Dirt Bikes and ATVs and Lots of Fun
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 Miscellaneous Riding PicsJust some extras I had laying around from trip where we didn't take enough pictures to make a separate folder for that ride. |  Memorable MomentsThis folder spans our entire experience of off-road adventures, and a couple of on-road ones too. Lots of memories in here, and lots of striking, piognant, or just interesting pictures. | |
 Wallace ATV Jamboree - July 2011Made the trip to Wallace, ID for the annual ATV Jamboree put on by the folks of High Mountain ATV Club. It's a pretty good deal. $115 gets you club membership, access to the guided rides for 6 days, participation in the rodeo and raffles and such, a ticket for a free steak dinner on Saturday night, and two tickets for free breakfasts on Friday and Saturday morning. Plus a T-shirt. |  Nicolai Mt - July 2011Brought Graig and Dad to Nicolai Mountain. It's a beautiful place with lots of trails of varying difficulty levels. Great fun! | |
 Green Dots - June 18 and 19, 2011Met up with John from Dirt Church ATV and his sister Tammy. This was her first trip on her brand new ATV. Dozens of miles of volcanic rock and chilly wind is not a normal noob break-in environment, but she is a tough cookie with a long history, and she hit it with her best shot... |  Conconully, WA - Memorial Weekend 2011Just can't get enough of this place. We went on some familiar trails and service roads, picked up a couple of new ones via a guide, and found some new ones for ourselves. Love it! | |
 Oregon Dunes, February 19th, 2011This is the Winchester Bay area of the Oregon Dunes Recreation Area. It features Banshee Hill, the largest dunes in the area, and a fair variety of sand riding. There are whopping huge dunes, smooth curved slip faces, trails among the trees, hill climbs large and small, and some flat areas for speed runs. |  Cle Elum, June 20th 2010First time showing Eugene and Graig the cool smooth volcanic rock to be found at Buck Meadows. It was a good, but fairly short ride. Lost a lot of time getting there due to Father's Day crowd at breakfast. | |
 Conconully - 05-22 and 23, 2010A return visit to Conconully, first time for Graig. Eugene mastered his acrophobia and climbed the lookout tower. We love the place. I wonder how much a cabin would cost... |  | |
 Ahtanum - 06-21-2009Checked out the Ahtanum riding area. Great views of Mt Raininer and Mt Adams. Didn't see a lot of "trails", mostly service roads - but maybe we didn't know where to look. It was a good trip, and it's always interesting to go new places, but there's not much here I can't do closer to home. |  Green Dots - 2009-06-14More Green Dot riding near Vantage, this time with Graig, Mike, Ryan, and Glenn. First time for this combination of people. It was a really good run. We did about a 55-mile loop. Nobody crashed, got a flat tire, was terribly uncomfortable due to heat or cold, etc. We got up close and personal with a windmill, and watched a thunderstorm from afar with a bit of apprehension - but the storm wasn't interested in us, and it was all good. | |
 2009-06-06_ReiterPitReiterPit - 2009-06-06 - Took Eugene's brother-in-law ATV riding for his birthday. We rented an ATV from ATV Action Tours (www.atvactiontours.com) for the occasion to get the right size ATV with the right capabilities for him. It worked out great! The weather kinda sucked, but all in all it was a fun day. |  Conconully - 05-23 and 24, 2009Took my brother and wife to Conconully along with Dad this year. We visited some places that were not open to ATVs last year and had a really good time. Beautiful scenery and great riding. Not too challenging or bumpy, not dull either. | |
 Oregon Sand Dunes - 05-01-2009On May 1st, we headed down to Coos Bay, Oregon, to check out the famous Oregon Dunes Recreation Area. We'd heard such marvelous things about it, but we were somewhat skeptical. Still, even if we only went once, we had to know. So Eugene, Graig, Dad and I loaded up our gear and hit the road. |  Reiter Pit - 03-08-2009Took my brother Glenn riding for the first time. He picked it right up and did some stuff that is pretty hard for a noob. He'll most likely be ridng with us again! | |
 Reiter Pit - 2009-12-21Cody's second trip out on ATVs. He kicked ass and took names. Oh, and less than 100ft from the parking lot on the way back, after nearly 4 hours of successful riding, he nearly killed himself and nearly dropped his ATV down a 50-foot ravine. Nearly. Oh well, you win some and you lose some. |  Reiter Pit - 12-20-2008There was about a foot of light powdery snow at Reiter today. Just enough to have a lot of fun and still allow our ATVs to get around. One guy who joined us during the ride turned back when we headed for high ground and the snow started getting deeper. When the wind picked up, we got the hell out of there. Brrr! | |
