Four Days, Four States

[Bill_Anderson]

Day 1 (Friday 6/25)

My buddy Dave and I rode down to the John Day (Oregon) area on Friday (6/25). Dave was meeting his sister who drove over from Utah while I was there to meet up with a group from the South Bay Riders Forum (SBR) who were riding from California to Wyoming. All lodging in John Day was booked up due to a Moto Guzzi rally, so we stayed at the recently restored Historic Prairie Hotel in nearby Prairie City.

[Bill_Anderson]

Day 2 (Sat. 6/26)

No visit to the John Day area is complete without breakfast at Chuck's Little Diner in Prairie City, located a few doors down from the hotel.

Photo #1: The guy in the chair asked if I wanted him to move. I told him to remain seated, as he added some local color to the photo.

Photo #2: The man himself in his domain.

Photos #3 & 4: Dave and I both ordered my favorite: french toast with a side of Chuck's famous bacon, all served with a smile by Chuck's SO.

Photo #5: After breakfast we rode to the viewpoint off US 26 just east of town. Looking south, those are the Strawberry Mts. in the background.

We then rode back into town and did the Strawberry Mtn. loop. The loop leaves Prairie City southbound on Grant County Road 62 and follows the John Day River to its headwaters in the Strawberry Mtns. Grant County Road 62 ends at Summit Meadow. To continue the loop, we turned west on Forest Service Road 16 and rode through the Logan Valley, a high grassland of about 5,000 feet elevation located south of the Strawberry Mts. We only saw a couple of pickups and a large cattle truck (which left a trail of brown ice on the road), but lots of motorcycles. FSR 16 ends at Seneca, where it joins US 395. We competed the loop by riding US 395 north back to John Day, where I broke off from Dave and Alene to continue my tour of John Day.

I have never had time during previous group rides to John Day to visit the Kam Wah Chung historic site, located in the center of what was once John Day's China Town.

Photo #6: A herd of small deer greeted me in the park. They ran off when I told them the rest of the SBR entourage would be passing through John Day later that day.

Photo #7: Kam Wah Chung building. I took the tour of the old Chinese general store and doctor's office inside.

Photos #8 & 9: No flash photography is allowed inside the building as the light created by a flash will degrade the artifacts. Photos on the sign boards in the park tell the history of the site and give a very good representaton of the interior of the building.

[Bill_Anderson]

Day 2 (continued)

After lunch I rode to Sumpter via US 395 and Grant County Road 20, the same route the SBR entourage would be taking later in the day. I have never seen the area this green this late in the year. Locals said the area received a lot of late rain and snow this year, no doubt a side effect of El Nino.

Photos # 1 & 2: I paused to take a few photos of the town of Long Creek and the surrounding plateau from the pass south of town. Note to Mark Turbo and Paul Geller: the store where we like to stop and take a break had a "For Sale" sign in the window and appeared to be closed.

Photo #3: Invasion of the Californians at the Sumpter Bed and Breakfast.

Photo #4: Laura points to the red ribbon that her BMW "Kiki" has been wearing since last year to honor "Mao Tse Duc", my late red 04-ST4s. After my crash last year in California, Laura said Kiki would wear the ribbon until I was riding again.

[Bill_Anderson]

Day 3 (Sun. 6/27)

Photos #1-5: Prior to departing Sumpter, we stopped to see the restored gold mining dredge.

Photos #6: We stopped at Halfway for lunch and the mandatory gas stop before jumping off for Hell's Canyon. Wallowa Mtns. in the background.

Photo #7: A violet-green swallow nesting behind and above where we parked our bikes.

Photo #8: Mandatory SBR barn photo. The barn was in town near where we parked our bikes.

Photo #9: In case anyone wondered how Halfway got its name.

[Bill_Anderson]

Day 3 (cont.)

After lunch we left for Hell's Canyon.

Photo #1: I have ridden to Hell's Canyon before, so I did not take any photos other than this one for SBR's Dam Photo Thread.

After seeing the dam, everyone rode back to Oxbow to wait for Laura, who had stopped to take photos of the canyon. It was getting hot, so I told the group's leader to go ahead and I would wait for Laura. I have ridden these roads several times and consider the area my back yard. The turn for the road to Cambridge from Oxbow is tricky and Laura missed it. I had to run her down and get her headed the right direction.

I felt bad for Laura as we rode through several very scenic areas, but we were too pressed for time for photo stops. I promised her we would stop at the top of White Bird Hill, site of a battle between the US Calvary and the Nez Perce Indians, led by Chief Joseh on their futile flight to Canada.

