Thursday, September 17, 2020
The elevation at the campground being lower, the night was pretty warm. Not hot mind you, but a little warmer than I like. I actually beat Tim out of the tent this morning and got the fire going. We made breakfast, got packed and actually on the road a little before 8am. The roads were wide and flat, so we were making pretty good time, but we saw evidence of fresh logging, so we kept our eyes peeled for trucks. We were not disappointed. We started seeing them on a pretty regular basis.
Two of them stopped though to let us know how many were behind them which was very kind. Loggers have a reputation for not caring who they're driving past and how fast, but these guys were all very nice, one waving us around him on some pavement. We wound our way around heading for the North Fork of the Clearwater and Dworshak Reservoir. There wasn't anyone on the road, or so we thought. We stopped for a break around 10am on this really high bridge across the reservoir. I mean REALLY high. I'm not really afraid of heights, but this made me a little nervous looking over the low guardrail.
While take a break and enjoying the view of the water, which was pretty low in September, the three guys we met yesterday afternoon in Pierce caught up to us. The three were Mormons, and near our age, riding two KTM 790 Adventures and a KTM 500 EXC. The were fun to talk to, but we eventually wanted to put some distance between us, so off we went. But we didn't get more than 10 minutes away when Dave stopped and said he had mechanical problem: he had no power to the rear wheel. Motor was running, but no zip.
A closer look revealed that his chain was off because the chain guard that covers the swingarm failed and got pulled into the front sprocket by the chain and "derailed" it. Because of the logging trucks, we pulled the bike off the side (fortunately there was a extra wide spot right there. Our three companions rode by without stopping (guess they figured we were okay). It only took us 30 minutes to sort it all out. We loosened the rear axle, pulled the chain guard out, remounted the chain by using the rear wheel, aligned and tightened the chain, cranked the rear axle down and were off and running again.
Two hours later found us bounding up a very dusty and rocky road to the Blue Heaven Cabin, pulling in about 12:30. It's the only stretch of road during the whole route that I felt was similar to the WABDR in how challenging it was. I don't think I'd want to do it on a 500 lb. bike. The cabin is another place that gets a lot of pictures and comments from people doing the route. Privately owned, it is nonetheless open to the public's use as long as people clean up after themselves. And that has happened as far as I can tell. The owners have it reserved for the month of September for hunting season, but no one was there that day so we had a look around. It has running water, probably from a creek or spring, two double/full beds and one bunk bed, so technically it could sleep six if you're cozy. There's a wood stove for heat, an even older wood-fired stove for cooking in the kitchen, and a little table for eating. If we had run the trip in August as originally planned, I wanted to stay a night here. But besides having it reserved, our timing was such that we would be moving on.
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.
