Thursday, August 3, 2017
Today would be our last day of the trip. We had wanted to ride east along the Northwest Passage route that the guys from Best Rest Products had laid out, but the roads in that area near Sullivan Lake and Boundary Dam were closed due to fires. We got up early as normal, fixed breakfast, broke camp, and got on the road by a little after 7:30am. One of our earlier starts. From the saddle we camped in we started our way down. The road was about the same as all the other roads, but being in the woods is pretty nice. In no time at all we were pulling into the little town of Carlton where we gassed up at the General Store there. It was here that we met a three-generation family doing the route. The grandfather was 82, with a couple of sons and grandsons. They were in two Suzuki Samaris with a Honda 250 and a KLR, taking their time. That was nice to see – a family doing the route and Grampa was
doing most of the driving they said.
Leaving Carlton, we rode along highway 153 until we turned off on Benson Creek Road. This was a pretty stretch of road where we caught up with the two Suzuki Samaris and later ended up on Hwy 20 for a bit until we turned off on to Loup Loup Canyon Road which is paved for a good part of the way. More evidence of an old fire surrounded us.
It’s amazing how much of the territory we covered had been on fire recently, meaning within five years. The flowers and underbrush come back pretty quickly, but the rest looks like black and gray toothpicks.
The little valley we road up was very picturesque with little farms and pastures here and there. As we made our way down the road I had a black bear cross the road in front of me about 50 yards away. I stopped right away and Tim caught up and saw him cross back to the river side of the road. That was another highlight.
As we climbed up and then back down, the other side got pretty steep and rocky and we ended up in the former town of Ruby, where we chatted with two nice older couples on side-by-sides. They told us a little about the area, then moved on as we stopped and read the bullet ridden sign which called Ruby the “Queen city of the Okanogan County silver boom.” At seven years, it lasted longer than some of the little ghost towns in Death Valley that we saw two years earlier.
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.
