6 Wheels North: Muddy Rock & Rocky Pavement

 

Dan and I were both up before 6:00.  This would be the most significant and likely the most challenging day of the trip.  If all went according to plan, we would reach our journey's farthest north point before dark--ideally by supper time.  Floyd had promised me a meal at his Grand Slam Lodge, which would include fish caught right there on Reindeer Lake.  And I certainly didn't want to miss it!

We departed the Sasagiu Rapids Lodge just after 7:00 for an easy, nicely paved 45 miles into the small city of Thompson--population around 13,000.  "Not much of a city," you might say.  But it's the largest place in northern Manitoba.

We stopped there for gas, of course!  I should have taken a photo, as it was the first station we'd patronized in a while with below-ground tanks.  But I didn't think of it.  In two days (we hoped) we'd be back in the "city" to spend a night in the large, modern hotel I'd rebooked while we were at the Fir River Ranch.  But at this point, that seemed far off in the future.

Just a few miles outside of town, we passed the junction with Route 280.  That's the road I'd ridden 11 years ago to Gillam, where I'd boarded the train to Churchill.  Back then, it was nearly 200 miles of often very loose or muddy gravel.

"Surely 391 will be better," I thought.

For 50 miles, 391 headed mostly west--and was supposed to be paved.  There were so many long, broken sections, however, that it may have been only 75% blacktop at best.  On the plus side, most of the gravel patches were marked with these orange triangles--so you could slow down a bit.

This one looks pretty good, but many were much rougher.  It's also nicely moistened, but many were extremely dusty.  That's why I've let Dan get way up ahead of me.  But I think I see him--just before the horizon, near the outside edge of his lane.  You might have to zoom in.

Here we're together again for a break in a road rock stockpile site.  Looks like Dan's adjusting the rain cover on his primary overnight bag.  When we'd checked the weather forecast again before leaving that morning, it had seemed certain that we'd get at least one good shower.  But so far, as you've been able to see, there was hardly a cloud in the sky.  Of course, the surest way to bring the rain would be to take off the cover and stash it away.  Dan knows this and is not about to make such a rookie mistake!

My big yellow bag is completely rubberized and waterproof.  And the black toolbox is heavy, thick plastic.  My small tank bag came with a nice little cover, but it's easy to quickly deploy when necessary.  I was as ready for the wet stuff as I was going to get.

But making a quick check of all my gear, I noticed that my emergency drinking water holster had partially detached and was resting down on the rear swingarm.  Deciding not to attempt to fix the mounting system on the road, I opted to simply strap the leather pack and its contents behind the top of the toolbox.  Sure, the water would get warmer up there in the sun, but it would be more secure than anything I could quickly rig up down below.  Maybe I'd mess with it again later, after we'd completed the worst of the roads.

That's where it used to hang--under the back left edge of the seat, in front of the gas jug.  It had been there my entire trip to Oregon and back last year, in fact.  But it wasn't up to the challenge of northern Manitoba.

This is the bridge over Footprint River--about six miles into the first of two 60-mile stretches of gravel we had to tackle that day.  The bridge and both approaches were paved though.

The road was still trending west here, so this view is looking north.  In that direction, my map only shows two tiny villages between this point and Manitoba's border with the extremely remote territory of Nunavut--300 miles distant.  As Dorothy told Toto, we weren't in Kansas anymore!

Before you move on, check out the road behind me in the mirror.  Not bad positioning, no?

To the south, for reference, the proverbial crow would have to fly nearly 600 miles to get back to North Dakota!  Yes, the Keystone Province, as it's called, is rather large.

Dan caught up and passed me when I was taking pictures in this roadcut.  It was obvious that we were gradually descending to something.

Soon, I pulled over at a large body of water that I later identified as Wapisu Lake.

The excellent condition of the road surface was an indication that there was more down here than just another one of countless lakes.  But the next town on my map was still 50 miles away.

Only a couple of turns later, I rolled onto pristine pavement and spotted Dan parked on the shoulder up ahead.  Following suit, I joined him for a stroll along the guardrail to check out the dam...

