round the mountain, across the river, and through the woods ... to get lost i go

I was able to get some "Ed time" today and used it to get to know the KLR. Today I earned a nickname that others have used in reference to me -- Adventure Ed.

I spent an hour here on the computer before leaving in order to allow the sun to reach a little higher into the sky and let the temperature come up some. It also gave me time to try and find some established trails to go explore. I was really getting nowhere and I finally just gave up and figured if I found something, great! if not, well it's just some saddle time -- not entirely a bad thing at all!

So I just decided that there is an area referred to as Max Patch nearby (about 30 miles or so) that is nothing but gravel forest service roads. Surely I can find some interesting area(s) to explore there. Here is what I come up with (it's just a map of where I went, and is mostly for my reference, but feel free to click it if you want -- it'll take you to googlemaps)

http://tinyurl.com/6lnglxh


I got the bike out, geared up, and hit the gas station. Now, with a full tank and empty head it was time to motor on. The first 15 or so miles was asphalt, but I was soon on some gravel and climbing what is referred to as Round Mountain. I find myself really tentative at this point, but I am still trying to get a feel for the bike. 

I saw this spring and decided to stop and get a couple pics and a few sips of some cold mountain water as well. Nothing like spring water!


I continued on and after a few miles or so, saw a road off to the left and decided to take it. I had been climbing all along and now am headed downhill.


Once at the bottom, yet another road off to the left appealed to me. Appealed is probably not the right word. It was almost as if it was summoning me. 


Far be it for me to ignore such an inclination, so I went with it. Within 500' there was a water crossing. It looked pretty tame so I crossed it and had no issues.


After another 1000' it came to a loop with no other way out. Or so I thought! On my way back out, I noticed a narrow trail branching off to the left. If you did open the link above, the point marked B is where the adventure started. The trail branches off to the left of the B.


Again, I felt like I was being summoned to take that roa -- err trail. It was too narrow for a car, but about the size for a 4wheeler. Hmm this could be good! 


So again, I was just dumb enough to follow that inclination. I parked the bike and walked over to find out how bad it was. There was a mud puddle in between a couple of whoops.


It looked rather intimidating, but it was one of those if you don't go, you won't know situations. Being as dumb and curious as a cat, I wanted to know, so I went! 


I went over the "dune" and into the puddle with the RPMs up so I would be ready to hit the throttle when I needed it. While it was rather deep, I cruised right through without any trouble. It seemed easy -- too easy! 


I got my feet wet and managed to keep the bike upright with no sense that I was ever out of control. I let out a loud WOOHOO and instantly a smile was pasted all over my face under that helmet! It was a feeling of accomplishment! 

There were a few more areas, that caused me to park, walk ahead, check out the trail, then walk back and continue on. 


As I was going along I couldn't help but think, 'I sure hope this comes out somewhere'. Some of the slopes were a significant downhill, and the ground was a mix of stones and muddy terrain from two days of some significant rain.


I was basically walking it down the hill as the comfort zone wasn't where I wanted it yet. A little brake, a little coasting, a little duck-walking. I only did this on the steeper sections, but it kept my attention. 


One of these hills re-kindled my thinking of "I sure hope this comes out somewhere!" as it was about a 1500' downhill steep grade. I definitely didn't want to come back up that with the slick, rocky terrain!


Shortly after that hill, though things leveled off. I found a place beside the river that was a good place to stop and just relax a minute. My temperature gauge had worked itself to the middle point and stopping to give the bike a rest seemed like a good idea.


I sat there and listened to the rush of the water as it cascaded over the rocks on its downward journey. It was quite serene.


After my zen moment, I mounted back up and journeyed on. It wasn't long before I found another downhill and this one was basically a spring runoff with a rocky bed that mandated more duck-walking and playing with the clutch and brakes. It wasn't bad, though.


Then there was another steep downhill slope. This wasn't long but it was still intimidating. I managed it okay doing more of the duck-walking stuff. Once again, my mind reverted back to "I hope this goes somewhere" because I didn't want to have to scale *that* slope either. 