 |  Green Dots 09-07-2008Another overnight Green Dots run. Of course, we had our share of problems this time too, but we just didn't take pictures of it. | |
 Reiter Pit - 08-10-2008Evano came down from Canada, bought the ATV I was selling, and rode with us today. A great time was had by all. |  Reiter Pit - 2008-07-27Got Mike on a quad for the first time, and he kicked ass. Must be all of that snowmobile experience, ATVs ride sort of like snowmobiles. He did crash a couple of times though. I call it initiation. | |
 Conconully Trip with the NQA crowd - 2008-05-29/30Conconully is a very nice place to ride. The scenery is amazing in June, there isn't a lot of traffic to worry about, and the service roads connecting the trails are very smooth and well-kept, for some great high-speed riding. The locals are friendly, and you can ride your ATV through town to pick up gas/groceries/etc. |  Reiter Pit with Noobs- 2008-05-24Angel had ridden before, but Kat and Peet had not, and Angela was a passenger. Took the motorhome to Reiter and had a pretty good day. It was more or less a milk run for me, but keeping track of noobs had me just as worn out as them by the time we were done. The MH provided great shade, seating, cold drinks, and sandwich fixings to make us more comfortable. All in all a good riding day. | |
 Bought a motorhome to take on ATV/Camping trips!1990 Tioga 21ft Class C. Two double beds that convert from couch/booth dinette, one queen over the cab. All of the other usual motorhome goodies, plus something extra - a 20" LCD TV and DVD player installed by the previous owner! |  Green Dots at Vantage - 2008-05-04Met up with three guys from the Northwest Quad Assocation (http://www.northwestquad.org) and took the Green Dots by storm! We did a great 45-mile run, and everyone had a blast. We surprised some single-track guys by how fast we were moving, and showed them some good trails. | |
 Reiter Pit - 04-26-2008Dragged Angela along on the back in a "Moose Diplomat" back seat. Well, technically it's a "no passengers" trunk, but nobody is fooled. She had a good time. Next time, we'll try to go somewhere less bouncy - but this was a good proof of concept for ATVing and camping trips. |  Trailer Re-Working - 03-19-2008The trailer that I can tow behind my ATV needed some work to make it useful for hauling rocks/gravel as well as for hauling camping gear. We replaced the axle and suspension, and built a new bed for it. | |
 Reiter Pit - 02-17-2008Steamin and Snowin (and getting stuck in the snow which wasn't as much fun). |  Reiter Pit - 01-13-2008Lotsa deep water to play in! | |
 Reiter Pit - 12-08-2007First trip to Reiter after the big rain storms. Lots of things got washed out. It was pretty treacherous, especially if you went fast because you "knew" those trails - watch out for the 3-foot rut that wasn't there before! |  Beverly Sand Dunes - 11-10-2007Small but decent set of sand dunes near Beverly, WA. Also had some trails that run through trees and mud. Had some deep circles in the sand to really dig in and lean over in. Pretty fun, for sand anyway. | |
 Green Dots at Vantage - 08-31-2007Went on an overnighter with Dad and Eugene. The night riding was challenging and fun. The overheating ATV due to mud caked in the radiator wasn't a lot of fun, and neither was the drowning that occurred when we tried to soak the radiator in the river. Dad's thumb got sprained too. I bent a tie rod, and the trailer tried to kill me when the ramp slipped. All in all it was a good trip, but we'd have liked it a lot more with fewer problems. |  Reiter Pit, 08-26-2007Test run for Dad's new rig. Got all four of us on one ride together - a rare occurence indeed! Went for some good mud bogging as well as seeing the sights. | |
 Reiter Pit, 08-18-2007Started out great, rode some really rough stuff and went to Wallace Falls. On the way back, though, we had an unfortunate accident. |  Cle Elum, Manastash Camp, Buck Meadows, 06-23-2007Found a really great trail called 4W311. Only runs about 7 miles, but awesome riding. | |
