Back to the Elaho for the first time ...

... this year.

This ride almost didn't happen, Tony and I had originally planned to ride to Lilooett but he ended up being busy.

So I decided that instead of the long pavement ride, I'd try to organize a little off-roading. Luckily some other folks from dualsportbc wanted to join.

Five of us cruised to Squamish and by the time we reached the end of the pavement picked up one more:



As I was the only one who'd been 'back there' I took the lead. The road was in decent shape and we were making excellent time. Until I had the closest call I've ever had with a deer! Doing a true emergency stop when you're doing 90 km/h on a gravel road (potholes & all) and missing a deer by a couple of feet at the most is an excellent way to get a massive adrenaline spike.

JT, who was behind me, said it was the closest miss he's ever witnessed.

After a couple of minute stop and a number of deep breaths, we took off again.

The first rest stop was along the river in a little camp ground. Someone asked if I wanted to be in the picture and I decided that was a good idea.


There were some real serious 'marbles' on the road and the bikes were sliding pretty good. The KLR being top heavy I had to steer-with-the-rear a lot and gas it to get through the corners. Apparently following the tracks was not hard ;)

Our next stop was at the lookout, I'm sure I've taking this picture a number of different ways over the years.


I find it hard to give the place a sense of scale. It's amazing to look into the valley you are riding into and realize just how small you are.

We headed as far back as we could get and eventually got stopped by a very large tree that had been uprooted. We were at 2900 feet, a pretty decent climb.


And a helluva view.


After exploring a number of dead ends (it got to be a bit ridiculous) and encountering some active logging areas, we turned around and headed back.

I did manage to spot the small side-trail that takes you to the riverbank. The trail being mid-turn on a 60 km/h turn lead to a lot of bikes skidding as folks tried to slow down to make the turn in :D

We hung out here in the sun for a while and had some more snacks and those with smaller tanks took the opportunity to fill up from the spare cans.


We came from that-a-way


And were headed this-a-way

They do look somewhat alike ;)

Despite ball-bearing type gravel, dumbasses in white Jeeps almost taking us out and a whole bunch of dust, everyone made it out fine.


What a great day of riding!