 I got to another water crossing -- the same river that was pictured above. This one, though, was more than I wanted to take on. 


There was a strong current, and the river had wallowed out the bed to nearly 2' deep in a couple spots. The rush, the 2' depth, and the 12' or so width, all combined to deter me -- and my stupidity and curiosity ended ... right there!


I walked back to the bike and intended to turn it around. Only, the trail wasn't wide enough to pull a U-turn and I had to pick up the rear tire and scooch it around a few inches at a time, all the while trying to make sure I didn't retract the kickstand. When I got it about 90* from where it had been facing, I figured I now had enough room to ride it out by pulling up the bank, coasting back, turn the bars, and repeat. I managed this as a five point turn. 


What I had been regretting all along just came to be. I am going to have to go up some of those slickery slopes. Yeeha! I guess it's time to get my stripes!


I made it back up the rocky creek bed with minimal problems. The rocks made you pick good lines and I think I did fairly well with that. 


However, I had to take it slow because some of the rocks were large and I did manage to stall it a couple times, being cautious. This spiked my temperature gauge to nearly 3/4 on the high end. It was time to let it sit and cool.

Sadly, it did this right at the slope I was dreading. So that whole time, I got to sit there and stare it down. To say I was intimidated would be underselling it. 


I stared and stared while waiting. Convincing myself, you *got* to do this. That slope looked menacing. I took a picture but the picture doesn't relay it well. 


The engine cooled enough for me to just face it. So I did. I goosed the throttle and kept it in an RPM range that produced forward motion and just hung on! 


The ass-end got rather squirrely, but I just kept at it. Hey, this ain't so bad afte-.... PLOP!


I hit a rock or something that stopped my momentum completely. I went from moving at about 5 mph to not moving at all and then went over on the left side. Not a hard fall, but still a fall. I had been doing well so far and had kept her upright up until now. 


Ah well! I knew this was going to happen and now that first fall is out of the way. It didn't hurt anything critical. I picked it up, mounted, and gave it another go! Crested the hill and had another feeling of satisfaction. 


Then off to the level section and noticed that I was keeping my throttle open wider and RPMs up. The ass-end was again slipping all over, but it felt good! 


I just stayed on the gas! I was starting to establish a comfort zone with this monster.


I was gaining confidence with every few feet of travel. Then I came to that long, steep downhill (now uphill) grade that worried me before. By now, however, I was feeling okay about it.


I just grabbed some throttle and took that hill on! Did fine until one of the squirrely slides put me over near some brush and the bike stalled as the rear wheel got halted by a downed tree limb. Put the kickstand down, moved the offending branch out of the way, and jumped back on, fired it up, hit the throttle and spanked *that* hill. More confidence and satisfaction. 


Confidence is a good thing, but can be a double-edged sword. The rest of the trail was relatively tame (compared to what I had just conquered). I got all the way back out to the entrance where the double-whooped mud puddle was and charged at it again. After all, it wasn't so bad the first time!


However, this time, I took a different line than when I first went in, because it was much deeper where I went this time. Also, I don't think I carried as much throttle when I entered the puddle. It stalled -- and I was screwed.


How screwed? THIS screwed!

No matter what I did I could not gain any traction. I stepped off the bike and my foot sunk about 8" into the muck substrate below the water. Sh*t! Sh*t! Sh*t!


Now this pic was not the original angle I took. You cannot see it from the pic, but where the front tire is pointing, is the least steep way out, so I had moved the front wheel to that angle in an attempt to get it out of its temporary prison.


Well this didn't work --at all! No matter what I tried, I soon realized that she wasn't coming out under her own power!


Worse yet, I am in an unfamiliar area, on (well off of) some forest road and have no freakin' idea where I'm at. No GPS either to be able to give coordinates to someone. 


I called Melissa (yeah somehow still had service -- at least!) telling her to go to Google Maps and look up some stuff. That quickly proved to be a waste of time.


I then told her to  look up the TN forestry  site and maybe try and get in contact with them. She hung up with me and said she would have someone call  me. About 10 minutes later, sure enough someone calls.


