My Freedom RIDE! Around the Western USA.

[achesley]

You are hitting some awesome places guy. Yosemite , in '07, become one of the five places I want to return to before I can't. Thanks for sharing your journey.

[Merk]

OMG! Does every hotel wifi suck? I'm sorry people i can't seem to get a connection to load up my latest pics and there are some very good ones and I'll try again tomorrow. By the way I'm at the foot on Mt. Saint Helens and will hit that tomorrow. Worst case I'll have to wait till I'm home to load them up, I hope not.

[ekms377]

Keep it comin'!!!!!

[Merk]

OK, I give up trying to load pics and update this post via hotel internet and a tablet, it's like accomplishing brain surgery with a toothpick and a straw, basicly a ****! So I made my FaceBook photo album for you all to see the pics public and I think I added the link below, not sure if it will work, if not let me know. I'll do up a proper ride report when I get home when I have a computer and a internet connection worth a d@m. Don't forget my spot link in the first post as I can't move it to my sig untill I get home.

The ride itself is totally awesome, the internet and pic uploading epic fail!



http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?s...3&l=c65c674ac8

[John Dirt]

Great pictures, what camera are you using? Geeks want to know.

[tshelfer]

and about time. One more "no pictures" posting and I was going to declare that you were actually sitting in Grandma's basement making the whole thing up.

[Kat013]

I was in Fern Canyon back in '07; it was wonderful. I hiked a 5 mile trail that looped back to the coast, and the thunder sound of the surf accompanied me the entire way.

[Merk]

I uploaded 18 new pics from the North Cascades and Grand Coulee dam. I got caught up in a butt load of rain today and hail. I was going to follow hwy 20 up by the boarder but then i noticed I was 40'ish miles from Grand Coulee dam so well I had to check it out as I've never seen it and that thing is huge. On to Glacier National Park in the morning, might be a couple of days for any new pics as I have to camp soon, way to much hotel time.

Facebook link is in post #24 of this thread, my tablet sucks and will probably delete every thing I just type.

EDIT
I forgot to mention, the camera I'm using is a Olympus Pen.

[Merk]

Ok, I'm beat from this ride and am headed home. So the last 2 days i spent in Yellowstone but I'll wait till I get home tomorrow to load up all the pics. So be on the lookout for the ride report with all the pics (not all in the report but access to them) and details of the route. It was a great ride but man does it take a toll on the body.

[The Bruce]

You've covered a lot of territory. When it's time, it's time. Looking forward to the rest of the photos.

[wanabeguru]

[Merk]

Sorry for the delay. I had a ton of stuff to do this week but here it is.
This trip lasted 15 days, covered 4340 miles, through nine states, 10 national parks, and some stops to other sites of interest. I took 560 pictures so if you want to see them all here’s the link to my Photobucket folder.

http://s69.photobucket.com/albums/i5...rk/The%20Ride/

I headed north up to the Gold Point/Lida turn off and had plans to stop by Gold Point but I was trying to beat the heat and I was cooking and by the time I got there I passed on by. After seeing this sign I had hoped a good portion of my ride would involve this, and since I avoided as much of the major highways as I could I was in for a treat on this ride as I did run into a lot of this.



I stayed the night at Mono Lake and rolled around and took a few pictures.



This picture kind of looked like a bear to me.



The next morning I headed over the pass and decided I was going to check out Yosemite Valley, by the way the Valley is at 4000 feet and it's hot in the middle of the summer. This is the Valley below, even though it was hot it was worth the visit.





After I left Yosemite I started heading up the Sierras and I found this nice one lane curvy road that was fun.



I think I stopped in Jackson California that night, not sure but the next morning I headed up through the mountains towards Lake Tahoe and followed it along the West shore headed north towards Lassen Volcanic National Park.





This Park is a nice unknown treasure, and a really good ride to travel through.



This is the volcano on the north side.



After I left this park I headed due West across California just north of Eureka and when I got to about 20 miles away, the next time I endured that extreme heat was on my way home and I just came out of the pass between Mesquite, NV and St. George, UT. But here's a picture of the beach, it was a little cloudy that day.



The next morning I got up headed north towards the Redwoods, I stopped at the ranger station and they told me I should check out Fern Canyon and I did, and if you're ever in this area I highly recommend it. But before I get to that show a picture of some short trees.





This is the start of Fern Canyon.







After I left there I went up to check out the Redwood trees, here's the big tree, as what they called it.



These are the trails you walk around the big tree.



After I left the park I headed north up the California coast and when I got the Crescent city I headed east, inland towards Crater Lake.



This place was amazing.



This is not a picture of the sky, this is a picture of the water, I've never seen anything this color blue before.







After I left Crater Lake I headed due West again towards the Oregon coast and at some point I got tired and decided to rest a few minutes and found this little gem just-off the road.



End of Pt 1.

[Merk]

Part 2
OK here's a little more, after I left the little waterfall I found I continued west until I hit the Oregon coast and found a nice camp spot. It was really nice to have a campfire where if you set the forest on fire it truly would've been a miracle as the rain forest is really really cool and damp.



I did a little scouting around my campsite and I found this tree right behind it that I thought was really cool.



Woke up the next morning and headed up the coast and it was all pretty much like this.







I rode about 280-ish miles of the Oregon coast and ended up in Astoria and here's the bridge that crosses over to Washington.



I left Astoria and followed the Columbia River headed towards Mount Saint Helens. I stayed the night in a town just west of St. Helens and headed out in the morning. If any of you remember when this mountain went off and saw it on TV (I do) I will tell you this if you ever see it in real life your jaw is going to hit the ground. You cannot sense the amount of material that was blown off that mountain looking at the TV.







