Not long ago, I blogged about a trip along the Idaho Backcountry Discovery Route - a published string of mostly unpaved roads and Jeep trails, extending completely across Idaho, south to north. Even though a slower than expected pace meant my friend Dan and I only made it half way to Canada, I enjoyed it so much that I decided I should try another of the BDRs with another friend, Jonathan.
Besides a different state, the biggest difference on this trip would be that rather than bringing his own motorcycle, Jonathan would be riding shotgun - in the Ural's sidecar! It would be the longest ride, by far, that I had given to date, and the first one that involved more than a few hundred feet off pavement. Yes, I actually found someone willing to give my Russian steed the ultimate test!
The plan was to meet up with Jonathan at a friend's house just outside of Vancouver, WA, which is just across the Columbia from Portland, OR. That meant about 100 miles of solo riding for me, and nearly 200 from the Seattle area for him. I took this picture at the first stop - a gas station, just over the coast range from my home. New for this trip was a windshield for the "tub" that I hoped would makes things a bit more pleasant for the occupant - so did Jonathan!
Due to personal and professional constraints, we only had two days for this trip - but perhaps that was for the best. I knew the Ural was supposedly designed to handle the rigors of off-roading, fully loaded, but until you try it yourself, you don't really know. And could anyone but a toughened homesteader, traveling by wagon across the Oregon Trail, endure the beating that would almost certainly be an inescapable part of such a three-wheeled journey? We were about to find that out as well.
So far so good. He looks so happy and confident! But we haven't even left the curb in front of his friends' house yet. The relative comfort of his little pick-up truck was still only steps away. Ahh, the bliss of ignorance.
We'd met up very near the lunch hour, so first on the list was a good meal. Not sure what we'd find once we started up the "trail" we figured we'd better make it a good one. About an hour's ride up river we found the El Rio Cafe in Stevenson, WA. Wisely, we'd agreed to split a burrito - it was enormous! We didn't want to stuff ourselves completely, right before the bouncing began, and we were anxious to get moving again.
About ten miles from lunch, we left the pavement near the small town of Carson. Jonathan had brought his GPS with the "track" of the BDR uploaded. To our surprise, its suction cup mounted securely to the sidecar's curved windscreen! Of course, I had brought the official paper map, and between the two, I figured we could follow the prescribed route, well enough.
The entire Washington Backcountry Discovery Route, from Oregon to Canada, is about 600 miles, divided into eleven sections. As I said, we only had two days, and could reasonably hope to complete about a section and a half. If the roads were all like the one you see here, we might finish the first three! But the Idaho BDR had taught me that the chance of that was very slim.
So the plan for Day 1 was to keep to the "trail" until we arrived at the first of three possible access routes to the town of Trout Lake, where we had reservations for the night. At that time, we'd decide if we could make it to the second access point, and so on.
Then we encountered our first pothole. I nimbly swung the rig over to the left, just barely wetting the sidecar's tire. Glancing to the right, I was relieved to see that Jonathan had remained inside the rather low-walled tub - and was not sprawled out in the puddle, now behind us! Probably should have aimed for that one to pass between our two wheel tracks.
After a short section of paved backroad, the GPS (and my map agreed) had us turning off onto a narrow lane, littered with recently fallen leaves. It looked like a dead-end spur, rather than a through-route, but it was a fun and beautiful one, so we motored on.
Before long, the foliage closed in, the road surface got wetter, and we encountered a puddle that was too big to straddle or go around. The Ural was designed for this, right? Up periscope!
Around the next corner, however, the mud holes only multiplied. This was more than we'd bargained for. If the GPS didn't show that we were still on track, I'd certainly have turned around. Oh, the Ural was handling the mud just fine - superbly, in fact! And my monkey (a long-used term for sidecar occupants) seemed to be putting up with it well enough. But if we were going to make it to our hotel before dark, things would have to improve, and soon.
But things did not improve - they got worse! By this time however, we were having so much fun that worries about making it to Trout Lake had all but sunk in the mire. Jonathan began raising his arms high into the air before we plunged into each hole, as though he was on an amusement park log flume ride. And rather than creeping through as gently as possible, I began twisting the throttle more, to see just how much splash we could make!
Eventually though, we joined up with a better road that took us up and out of the lowlands - and we began to climb. We climbed, and climbed, and climbed - until a familiar concern from my last trip began to rear its head. But this time, I found a good spot to pull over, before the engine overheat light came on. I'm slowly learning to deal with the Ural on its own terms.
It was the first real view we'd had since leaving the river, so we both got out and stretched our legs a bit. It was looking like we'd only get to that first access route to Trout Lake, but we were having a blast! The bike was doing great, and Jonathan reported that the ride in the car was not as rough as he had thought it might be.
Ahead, however, the road seemed to narrow again, but this time, we'd be climbing steeply to Triangle Pass. Rather than sloshing around in the puddles, this next part would likely be rutted and rocky. We'd gone through a couple of tricky spots, just before stopping here, and the Ural's relatively low horse-power, but high torque had just kept chugging along. According to the map, the next few miles could be the toughest test yet of the little apposed-cylinder twin.
Break's over. Let's see if we can get all this iron up and over the mountain - without having to get out and push!