Not the forestry department, but the Cocke County Sheriff's Dept. He knows as little about the area I am in as I do. He says he will call someone and then call me back (or have them call me).


My phone didn't ring again. I gave up on waiting on Mr. Sheriff man to help and started walking back towards ANYthing that may be a landmark I can offer up to maybe get an idea where I was.


I called Melissa told her I was walking out and maybe she should come get me. She calls me back and tells me she was just talking to the Del Rio (closest "town") Rescue squad. They are sending someone out to find me. How the hell are they going to find me? I am off of a road that is off of another road (the forestry dept. didn't waste money on putting street names up).


Within 10 minutes a guy from the rescue squad dispatch office calls me and tells me to stay on the line and we will work through this until they find me.


The road that I came in on was all downhill. Which means the *walk* is now all uphill. 


My fat arse is NOT in shape. I kept walking but after about a half mile my legs are getting heavy. To make matters worse, my socks and boots are SOAKED from standing in that muck trying to get the bike out.


(as an aside -- David Ryder gave me some excellent advice a couple weeks ago, but I forgot to do it. He told me my toolkit needs to have a come-along. DOH! not sure if that would've helped since I was alone but it might have)


I could hear some of the radio chatter of the rescue squad through the dispatcher's phone. Every 5 or 10 minutes or so he would say, "hey you still there?" "Yup, just taking one step at a time"


He told me to just listen for sirens. They would sound them whenever they came up to a road that was in the direction I told them I would be (if looking at the map link, I was on Wolf Creek Rd. -- again, that's NOT labeled on the road itself)


I got stuck a little after 3:00. I started walking about 3:30. It was nearly 6:30 when I came across any kind of helpful information I could share with them. I found a sign saying I was in Rattlesnake Gap. 


I had earlier told the guy I had seen that sign, but he told me from the information I gave him, there was no way I was that far back. So all this time they had been looking for me about 5 miles or so away from where I had turned off. 


He told me to stay at that sign and someone would be there in a few minutes. It is rather dark now, and sure enough I soon see some headlights. They show up, we get in his truck and then he asks what my plans were -- "Do you want to get the bike or do you want to just head home?"


"Well if we can get the bike out tonight that would be excellent. I really don't want to leave it behind, but I have caused you enough trouble already, so if you don't wish to, that's fine, I can get it tomorrow."


He didn't have any rope handy so we started back, then he remembered he had some stuff that looked weak, but had a strong tensile strength. I told him I was game if he was. He turned around and we started back down the hill towards the bike. 


It was funny, one of the guys in the truck said, "Yeesh! I can see why it took you three hours to get out of there" It was probably about 3 miles and it was ALL uphill too!


We get to the bike and he didn't want to grab it by the forks, and I was quite alright with that too. We tried to grab the handlebars but all that did was pull the bike DOWNwards. We grabbed a frame member down by the radiator and that was what did it. That KLR come right up out of that muddy prison and I was a happy man!


I slipped them a $20 for their efforts and told them to grab some beers or something once their shift was up. The guy didn't want to take it, but I convinced him I would have had to pay a LOT more for a tow truck, or if I had to come back tomorrow, would have to spend gas money anyway, so he quit arguing.


The rest of the way home was uneventful, save for the fact my hands and toes were frozen. It was probably 45*, but my shoes and socks were still soaked, and I had brought my 3 season gloves and they provide no protection from the cold. Additionally, when we tried pulling the bike out by the handlebars, it had moved them out of place (and I had no tools with me) so the barkbusters were no longer providing any wind protection.


I got home and removed wet clothes and jumped in a HOT HOT shower. I cannot remember a shower feeling so good. Followed that up by propping my butt next to the fire. 


WHEW! what a day! It was great, and I can see me really enjoying this kind of riding. I just need to make sure I am at the right speed and RPM range to tackle some of those mudholes!   LOL


Here is what a KLR should look like after a good day on the trail! Good times! Good times!



Tomorrow it will get a bath, and I will likely pull off the shifter peg to clean in there and will wipe down the chain and re-grease it. Oh and fix the handlebars.