 Green Dot Roads near Vantage - 05-05-2007This time we drove down a crazy bumpy dirt road with the truck and unloaded near the edge of "known space" to explore further out. Found a great section of trail by the river, but it's terribly bumpy on the way there - not sure if it's worth going there again. |  Green Dot Roads near Vantage - 04-15-2007Another marathon run at Vantage. Met up with Bob at Vantage, and the three of us headed out. Bob took a nasty spill and got hurt, unfortunately. Cracked two ribs and got bruised up quite a bit. Get well quickly, Bob! | |
 Green Dot Roads near Vantage - 04-07-2007This time we put in 72 miles in one day. We found that the Prairie switched over to reserve at about 70 miles, and the Brute Force was on its last fuel bar and was flashing, but made it back to the truck - so they probably have about the same range. They both had gas left when they got back to the truck. (We were also carrying 2-gallon gas cans). |  West YellowStone - 02-16-2007Week-long snowmobiling trip to West Yellowstone with Mike and friends. Had some good times, had some less than good times. Overall it was a good experience. | |
 Sugar Loaf - 01-09-2007Went snowmobiling with Mike to a place called Sugar Loaf Lookout - a tiny cabin at the peak of a windy snowy mountain, where people watch for forest fires. |  Reiter Pit - 12-17-2006Not many other people around when it's this cold. Very peaceful. | |
 Reiter Pit - 12-02-2006Snow and ice! Cold, but fun. Brrr! |  Reiter Pit - 10-07-2006Got my dad out riding ATVs with me. He picked it right up, despite never riding one before. Beats the hell out of fishing! | |
 Mad River - 09-16-2006 and 09-17-2006Mad River has a great variety of terrain, from easy to extremely hard. You can go from wide open flat trails of smooth dirt to rocky twisty trails where you can barely make out the path, to snowy muddy trails in just a few miles. |  Cle Elum - 08-13-2006The Manastash Campground and Riders Campground are an excellent jumping-off point for many different types of riding. You've got some twisty narrow ATV trail, some steep bumpy jeep trail, and some gentle rolling service road stuff all nearby. | |
 Reiter Pit - 07-22-2006Fresh meat! Today we introduced Jeff to the world of ATV torture. Index Wall again. |  Grant County ORV Area (Moses Lake Sand Dunes)We got lucky - it had just rained, but wasn't actively raining. There was a cloud cover when we arrived, and we got to check things out in excellent conditions. The sun came out a few hours later, and we left before getting burnt to a crisp. | |
 Reiter Pit - 05-07-2006Oh, the joys of warm weather and lots of mud. This time the damage to the vehicles was more severe, but nobody got hurt. |  Reiter Pit - 04-30-2006Our favorite standby, Reiter Pit. We went to the Index Wall and to Wallace Falls that day, sustaining only minor injuries and damage to the vehicles. | |
 Green Dots - 04-23-2006Back to the Green Dots, this time with Shoggoth in tow. Can't get enough of this place. This time we covered 60 miles, surprising ourselves with the range of the ATVs. |  Dirty Poker Run - 04-22-2006Decided to try another desert poker run, less well-known and not as far away. The weather was beautiful, the terrain was passable, if a bit sandy, and it was definitely less crowded. | |
 Desert 100 Iron Man Poker Run - 04-08-2006The long-awaited Desert 100. Turned out to be a bit of a disappointment, mainly due to overcrowding and bad weather.Still got some good pictures, and had a bit of fun. |  Green Dot Trail System - 04-02-2006We came back to the Green Dots on ATVs. It was just as much fun on ATVs as on bikes. | |
 Green Dot Trail System - 03-25-2006Looking forward to the Desert 100, I hooked up with some guys to do some desert riding in a place called the Green Dots - where the elk roam free. There are some great dirt roads leading all over the place. A surprising variety of riding conditions, considering how uniform the terrain looks from a distance. |  Walker Valley Log-Cutting Expedition - 03-12-2006The day after a ride where we had to turn back several times due to trees across the trail, Frognog and I decided to bring a chainsaw to bear and help clear the trails. | |
 Reiter Pit on ATVs - 02-2006This was actually a combination of two trips, and a combination of dirt bikes and ATVs. It was still damned cold, as evidenced by the ice floating on the mud puddles. Frognog was discovering the joy of half-burying the ATV in the mud. Shoggoth was discovering the joy of riding an ATV. Period. |  Reiter Pit - 12-18-2005It was mid-December. The weather was clear and damned cold. We were both very new to dirt biking. Our years of street bike experience helped some, but there were some things we weren't ready for - like kick-starting a stubborn high-compression engine on a hill covered with loose rocks and dirt. | |