By Tom Niemela
(click on thumbnails for larger picture)
The weather guessers were forecasting good omens and I was overdue for a fix, hence a gaggle of us got together for a trailride in the Tillamook State Forest. At 7:30am we met at Denny's Restaurant in Aloha and left from there. On this ride we had Dan Hatcher, Dave Klug, Roger Waddington, Doug White, Scott Wilson and yours truly ready to go. Upon arriving at Lyda Camp, there was a sizeable amount of people already there, due to the great weather I'm sure. Danno had a new/used WR426 that he was taking on a maiden voyage and he had a couple things to do before getting ready to go, so the rest of us went on a short jaunt, planning on returning for Dan in about 15 minutes. We all went up the first trail (Chute Trail) and Roger got stuck on some z-brick, therefore the rest of us got stuck too. It was so slick that poor Rog couldn't get his footing. Doug kept sliding back until he hit my front tire, then he was able to get resituated again. We all finally made it to the top and went back for Danny.
Once rounding him up, we headed West towards Jordan Creek area using mostly Archers Road. Along the way we encountered some four-wheel drivers stuck on Archers. It is truly amazing the things they can climb up or through. We continued on using a few trails and descended our way down Jordan Creek to Spaur Creek Trail. After regrouping there we rode off towards the first bridge, but Roger unfortunately did a pinball header into a fir tree, so him and Scott turned around and headed back. The rest of us continued up Stick-In-The-Nose Trail, Mad Dawg's Pumpkin Patch Trail, Rogers Road and worked our way back onto Archers Road to the bike haulers. Along the way we encountered some hunters that had just bagged a cow elk. We had to stop and congratulate them on their catch and tease them whether or not they ate some of the raw liver like Dances With Wolves. All in all a killer 50-mile ride with great friends. I love this sport. -Tom
For a detailed map of the area, click here.
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