance on our way to Quilcene for lunch at a favorite little restaurant (Logger's Landing). The views along the canal are not bad either.
I had the "light" hamburger (no bun).
At this point Jim decided to head for his home in Sequim via the paved roads while Bart and I elected to begin Leg B. It was good riding with Jim and I'm sure our paths will cross in the future.
As we were probably quite a bit behind the main group, we pretty much rode these two sections without stopping for many pictures. At the completion of B, we refueled in Sequim, and headed on west. Here's one of Bart on the pavement west of Port Angeles.
We stopped near Joyce to don some warmer clothes as the sun was setting and we still had a ways to go before reaching camp at Klahowya. We reached our turn-off from the pavement on WA112 onto the Twin River Road just as it got dark. That road was about 30 miles up over a mountain and the first part was extremely slick from moisture. I did a couple of "saves" when the bike started to slip out from under me. Bart also had a deer and its fawn run down the road in front of him in his headlights. The fawn particularly didn't want to leave the security of the headlights. We got turned around a couple of times up in that section of leg C as the track we were following wasn't displaying on my GPS.
Eventually we reached the pavement once again and found the campground and the group at 10pm. I had been riding since 6:30am. David and those who were still up greeted us and wanted to hear our tale which we obliged after we set up our tents.
There were also some brats & chips and soda to eat as we hadn't eaten since lunch at 3pm.
Going to bed around midnight, I found that I had a new bed partner (one of David's dogs adopted me).
Tomorrow was going to be a new day and perhaps we could make it into camp before dark. Time will tell.
Also, for more pictures, visit my picture hosting site at:
http://timmer.smugmug.com/Motorcycles/GripTwister-Olympic-Tour-2009/9661233_kNbvB/1/652080944_EgD2t
Stay tuned for Day 2 - Legs D, E, & F
No comments:
Post a Comment