And reached for my camera, of course.  A bit of post-trip research revealed that the lake behind the trikes in this photo is Notigi.  The dam joins the two and was planned to provide hydropower--but so far (as near as I can tell) does not.  It seems that just about all the water in northern Manitoba is connected somehow to either the Churchill River system or the Nelson--or both.  It's confusing.

But it's beautiful, don't you think?

Climbing away from the lakes, however, we entered one of the more recent burn areas.  Oh, the blacktop had ended again, right after the dam.

All had not been completely consumed here, but the trees did not look good.  I don't think any of these will make it.

Once the road swung to the north, its condition deteriorated rapidly.  At least here, there's a relatively firm and smooth spot near the middle.

That broken up and mucky stuff there is not something you want to hit at any real speed.  And yet, we sometimes did.

The worst of it could get the Ryker high-centered.  There's not much vertical clearance between those two front wheels.  And when the rear wheel hits a large bump or drops into a hole--a painfully large part of that energy is transmitted to the lower back.

I think it was somewhere near here (within the last 15 miles of that first 60-mile unpaved stretch) that we encountered a white SUV heading south.  The driver slowed way down and stopped, like he wanted to talk--so we did the same.  It soon became clear that he'd been expecting to see two men on motorcycles heading north that day.  The man and his wife were friends of Floyd's!  He'd told them that we were on our way to Kinoosao.  For their part, they were returning to Thompson after leading a church service somewhere along the route.  Could I make this up if I tried?  I suppose I could--but either way, it's pretty unbelievable.

After the initial 50 miles of pavement--then the 60 miles of gravel--the asphalt resumed at the junction with the road to Granville Lake.  Saving that community for another time, we continued on 391 toward Leaf Rapids (25 miles away).  In my pre-trip research, I'd discovered that there was a CO-OP fuel pump there.  I knew that the store across the street was closed on Sundays, but I'd called to confirm that we could get gas with a credit card--24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Besides the blacktop, the first thing I noticed on this stretch was the wide firebreak.  All the trees near the road had been piled up, and the rest of the vegetation scraped clean off--presumably to make it harder for a wildfire to jump over the highway.  This was completely understandable, as when we'd left home, the road east from Leaf Rapids to South Indian Lake was still closed due to smoke.  But we weren't going that way.  Still, it was a little too close for complete comfort.  Then again, these trips have never been about comfort.

If you did the math right, you came up with 135 total miles from Thompson to these pumps at Leaf Rapids.  That's well below the Ryker's range, but we knew the next stretch was another 65.  Two hundred miles would be more than either of us had ever gone on a tank before, so we didn't want to chance that if we didn't have to.  True, we each still had extra fuel in our red jugs, but that was ideally for emergencies only--like if the next gas station was closed, or simply out of fuel.  That's happened to me before.

In short, though not desperate, we were really hoping to be able to fill up here.  I stepped inside that glass-walled phone booth-looking enclosure and began what I'd read online was a lengthy and somewhat complicated procedure.  I knew I'd have to run my card, scroll through some "training" screens, get a code, scan my card again, type in the code, and tell the machine which pump I wanted to turn on.  At least that's what I thought I remembered.

I tried my preferred card, received the training, got the code, input the code--but it was rejected.  Thinking I knew what I'd done wrong, I did it all again.  But again, it failed.  So I tried a different card--with the same frustrating result.

Dan's turn.  But while he was in the booth, a guy in a van showed up!  After Dan's first fail, we both watched the local do it.  But he had a CO-OP card, so his process was much simpler.  He left with a full tank of gas.  Ours were still two-thirds empty.

Dan entered the booth for his second attempt.

6 Wheels North: Lodge Between the Lakes

 

When I left you last (figuratively), Dan and I had just pulled up to a very isolated pump with a sign which read, "GAS PUMPS ARE OFFLINE AT THE MOMENT."  This is that same pump.  That white van with the Absolute Petroleum logo gave me hope.  At least someone was working on it.  Another white van (behind the photographer) had the opposite effect.  It was a teenage church group, heading for a remote village to the southeast.  All its passengers were standing around talking to each other.  And it seemed like they'd been doing that for a while.

I strode into the store, trying not to be too discouraged.  "We might be able to make it to the next station," I thought.  "We might not."

When the customer already at the counter finished her transaction, the woman behind it read my mind.  "You wanting some gas?  It should be back on now."