On the way out I stopped at this lake that was created by the eruption called Coldwater Lake, by the way the water wasn't very cold but it was a very neat Lake.



For those who remember when the mountain erupted when they showed the mudflows this is the Valley that it flowed through.



I just thought this truck with the tree growing out the middle of the frame and in between the two rear axles is pretty cool looking.



I left Mount Saint Helens and headed towards Mount Reiner and headed over the pass and this little mountain is another hidden little gem. First picture is of the mountain covered by clouds but it's still pretty cool.











This is the last picture I took while at Reiner.



I stayed in some town about 50 miles from Seattle that night, got up the next morning headed north and hit the first rain on this ride and it was in Seattle and this was also the only close call I had with another car trying to run me over. Luckily I saw them but the danger was well worth it as I was heading to the North Cascades. I stopped a few miles before the entrance to take a leak and saw this little stream next to the road of the rain forest.



Here I am at the entrance to the North Cascades National Park.



That’s the end of Pt 2.

[Merk]

Part 3

Okay I'll try to finish up the ride report now. Here's a nice picture of the first Lake heading over the North Cascades pass.



This waterfall feeds just before the **** I just showed.



This is where the waterfall feeds into the lake, if you notice the Lake is an emerald green.





This is the overlooked for Lake Diablo, I like the name they gave the Lake.





On the other side of the pass they had this nice loop trail about half a mile long that was pretty cool.









Here I am after I came over the pass, the road is wet because a storm blew through and this was the worst rain I have ever ridden in and oh yeah I even hit some hail and I was really glad I had full protection as that stuff was still stinging through my gear. It was funny riding along the road seeing all the people with limited gear pulled over on the side of the road waiting for the rain to pass.



That was my last picture of the North Cascades, after that I started heading east towards Glacier National Park and I got about 80 miles away and pulled into a gas station and saw a sign that said Gateway to Grand Coulee dam so I looked at my map. I'd be **** it was only 40 miles away so that's where I headed and stayed the night at.





Here's a picture on top of the dam of the reservoir of water it holds back, think it was Roosevelt Lake.



Here's a picture of the top of the dam and I got to say that thing was dam huge.



This is just a picture about 50 miles up the reservoir as I was heading across the state.



Here I am at my campground about 100 miles from Glacier National Park, it was a free campsite. There were about three or four trucks that were taking up three of the best spots so I wasn't sure what was going on until one of them returned. Come to find out they were biologists and they were doing a four month study on the grizzly bear activity in the area. Only one was there that night and he sat at my campsite and we shot the breeze for about two or three hours drinking beer and I learned a little bit about grizzlies and actually had a very good nights sleep.



I woke up the next morning and packed all my gear and was in Glacier National Park by about nine or 10 AM. Here's a picture from the southern end of the first Lake.











That's the Valley you come up through when you're coming from the west side entrance.





This is just before you go over the top of the pass.



This is looking east after you go over the pass.









This is from the East side entrance and as you can see I showed a lot of pictures of this Park, as this was one of the most awesome parks I've been through.



After I left Glacier National Park I headed south towards Yellowstone and got there the next day but didn't take any pictures because I was trying to find a campsite but I managed to find one at the end of the day next of the south entrance. I stayed at this campsite for two days and spent an entire day on the South Loop of Yellowstone.



This was actually some very good beer.



I'm not going to show a lot of pictures of Yellowstone as this is the second time I was here, at least that's what I think I'm going to.



This picture doesn't need any explanation does it?



I spent a good two hours hiking this trail that did a nice loop up to the top of the hill that gave a great look out of the old faithful basin.



That's old faithful down there.



I saw this little guy in the middle of the trail as he was checking me out, surely wasn't very scared of humans because he came very close.



I forgot what the name of this geyser was but it goes off every 5 to 7 min., it's not that big but it was pretty neat and its way out of the way where most people probably don't see it.



I have a good 45 second video of Old Faithful going off this is towards the end.







This is the waterfall at the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone.





Here's a picture of the Yellowstone River.



Yellowstone Lake.





The end of a fine day.



This was pretty much the end of my trip, I wanted to go to Colorado but I was really tired and fatigued but before I left I made sure to take a couple of pictures of the Grand Teton's.





The End, this was the longest and my best ride so far. I'm rested up now and I'm ready to go out again (I don’t have to get a job till 1 Nov if I want to wait that long, longer if I want to use my savings account money) but I don't know if I'm going to have time as because now in the middle of August I will be moving back to Texas.

[tshelfer]

Very nice. And some oh-so-gorgeous country. I've never been to the northwest. You've inspired me.

[humanrace]

" I wanted to go to Colorado but I was really tired and fatigued but before I left I made sure to take a couple of pictures of the Grand Teton's."

I understand the fatigued part. About 20 years ago, I went on a ride and told my wife I would be back when I got tired. 31 days later I was back home.

Thanks for taking us along. I've been most of the places you went to and your ride reminded me that I need to go back.

[Maintainer]

Awesome, color me green with envy. Live the dream brother, see and experience all you can while you can.

[The Bruce]

Thanks for posting the photos; good stuff.

[Texas T]

Thank you. We'll be up at Glacier/Tetons/Yellowstone in a couple of weeks. I hope our weather is as good (or better).

[achesley]

Great pictures! I just returned from a visit to Glacier. Still awesome. Did you get a chance to do Chief Joseph or Beartooth highways at Yellowstone? I didn't do Da Stone this year but just loved Beartooth and Chief highways.