Hey dudes!
Man I can't believe you still have no flowing water... ugh. It's been what, 3 or 4 years? That would wear me out.
. That looked like a good ride Mud, are you still getting the Dizzer out?
Colder winter than the last here, still sneaking out but it can be a little more "epic" than intended. The day before New Year's Eve my buddy James and I loaded up and headed for Mattawa in Central Washington.
South of Vantage where I-90 crosses the Columbia.
I got back from a Christmas party at about 10:00, packed until midnight, and got up at 4:30 AM to about 4" of snow and 10 degrees. I had to pull the truck forward to load the bike so I could put the ramp on dry concrete and not in a bunch of snow and ice.
After 45 minutes of 4-wheel driving I turned off towards James' house into 6" of unplowed snow, dropping 10 miles down to the Deschutes River before a steep climb in deep snow to his driveway. When I arrived at 6:00 he was busy plowing the driveway and we were looking at each other with raised eyebrows...
There were more raised eyebrows as we headed North towards Biggs on the Columbia River, 4-wheel drive most of the way.
136 very sketchy miles later we dropped down into Biggs and saw the pavement for the first time. Lots of big whirley things in the snow on the other side of the river...
Yay, blue skies!!
Another 126 miles later and we finally arrived at Mattawa, having added at least two hours to the drive. The Columbia River is down below, with the hills of the Yakima firing range behind. I was knackered, 4 hours of sleep (and insomnia the night before) followed by 6 hours of white knuckle driving.
This is what greeted us out of the parking lot. The guys we met were raring to go... this guy I hadn't seen in at least 15 years.
I had a little scare getting going, first my battery was about croaked from 6 hours of deep freeze and then I found that I'd left the oil cap off my transmission. The cap had rode the entire way sitting on top of the motor... whew! I tried not to think about all the snow and slush it ingested along the way. The trail head was high on a hill and I figured it would be easy peasy to bump start the bike. However, the dirt and snow was so wet and the bike so dead it wouldn't start and I dropped lower and lower into a big ravine. I literally gave it one more go as I leveled out in the bottom of the canyon and it burbled a time or two, popped, and finally started.
That was close.
Back at the trail head it turns out I had the perfect 8mm bolt to keep a flopping silencer from falling off Jay's XR400, and finally getting geared up we were ready to go. "Go" meant dropping into a steep canyon, clawing our way up the snowy other side (Mattawa is an "open" riding area), and dropping into our target canyon for the "trail" at the bottom. It almost felt like a poor man's Romaniacs or something. The trail consisted of a frozen creek in the bottom of the canyon, good ledge-ups, slippery baby head rocks, and large frozen puddles as we headed for higher country.
Looking down the canyon...
The higher we went the snowier it got until we had to leave the canyon and head back west.... only there wasn't anywhere to leave to! I managed to be the second of only two guys to make the initial snow climb out, crazy stuff. I tended towards the south facing slope and tried to hit every sage brush and rock I could for some traction. My goggles were so fogged up and the hill so steep I had to crane my head and look out a sliver of transparent plastic at the bottom. That was the end of goggles for the day.
The view from above.
[ame="http://vimeo.com/57992742"]Mattawa Snow Climb on Vimeo[/ame]
As the rest of the group searched for a way up this is what greeted me at the top. Yes, there is single-track under there.
Justin (yes another one) was the third guy up, thoroughly overheating his CRF450 in the process. That thing plagued him all day.
CRF Justin makes the climb.
[ame="http://vimeo.com/57992743"]CRF Justin's Attempt at Mattawa on Vimeo[/ame]
Getting some "turns" in...
Big guy Joah manhandling an old XR600 up through the deep stuff. He made it look like a 125.
Interestingly, Jay on his old XR400 with MX knobbies on just killed all these climbs. He's a great rider but it looked like he was on a chair lift. My buddy James had pulled the classic "I'll just get one more ride out of these tires" move and was flailing, to say the least.
We headed west towards the river on top of the ridgeline and it got a bit surreal. I was fine as long as I wasn't on the roads, which were 4 - 6" of snow on top of ice. I had my first good off as I came around the corner of a big radio tower and ate it in a big cloud of powder. Totally felt like I'd just been thrown off a snowmobile (or "sled", as they're called up here).
