Riding in the Forests of Oregon

We've been traveling for the summer and have had plenty of great adventures. Before I begin developing our web page to document the entire trip, I thought I'd pass along a short sampling for our ATV friends. We spent a week at Diamond Lake (near Crater Lake) and rode a little in the Cascade Mountains. The scenery is spectacular (when you can see it through the trees). However, in the "forest primeval" you have to contend with deadfall (fallen trees) that are sometimes impossible to get around because of the thick undergrowth. The main tails are kept open, but on the "roads less traveled" you're on your own.

We had been climbing over a number of small logs, but Patty hesitated on one and got high centered. Even with diff-lock on, neither front nor rear tires could get a bite. Bob was ecstatic at the thought of a "winching opportunity" and we easily retreived the stuck machine. We didn't get another 100 feet, though, before we were stopped by much bigger fallen logs. Getting back over our previous obsticle was a tad tougher this time since we were approaching it from the downhill side. It would take a little more "bounce" to get (850 pounds of vehicle & rider) over it this time. Patty recorded the action and the resulting video looks kind of neat. If you have a high speed connection you can see it at this (18mb) link. (Note: this AVI file doesn't want to play in Quicktime. I had to change the Video Clip application handler in my Firefox web browser to use Windows Media Player.)

Another time, on a narrow trail with a cliff going steply up on one side and steeply down on the other, we ran into a bunch of cows blocking the trail. Cows are so STUPID! We took turns trying to herd them out of our way but a small contingent of them just kept going forward in front of us. It must have taken a mile or more for us to finally get past them.

We normally do our riding in a desert environment. We also learned that riding in a forest environment brings out the mosquitos when you stop for lunch.