The showroom
I can't believe how big this place is. This is less than half of the showroom's floor space. The service department is huge, too.
New sprocket
John's KTM 350 was great for dirt roads, but when ridden on technical single track, it would easily stall when the going got tough and you'd let off the throttle. Once stalled, the bike was hard to restart. This condition nearly stranded us over 4th of July. In stock configuration, the bike is setup very lean. While this reduces emissions on the road, it makes for a very difficult-to-start motor that's easy to stall at low speeds under a load. The fix was to remove some of the smog equipment and have the Engine Control Unit reprogrammed with the parameters from the off-road version of this bike. In addition, John had them replace the rear sprocket with a larger one, adding more low-end power and making it more suitable for trails than roads. With the bike loaded in the truck, we continued on to Wallace, stopping for groceries, and arriving around 1pm.
Scraped off linoleum
Our plan for this trip was to continue working on the downstairs bathroom by tiling the bathroom floor. Allison and I removed all the bathroom fixtures and carried them out back. Then I pried off the baseboards, scraped off all the old linoleum, and pulled up all the nails around the perimeter. The next step was to put down concrete backerboard, but I had to mark out circles for the toilet and other plumbing parts. Where do I buy a compass in Wallace? I walked to the library and asked the librarian. She suggested a drug store in Osburn that sold school supplies.
Striped Peak
Before heading to Wallace I was looking at an online topo map of the area and saw a possible route into the mountains via McFarren Gulch in Osburn. Since I had to go to Osburn, I decided to take John's bike and go on a ride to see if it was fixed. I wanted to ride up Striped (pronounced "stry-ped") Peak and explore the old lookout ruins on top. McFarren Gulch is blocked to cars by a gate but there's a bypass for motorcycles and ATV's. I rode up a steep ATV trail and came across a mother and baby moose on the trail. They trotted off up the trail and turned off a spur. Eventually I hit the logging road that goes to Pulaski Peak. I turned off on a trail that climbed up and wrapped around the back of the Striped Peak, getting more sketchier by the moment. I called it quits at this point and gently laid the bike down because there was no room for the kickstand.
Looking down Big Creek
There was quite a bit of smoke in the air from fires burning in other parts of Idaho and Montana.
On the trail
I came up from a trail on the left. The bike is sitting at a junction where another trail peels off and heads up the mountain. Carolyn and I would hike up that trail tomorrow. I rode back down taking an overgrown trail by Lost Lake that dumped me out at a mine drilling exploration operation going on above Osburn.
Backerboard
Back at the house I cut and fitted pieces of backerboard for the bathroom floor. I mixed up a batch of thinset, troweled the floor, laid down the wonderboard, and screwed the pieces down every 6". We'd have to wait overnight to let the mortar dry before the next step.
Priming the bead board
On Saturday morning I woke up at 4am thinking about all the stuff I had to do and all the things I wanted to do. We brought 8' sections of pine bead board to install on the bathroom walls. I cut the sections in half and primed both sides of the boards.
Striped Peak Lookout foundation
By 8am Carolyn and I were riding ATV's to Osburn and then up the McFarren Gulch trail. We passed by the mine exploration drillers. They must be getting paid triple overtime to be out here on Labor Day weekend. We parked the machines where the ATV trail turns to singletrack and hiked to the top of the mountain. There was evidence of a good trail up the mountain, but it looks like it hasn't gotten any use in decades. The ability to cruise around the mountains on ATV's has probably ruined people of hiking. On top where there's little vegetation the trail is in perfect condition.
Sign on the lookout's foundation
Old lookout on Striped Peak
This lookout was built in 1924 and accidentally burned in 1936 and never replaced.
St. Joe Forest lookout sites
After the fire of 1910, the CCC went wild building lookouts. These are some of the lookout sites in the area south of Wallace. I'll never run out of lookouts on mountain peaks to explore!
Carolyn in the foundation
Lots of old rock foundations
Striped rocks
Carolyn noticed the stripes on the rocks. Could this be the reason it's called Striped Peak?
Trail 16
From the top of Striped Peak we could see Trail 16 wrapping around another mountain in the distance. Carolyn and Allison had plans at 11am, but I thought we could ride that section of Trail 16 and still be home by the deadline.
Another view
Typical old lookout debris
Former lookout sites are usually strewn with old guy wires and ground wires.