Photo #2: Looking south from the top of White Bird Hill. The peaks in the back ground are the Seven Devils, one of which I climbed when I was in college.

Photos #3 & 4: The old highway is a series of switchbacks up the hill. Unfortunately, it has not been kept up since the new road was built in the late 60's. Some of it is gravel and runs through cow pastures. Once again I could not get over how green everything is for this late in the year.

Photo#5: Darkwing Duc & Kiki.

[Bill_Anderson]

Day 3 (conclusion)

We continued on to Kooskia, where we gassed up and ate at the only place I could see open, a small Chinese restaurant. I don't know who was more suprised: me for finding a Chinese restaurant in a very small North Idaho town comprised mostly of whites and local Nez Pece Indians; or the owner for meeting a Mandarin speaking white guy riding in on a motorcycle. The owner and I conversed in Mandarin for several minutes, which I told Laura served two purposes: to practise my Mandarin and to assure we would get good food.

After dinner we rode the 23 miles from Kooskia to Lowell in the dark to rejoin the group. Laura volunteered to ride point as Kiki is equipped with some very powerful headlights. Good thing too, as we did come across a group of deer crossing the road in the dark. [Hint to Paul Geller: our new style ST models really need Ducati Design headlights.]

Lesson learned: I did the Hell's Canyon ride with my local riding group in the spring of 2007. We took much the same route as the SBR entourage, spending successive nights in John Day, OR and Lewiston, ID. Like the SBR entourage, we did not spend much time photographing Hell's Canyon and still arrived in Lewiston after dark. John Day (or Sumpter) to Lewiston (or Kooskia) via Hell's Canyon is too great a distance for a single day's ride if one hopes to spend any time photographing the beautiful scenery between the two destinations. If I ever ride the area again with the intention of making photo stops, I'll spend the night at an intermediate point, such as McCall, ID.

[Bill_Anderson]

Day 4 (Monday 6/28)

The group spent Sunday night at the Three Rivers Resort in Lowell, where the Selway and Lochsa Rivers join to form the Middle Fork of the Clearwater River. In the mid 60's I attended a church camp not far from Lowell up the Selway.

Monday we rode US 12 up the Lochsa and over Lolo Pass into Montana. Fortunately Officer Wiggens of the Idaho State Patrol was not around to ticket any unwary motorcyclists who may have exceeded the 50 mph speed limit. I left the group at Lolo, MT, where I headed eight miles north to catch I-90 at Missoula and slabbed it across far western Montana, the Idaho Panhandle, and most of the state of Washington to get home about 10:00pm.

Photo #1 & 2: Well-fed ground squirrels at a rest stop in Montana near the Idaho border.

Photo #3: Barn swallows nesting at a rest stop near Moses Lake, WA.

Photo #4 & 5: Traffic stopped for about 30 minutes east of Snoqualmie Pass for some blasting. I used the opportunity to park the Duc and add another layer of clothes for the descent to the cooler Puget Sound area. The driver of the truck next to me told me he rides a Harley and had just bought a full face helmet. Good for him!

Mileage figures:
Day 1 Seattle area to Prairie City: 534
Day 2 John Day area: 202
Day 3 Sumpter to Lowell: 396
Day 4 Lowell to Seattle area (via Missoula): 612 ( a new, personal record)
Total trip 1,734

I have put nearly 4,000 miles on Martys's old 06-ST3s since buying it on 5-7-10.

[jbcaddy]

as usual, a great ride report. guess I'll have to put that area on my ride wish list. JB

[John]

Ditto on the ride report and pictures. The dredge had me wondering how it moved about when finished in it's man made pond? I suppose the miners kept the faucet on in order to keep the growing pond full of water? Or did they damn off behind the dredge as it moved on? I know they worked the Sacto/Folsom and Oroville areas heavilly, in the day of the hydraulic mining above the Yuba river. Basically raping the environment for the gold stuff. I thought the dredges worked rivers and not out of man made ponds, but likely did both I guess. For some reason I remember hydraulic mining was ruled illegal in 1898, they said prior to that the Yuba and other affected streams and rivers flowed mud.

[Bill_Anderson]

John: I believe the dredge worked the nearby Powder River and the pond was created just to display the dredge. Although the dredge looks like it is floating in the pond, it is actually perched on a sand bank which acts as a pedestal.

More info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumpter_Valley_Gold_Dredge

Funny you mention Sacramento/Folsom, because I was thinking of the mounds of dredged rock along the American River as I was looking at the dredge in Sumpter.

Here are enlarged photos of the sign boards.