Sunday May 17
Margie threw Diamond Mill on the table for exploration. Trackmaster was not exactly familiar with the area, but he had been there before, which was more than the rest of us, so he became the navigator.
There were reports of trees down. I didn’t think much of it. A little adversity could be fun. But it was more like a tornado went through. Our first sign was a seemingly well-used quad trail that was interrupted, not by one tree, but a log pile.
The first trail we hit was 93 Mongos Canyon. It was rad: rocky up hills, tree dodging, ruts, and ledge clinging, not too steep. The many downed trees were cut.
Then we traversed to 76 Frankenstein. The trail narrow loamy single track carved into the mountainside. It looked amazing, but there were trees down. We got over the first 5 or so, sometimes having to carry the bikes over.
Margie’s throttle stuck. The ledge we were on was about 5 ft wide and she managed to stop it leaning into mountainside. 20 ft down the trail was a 90-degree turn. If you didn’t make it, straight down you would go.
We had a nice break on the trail while the Steves took a look at the throttle issue.
After that we decided to head back out of Frankenstein. I think we had only made it a 1/2-mile, but spent a couple hours there.
There was a little mix up on the way to the next trail. Trackmaster went one way and Margie went the other. We ending up catching Trackmaster and going Margie’s direction. I started up only to find Mos and Ken stuck in the trail, we 3 went back down. Trackmaster came down, and said Margie was in his way, that’s why he didn’t make it. He did not make it the second time either. Turns out, Margie was the only one who could make it up the hill. Mos theorized her throttle stuck to comfort his brused ego. Hilarious! Nice job Margie.
We encountered more armies of white trees down mostly perpendicular as we headed down a two track toward another trail. At first it was fun, we could get around, over, under most. Then we came to another huge impassable log pile.
Plan B was a quad trail (not sure, maybe 97 Old Cedar Creek?) It had many drainage jumps and it was clear of trees with very few rocks. Fun and fast.
It seamed like we did a lot of searching, turning back, getting unstuck etc, but what a great problem to have. There are so many trails out here, it is impossible to know them all or be able to gauge the condition of the trails.
On the way back we stopped Outazablue Market and Café (56625 NW Wilson River Hwy, Gales Creek, OR 97117) for lunch. It is a multi cultural urbany restaurant in the backwoods. Their signage doesn’t express well what is inside. I‘ve driven by quite a few times and not even noticed it. The Chef and Owner Gabriel Barber bakes his own ciabatta, and had homemade dolmas that looked amazing. Looks like everything is made from scratch, and very fresh. The waitress Sierra encouraged us to customize according to our likes and dislikes.
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