Friday afternoon we planned to go camp somewhere and ride. Late in the day we decided to go to Greenwater and camp somewhere near Road 70.
We arrived after dark to find all of the spots along the paved portion of road 70 full, even the parking lot at the end of the pavement where the outhouse is located was occupied. As it turned out, there was a crew of workers doing some land clearing and slash pile burning, and they were the ones who camped near the outhouse. We continued up 70 and pulled off in the large clearing to the right, about 2.5 miles up and set up camp.
We watched the steady flow of traffic going over Pyramid Pass heading east - presumably Elk hunters and people using this as an alternate route to get east of the mountains. Highway 410 was closed past the Crystal Mtn cutoff due to a washout caused by flooding on October 21st.
Saturday morning we left camp a little after 10am and decided to hit the Naches Jeep trail. The west end was a little slippery but we fared well and had a good ride.
As we approached the east end, the terrain wasn't quite as wet. We stopped for a break and then Wayde from the Olympia area arrives. We chatted for a few minutes about our route then continued down road 19 until we reached the 941 trailhead. We ripped along at a pretty good pace on 941 then continued down road 19 to 410, then made the required lunch and gas stop at Whistlin' Jacks.
After Lunch we crossed the highway and went up the road and proceeded up trail 966. Once we reached the meadow, we made our way west on the Jeep road, then went up towards Funny Rocks. I attempted to ascend the rocks in the wrong place (where there was a huge "step" in the rock face) and I proceeded to lay to bike over when I realized there was no way I'd make it up the step. The rocks had a fair amount of mud deposited on them from the recent 4x4 traffic, so traction was minimal. Once we righted my bike we continued on to Manastash Lake to find a beautiful few of the lake and the fall colors.
We stopped for a few photos at the lake then continued down 1350 towards Lost Lake, then went right towards Rider's camp. We saw plenty very elaborate hunting camps with large RVs, a plethora of cabin style tents with wood stoves in them, etc. I'm sure the hunters are what keep the blue tarp companies in business as there were blue tarps everywhere. This was opening day of Elk season, so hunters were everywhere.
From riders camp we hit trail ATV 30, and had planned to ride up 1207 to Quartz Mountain. We looked at the time and not wanting to do a repeat episode of the previous weekend's "Lost Riders Ride" we decided it was too late in the day to do the trail so we went up the road to Quartz. We stopped for a few photos then went west on 1388. We missed a trail junction and knew we messed up when we came to a clearing and saw a sign that said "Taneum Ridge Trail"
We turned around, went back up to the ridge and found our missed turn. Fortunately we only lost about 20 minutes or less of time since we only went about 1.5 miles down before realizing our mistake.
We continued down 1388 and proceeded down 948 to get back to road 19. I advised we should take the first road that crossed 948 to save us a little bit of time getting down off the ridge. It was about 5:30 now and the sun was getting pretty low in the sky.
Trail 948 tried to claim me as a victim again when we stopped to move some horses out of the trail. Someone had rode up the trail on horseback and set up camp next to 948. They had tied up their horses and vacated the area. One of the horses was standing right in the middle of the trail!!. I stopped on a narrow section of trail that was built up between two logs. When I put my foot down I discovered there was no ground down there, so over the edge I went!
Once we righted my bike, Wayde moved the horse out of the trail so Jeff and I could get by.
Once we got to road 19, is was starting to get dark. By the time we reached the end of road 19 it was mostly dark. Jeff and Wayde rode side by side to light up each other's path and I rode a tight pattern behind them to see better from their lights. Once again we encountered plenty of hunter traffic, but had a safe ride to the top of Pyramid Pass where we saw a spectacular view from the setting sun.
We continued on after a short stop and reached camp about 7pm. Jeff cooked up some dinner while I prepped the campfire and whipped out my trail clearing chainsaw and cut some wood while using the bike's headlight to see what I was doing.
Sunday we decided on an easy ride and went up 7030 over Green Pass, turned left at the bottom of 7036 and then went over Stampede Pass, crossed I-90, went through the Kachess housing area which dead ends onto a nice dirt road that leads to Easton. From Easton we went up road 41 through the washout, stopped for lunch in the washout area, then went over Tacoma Pass and back the via Green pass.