This past weekend, a few friends of ours from here in Montana, Idaho and Washington got together in Wallace, ID for our "End of Summer" ride.
Wallace has been ranked in the top 3 places in the US to ride ATV's by Dirt Wheels magazine. Wallace is an old mining town in the panhandle of Idaho. Other than mining, Wallace was probably best known for its red light district, which was officially unofficially open until the 1980's (the local law looked the other way).
Anyway, we were hoping we'd be riding over to Montana, following the old Milwaukee Road "Hiawatha Route", but it didn't happen this year. Instead, we went rode from Wallace, to the gold mining town of Murray, ID and back to Wallace. We did about 75 miles in total with maybe 10-15 miles riding on paved highways. This ride had some of the best scenery I've ever seen...... anywhere. We rode through Ponderosa Pine, Cedar groves, through creeks and shallow rivers, etc.
I'm disappointed that I didn't get any action shots of us riding :roll: However, most everybody else on the ride did other photos, so when I get my hands on them, if they're any good, I'll post them up.
The day (Saturday) didn't get off to a good start. I woke up at 4AM to the sound of rain slamming into the roof of our RV. But, by the time we went riding, it had quit. The plus side was there wasn't any dust on the ride!
Various shots from our 1st rest stop
Our 2nd rest stop on Earl's memorial trail
Earl was a long time member of a local club in Wallace and when he passed away, they named a trail in his honor and spread his ashes on the trail. The only scenery pic I tried to get didn't turn out too great. It was just too foggy
A few hundred yards down the trail from this stop was a old mine shaft that hasn't been closed yet. We didn't go exploring since the person leading the ride said she recently saw very large bear tracks going into it! So, I didn't stop to get any pics.
Here is an old miners cabin, said to have been built in the late 1800's to early 1900's. I thought it was very cool, especially the dovetailed logs. The interior was very sparse. The only thing in there was a table and a bed frame and the remains of a box spring, with the fabric long rotted away.
Down the trail from the old cabin was the entrance to his mine. It was gated off about 10 feet from the entrance. Here's a pic of a couple friends looking into the old shaft
After we left the mining cabin, we went into the old forest I mentioned earlier. It was absolutely beautiful. After we left the old forest, we rode about a mile down the middle of a small, shallow river. My wife was riding behind me and said I ran over a fish and kicked it up in the air with my rear tire
We stopped in Murray, ID for lunch at the Spragpole Bar. Best lunch I've had in a long time. They had a 58oz. steak with all the fixins for $36. Nobody was brave enough to try it, though. They also had full racks of ribs that had to be served on a foil lined cookie sheet. We kicked around buying a rack for dinner, but figured they'd get nasty on the ride home.
That does it for the pics. My camera batteries died after I took the last set of pics. We rode for a couple more hours and headed back to Wallace and the RV park. Everybody came over to our RV after they got cleaned up and my buddy Maurice and his wife Peggy BBQ'd some brats, hot dogs and burgers for dinner :mrgreen:
All in all, we had a great time and rode in some of the best country (for ATV's) around.....
2007 Sportsman 800 efi , L&R tall windshield, Viper Max 4000 lb. winch with 3/16" Amsteel rope by Atv Winch Rope, 25' Amsteel tow rope by Atv Winch Rope, RDC fairlead, RDC deluxe gas cap, RDC shifter, RDC overflow bottle cap, RDC 2" lift , 27" Maxxis bighorns s/w on Vision Outback 12" wheels, Uni air filter, Dalton o/bl primary clutch spring, front and rear brushguard, front and rear rack extensions, and a SanAngelo backrest
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