The big snow angel is from my face plant.
Jay on the XR400 came drifting around the corner like it was nothing. Too bad the sun was behind him.
You can come up with a caption but I think it went something like this:
Ron: Dudes, this is crazy, what the heck are we doing out here???
Joah: Man if you made an XR600 look this good, you'd be out here too!
Unfortunately just as we reached the top the fog blew in... but somewhere down there is the Columbia River. Only 1000 feet in X and a 1000 in Y
It felt a little Arctic up there.
Above the River.
[ame="http://vimeo.com/57992746"]Above the River - Mattawa on Vimeo[/ame]
Meanwhile, we'd lost about half our group who couldn't claw their way up. We figured we'd better go see what was going on, and we found Jay loaning his XR400 to the others (KTM350EXC... KTM450EXC...
) so they could climb the hills. Needless to say I'm not going to let James forget that one any time soon.
Humble KTM rider.
[ame="http://vimeo.com/57992744"]James trades his KTM for an XR400 on Vimeo[/ame]
Having had enough of snow, we dropped back into the Erzberg/Romaniacs canyon and I just had a ball. Loved the stuff.
My new Motosportz damper got a workout for sure.
We ran back through the trailhead and after a healthy dose of Eastern Washington whoops headed up another promising looking canyon towards the river. It got gnarly pretty quickly and claimed it's first rider, Ron on a brand new, shiny KTM500EXC. Joah helped him pick it up and then Ron slipped or Joah dumped it on him... Ouchy...
There was some trepidation but the rest of us made it without too much drama.
Jay made it look easy.
[ame="http://vimeo.com/57992747"]Jay on the XR in Mattawa on Vimeo[/ame]
Shiny 500EXC not as shiny any more.... but still pretty shiny.
The thing about going UP the canyon meant that we were gaining altitude again. Meaning that we were soon to be back in the snow. At this point myself, my buddy James, and Ron on the 500EXC are thinking to ourselves...
... selves, if we go down there, we may never claw our way back out...
But claw we did... there are two, maybe three bikes in this picture, two of which are being picked up from taking diggers. Most people who ride in this crap have four wheels or two skis and a track. We weren't that smart.
Ron and I starting to think maybe we'd had enough.
Jeff after redlining his heart rate and calling it quits. Dunlop D606s are way too hard for this stuff.
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And one you Texas guys might get a kick out of.
Time to get the heck out of there. After some serious slip-n-slide on an icy road (I took a good digger and tweaked my bars) we dropped elevation and found softer snow.
Pretty big country out there.
Git'n out of Dodge (while trying not to kill ourselves).
After changing out my wet socks James and I did one more little loop as the sun set below the fog bank.
Vamanos!
James and I loaded bikes and headed for an old high-school buddy's house in Kennewick as evening approached. Dropping down towards the river we drove into a bunch of freezing fog. Visibility dropped to the point where we could literally see two of the dashed lines in front of the truck, and that was it. Ugh...
After about an hour of that we popped out and made it to Kennewick. James lasted until 8:00 PM before going completely out, although he was unconscious on his feet for an hour before that. I made it to 9:00.
The next morning (New Year's Eve) we beat feet south, dreading that we'd be on snow and ice for hours like the day before. Crossing at Hermiston we passed the massive
Umatilla Chemical Depot, with miles and miles of bunkers. Agent Mulder would have a field day out there. A short bit further and we stopped for a great breakfast in a little town called Boardman along the Columbia River. It was still a bit chilly out, with patches of freezing fog...
In the diner there were pictures along the walls of a very large school and lots of potato fields that were submerged by the
John Day Dam in the mid-1960s. They burned the school before the river took it.
Dropping down to the river. Lots of history under that water.
Thankfully, *huge* thanks actually, the trip home was much better than the one heading out.
After a much easier cruise we made it home, safe and sound from Snowpacalype 2013! I think we punched our man cards on that one, most people would have gotten out of bed and said "nah.... no way". Not exactly sure if that means we're cool cats or just slower than most...
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I was going to pay to get some good carma. One can only wave at so many cows. Back thru the forest on 149 to 105 to 2854 to 336 to I-45 and home. 
