liv2day
Platinum Level Site Supporter
I hadn't ridden in the Tillamook State Forest (Oregon) since before Snowmeggedan '14 and boy was I glad to get back out and hit the trails. Shotgun Creek is fun and a nice change of pace, but nothing compares to what we have access to in the coast range. Our Motley Crew of 7 riders included 3 orange 2Ts, 1 KDX, a couple of 250/Xs, and me on the GG.
We geared up and headed out of Diamond Mill staging. I don't know if the first set of trails have names, but we ripped through those and had a good time making our way to the road that splits off and heads NW. One of the guys started things off proper by letting himself get filmed doing his best impression of the handle bar hurdle after clipping a rather nasty section of hidden stump. All was good and we kept making our way to one of the entrances of Elk Wallow - which I don't think I've done before.
We made our way to one entrance of Truck Dent and I thought we were heading up, but bombed the other direction and continued northwest. I'm not sure of the trail name, but it was fun single track that went up, down, and around (lol). I figured out where we were when we dropped down to a ledge running along the hill and knew were going to pop out at Diamond Mill Ridge - perfect. We stopped to clear some windfall along the way and started what would be the 1st of several attempts to keep air in one TT rear.
Diamond Mill Ridge is such a blast, we bombed the length of it and then took Cramlet's Cliff over to check out the new section of DC. Talk about a giant improvement, much more fun down to the 2nd part of the trail than the slip-n-slide original. Aside from one small gravity check on DC (note - it still works), everyone enjoyed the single track and popped out the other side
We continued west and did another no-named trail (part of Frankenstein?) so we could skip some logging road and then head over to Reid's Ridge. 2nd time up this trail and it's a ton of fun if you can get past a few of the root steps...lol. Unfortunately, as we were waiting for everyone to get to the "top", someone noticed a small pool of fluid from one of the bikes...not good. Figured out the problem, but now the question was how much oil was left in the tranny. A quick drain of engine oil into a baggie (ahh...MacGyver in the woods) and we were off with the hope that gears weren't eating themselves on the trusty steed.
I have no idea where we went after exiting Reid's Ridge; but it was slick arse clay with more root steps thrown in for fun...lol. I managed to chose the wrong fork at one point and found myself in a hip-deep rut. Typical traffic back-up ensued, then we were on our way again and when we finally left the clay, we managed to come out somewhere north of Muesial Creek (at least, I think so...lol). Our luck turned as we flagged down a truck leading a tow-truck (not good) to their disabled rig and they had some oil, so we filled the bike up and decided to keep motoring.
We geared up and headed out of Diamond Mill staging. I don't know if the first set of trails have names, but we ripped through those and had a good time making our way to the road that splits off and heads NW. One of the guys started things off proper by letting himself get filmed doing his best impression of the handle bar hurdle after clipping a rather nasty section of hidden stump. All was good and we kept making our way to one of the entrances of Elk Wallow - which I don't think I've done before.
We made our way to one entrance of Truck Dent and I thought we were heading up, but bombed the other direction and continued northwest. I'm not sure of the trail name, but it was fun single track that went up, down, and around (lol). I figured out where we were when we dropped down to a ledge running along the hill and knew were going to pop out at Diamond Mill Ridge - perfect. We stopped to clear some windfall along the way and started what would be the 1st of several attempts to keep air in one TT rear.
Diamond Mill Ridge is such a blast, we bombed the length of it and then took Cramlet's Cliff over to check out the new section of DC. Talk about a giant improvement, much more fun down to the 2nd part of the trail than the slip-n-slide original. Aside from one small gravity check on DC (note - it still works), everyone enjoyed the single track and popped out the other side
We continued west and did another no-named trail (part of Frankenstein?) so we could skip some logging road and then head over to Reid's Ridge. 2nd time up this trail and it's a ton of fun if you can get past a few of the root steps...lol. Unfortunately, as we were waiting for everyone to get to the "top", someone noticed a small pool of fluid from one of the bikes...not good. Figured out the problem, but now the question was how much oil was left in the tranny. A quick drain of engine oil into a baggie (ahh...MacGyver in the woods) and we were off with the hope that gears weren't eating themselves on the trusty steed.
I have no idea where we went after exiting Reid's Ridge; but it was slick arse clay with more root steps thrown in for fun...lol. I managed to chose the wrong fork at one point and found myself in a hip-deep rut. Typical traffic back-up ensued, then we were on our way again and when we finally left the clay, we managed to come out somewhere north of Muesial Creek (at least, I think so...lol). Our luck turned as we flagged down a truck leading a tow-truck (not good) to their disabled rig and they had some oil, so we filled the bike up and decided to keep motoring.
Another buddy had to come and help us extract the bike from it's off-trail excursion, but everyone was a-ok and we continued on.