Turns out, all the power had been out in Wabowden for quite some time--and we'd pulled up just as things were getting back online!  In the above photo, Dan is filling his tank for the last time that day.  Our accommodations for the night were less than an hour up the road.

We pulled up to the store to pay, where we heard that the electric company had cut off the current on purpose--a precaution having to do with a wildfire near the line somewhere.  We knew fires had been a big problem in northern Manitoba for the last few weeks.  In fact, one of the towns we were heading for had been evacuated for a time.  But I hadn't considered the possibility of fires that weren't even that close affecting our ability to get gas.

Shortly after 5:00, we found the Sasagiu Rapids Lodge right where it was supposed to be--near the south end of the bridge between Setting Lake and Brostrom Lake.  It looked vacant.

The sandwich board in front of the double doors read, "HOTEL OPEN INFO CAL."  After the phone number, "CLOSED TO UBLIC" was added.

Those first two words were encouraging.  The rest of it, not so much.  Before getting out a phone, we idled over to the water side of the building--where you could see that blue truck parked in the previous photo.

There, we met one of the two men I'd corresponded with when I'd made the reservation months before.  He directed us to the motel-style room behind my Ryker.  The blue side-by-side is blocking your view of our door.

"The restaurant opens at 6:00," he assured us.  "You can access it through the inside hallway."

That gave us most of an hour to unload, unpack, and change clothes--perfect!

The view of the water from the parking lot was impressive, and we thought we might be able to get even closer.  But that could wait.  After riding a bit over 300 miles, 75 of it unpaved, we were ready to take our boots off. 

We walked down the hall just before 6:00--wanting to beat the rush.  The rooms are to the left, past the picture that appears to have multiple frames (underneath the red smoke alarm).  The main entrance is to the right.  The dining room is behind the photographer.  The place still looked vacant.  Perhaps winter is their busy season.

We had plenty of seating options...

So, I chose the window table with the best view--of course!  The friendly waitress came quickly and took our orders.  I can't recall what Dan had, but I picked the open-faced hot beef sandwich with mashed potatoes.  Over the course of our meal, we saw a couple other guests, but they didn't sit down.

As we were finishing up, the guy who'd checked us in passed through the lobby.  I think his name is Steve.  To save time in the morning, we asked if we could pay for our room.  He offered to add the food to the ticket as well and take care of it all together.  As that was being accomplished, it came up that our next stop was the Grand Slam Lodge on Reindeer Lake.

"Oh, you've talked with Floyd then!" Steve lit up.  "He's a great a guy--been a fixture up there forever."

"After our phone conversations," I said, "I'm certainly looking forward to meeting him."

"Well, he'll treat you right.  Be sure and tell him Steve said hi!"

After dinner, we found the trail Steve had told us about and carefully descended to the water's edge.  This is the downstream end of the Sasagiu Rapids.  The clouds that had formed earlier in the afternoon had returned--but still not produced any rain.

Just upstream was the highway bridge we would cross in the morning.  It's tough to see in this photo, but it's there.  I'd crossed it 11 years ago and seen the torrent from above, but not from this angle.

The sky looked somewhat better to the northeast.  Unfortunately, we'd be heading northwest.  Still, the official forecast wasn't bad.  But we had 120 miles of gravel to negotiate the next day--and the same 120 (in the opposite direction) the day after that.  I hoped it didn't rain too much.

But back to the present--wouldn't it be fun to take a boat out to that island and have a look around?  Something for next time.

After returning from the lake, we did some work on the trikes.  I added some oil to my engine, and then Dan discovered that one of his gas cans was leaking.  The problem spot appeared to be in the center, where it mounted to the rack.  He was able to pour half of it into his tank, getting the level of the remaining fuel below the crack.  Problem solved--as long as he didn't need that half a gallon later.

When the work was all done, we took another short walk--to the other end of the property.  Evidently, an RV park (of sorts) is also part of Steve's business plan.  In fact, there seemed to be more people staying out here than inside the lodge.

Back in our room, I called Kim to deliver a report of the day's progress, then discussed the next day's plan with Dan.  Total mileage would only be around 300 again, but I've already told you about all the gravel--and the uncertainty of its condition.  Our light was out by 10:30.