We got a little wood from some nice neighbors and then got on our bikes and Tim and I found a pile of old wood from some cabin that had been scrapped and hauled it back. It was nice and dry and burned very nicely. It's always great to end the day around a great campfire!
Sylvan Lake is at about 8,500 feet (2,590 meters) in elevation which made for a bit of a chilly night because the skies were clear. But we had assumed before the trip that we'd have cold nights and we were prepared. This evening as we sat around the fire, we watched the moon come up. It was brilliantly bright, but not so bright we couldn't do a little stargazing. It was a great end to a perfect day! Today's mileage was 132.
Wednesday, September 22, 2021
Last night's temperatures were pretty low, but we all slept just fine. Tim mis-read his watch wrong and got up earlier than normal to start the fire. That ended up being pretty nice for Dave and I. We took our time getting breakfast and packing up, so it wasn't until about 9am that we got on the road again. I was leading today and we had three high passes to get over today. The first one was Crooked Creek Pass which didn't seem like much, though the elevation was 10,030 ft (3,057 m). It also didn't take us long to get there: 30 minutes.
Just before we got there, we passed a bow hunter walking back to camp and at the pass near the sign were camps from guys hunting. We didn't see any thing hung up though so not yet successful.
The next pass was Hagerman Pass which we had heard was a bit rocky. It was definitely that, but not loose rock which is harder. But this took plenty of skill for us anyways. Just manouvering around big rocks so we're not banging the bikes around takes a bit out of you now and then.
We were making good progress though, until about 11am I got to this little rise and stopped on top because looking down we had a surprise water crossing. It wasn't deep on the left side, so that's how we went, me first. I went pretty slow because I wanted to A) not fall and B) be able to tell the guys if this was the best way across. The right side looked much deeper and unknown. I got across fine and then so did Tim and Dave.
Thirty-five minutes later we were at the Pass at 11,925 ft (3,634 m). It's a barren, tree-less area with the wind blowing pretty hard. We walked around a bit and took pictures, had a little snack and then before we left, Dave left a shoe on the back of the sign that we found on the WABDR years ago. He posted something on ADV Rider to try and get people to make a tradition or something. Don't know if it'll take off like some things do or not. Anyways, we hung out for about 20 minutes and then took off downhill.
Tom Clark
I'm a Senior Software Engineer at Intellitect, living in Spokane, Washington. I also do a little development work on the side. And I love riding motorcycles all over the country with my friends.