Pit room
There was a pit that had been clearly fashioned into some sort of room or cellar.
Mt. Pulaski in the foreground
From Striped Peak we could look down on Mt. Pulaski, another lookout site John and I rode to over 4th of July.
Polaris Peak on the right
Polaris Peak is another lookout site. Carolyn rode to the top of that one on one of her rides during ATV Week.
Drill rod
I don't think I've been to the top of a mountain around here without seeing an old drill rod pounded into the summit.
Unnamed lake
We hiked back down to our ATV's and rode on a trail until we hit the infamous Trail 16 (infamous because of several exposed trail sections). We planned to ride along a ridge until we could drop down to Elsie Lake and exit via Big Creek. From the ridge we saw a little lake.
Striped Peak
From our location on a ridge above trail 16, here's a telephoto view looking back at Striped Peak. At mid-picture on the left is the motorcycle trail across the mountain. At the top-right of the picture is the hiking trail along the spine of the mountain.
Elsie Lake
We continued along the trail until we got a view of Elsie Lake and then we rode down to the lake and out via a dirt road along Big Creek. We made it home by 10:45am. When we were here for ATV Week in July my machine had overheating problems on the last day. At that time I refilled the radiator with coolant and on the trip today, the machine worked perfectly without overheating.
Tiling the floor
Back at home I mixed up some mortar and Carolyn and I tiled the bathroom floor.
Overgrown trail to Lost Lake
By 4pm I was done with the bathroom and had time for another little motorcycle ride. I headed for the trail up Lake Creek to Lost Lake. Eric and I attempted this ride over 4th of July, but the trail was overgrown and peppered with fallen trees. I hoped by now the trail had been cleared out and maintained. Unfortunately, the trail hasn't received any love and it was still bad.
Blocked for good
Eventually the trail climbed out of the deep dark gulch toward the road to Mt. Pulaski, but I was blocked by a waist high log.
Looking back down into Lake Creek Gulch
More logs
I hiked a ways up the trail to see if I could make it to the road if I could get over the log obstacle, but the trail was blocked by several more trees ahead.
Silver Valley below
I turned around and headed back home. We walked to a new restaurant across from the train station at the mouth of Nine Mile Canyon. The under-the-freeway flea market was in progress so we walked that way. Over the weekend, Allison probably visited the flea market ten times.
Allison
On Sunday we went to church. Afterwards, Allison made us all milkshakes.
Carolyn
John and Natalie's house
We walked up to John's house to check on several items he wanted looked at. Everything was in good shape. At church we found out that one of the members is a wood carver and lives up in the ghost town of Burke. I talked to the man and practically invited ourselves over to his house to see his shop. We drove up to Burke and to the member's house. He lives up the mountain right next to Hecla mine ruins. His house must have been an old miner's house with wood sidewalks and more. He showed us his shop and the things he's working on. He's one of those talented artists who can picture something in his mind and carve it out of wood.
Jewel Gulch
On Monday morning I painted a coat of white enamel on all the pieces of bead board. By 7:45am Carolyn and I were heading up Jewel Gulch in Osburn. The trail starts in a rock quarry. Idaho government maps (marked trail 103) show the trail as a single-track motorcycle trail but it's been turned into an ATV trail. It's also a good mountain bike loop.
Jewel Gulch
We rode up the trail a mile or two before stopping at a relatively flat section. Our hands were freezing. We left our machines idling and warmed our hands under the exhaust. When I went to get back on my machine the overheat light was on. I looked under the front and the electric radiator fan wasn't turning. I guess something really is wrong. We turned off the ATV's, waited 15 minutes for them to cool, and then I opened the radiator cap. It was still full up to the neck. We rode home and the bike stayed cool, but that's probably because we were moving.
Jewel Gulch trail
When we got back to the house I loaded the ATV into the back of the truck to take home so I could take it to the dealer for warranty repair.
After grouting the bathroom
I mixed up a bucket of grout and Carolyn and I grouted the tile on the walls and floor of the bathroom. It looks good. We worked all day and left at 4pm so we'd miss all the traffic over Snoqualmie Pass. Eric and Tanya had been in Spokane all weekend for Tanya's grandpa's 90th birthday party and family reunion. They left for home earlier in the afternoon and were stuck in traffic for an hour. It was a fun weekend but seemed way too short.
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