But eventually they literally tore the town down and rebuilt it later a half mile south of the old location. Leaving Florence, we pretty quickly got to the paved road heading toward state route 14. There was a short dirt road connector to it that we took, and then once on 14, we rode into Elk City. It was cold on the ride up the valley to Elk City and we stopped to put on some warmer coats and gloves, but we got to town by about 2pm. We gassed up and had some hot chocolate.
We pushed on to the Magruder Corridor to see how far we could get and then find a place to camp. I was hoping we'd get to Poet Creek campground because I'd heard online that it was pretty nice. Leaving Elk City, we were on pavement once again before getting on the Magruder proper. I wasn't really sure what to expect to be honest. You hear the points about there being no service for the entire length of it and in brings up visions of a really primitive road. The fact is that the road is pretty easy. Because it's bow hunting season there were hunters at every available camping spot which made me think we'd have trouble finding a spot.
But we rolled into Poet Creek about 5pm and there was literally no one there but a tame mule deer doe that hung out for about 30 minutes while we set up camp.
We picked the best spot there, right beside the creek. We eventually did get some neighbors however. Earlier in the day we passed two guys on mountain bikes riding the corridor. Very rugged to be doing that. Well, they rode into camp around an hour later and camped at the spot beside us. Another guy in a truck with a mountain bike camped nearby too. We invited both to share our fire during the evening after dinner. We had one of our freeze-dried meals for dinner. It's always interesting to hear other's stories, but the guy in the truck had a bit of a sad one.
Darren was recently divorced and it was not an amicable split.
He was out on a trip to try and "re-center" his life.
Matt, one of the bike riders came over as well. Turns out Darren has a ski/bike business so the two of them got talking bicyles pretty quickly. Tim says that they were making about 40 miles a day, which considering the terrain they've been riding is very impressive. Tougher than us that's for sure! With all the pavement we did 145 miles today.
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.
