Heading down Granite Gulch
On Thursday morning I finished tiling the upstairs bathroom floor. Then Carolyn and I went on an ATV ride with Carol, the key organizer of ATV Week and a local resident. She felt bad I had to trail drag a couple of rides during July's ATV Week and missed the rides I originally signed up for. In July she said if we came to Wallace over Labor Day she'd take us on a good ride. It wasn't just an empty promise because the night before I received an email from her that asked if we were in Wallace yet and if so, did we want to go on an exciting ride? Carolyn made arrangements for us to meet her at her house in Woodland Park. Carol took us up to the substation past Burke and then climbed to the ridge to Granite Peak and then dropped down the other side through Granite Gulch.
Old mine adit
We passed several old mine adits.
Heading down to an old miner's cabin
Carol and Carolyn
We flipped a uey just above the cabin to look at another adit. We'd continue to drop down Granite Gulch (behind Carol) until we popped out above Murray, ID.
Checking out the cabin
Home sweet home
Carol said the cabin has been here since the 1800's. That seems hard to believe since nature recycles everything so quickly in this environment, but I suppose it's possible.
Dovetail construction
The cabin was certainly built with precision and skill.
Another adit farther down the mountain
An old stamp mill
Carol is telling us about an old stamp mill at the bottom of the mountain.
45 mile loop
When we exited Granite Gulch we rode back over Kings Pass, up Dudley Creek to Dobson Pass, and back down to Wallace.
Trail 16 from Slate Creek Saddle to Moon Peak
We weren't back home long before John called and wanted to go on a motorcycle ride. We took off up Placer Creek and to Slate Creek Saddle. From there we took a singletrack I've never been on before.
This is fun!
Looking out over Slate Creek
Here comes John
Singletrack to new places is my favorite kind of riding. John's not a big fan but he rode the trail perfectly.
Still fun
The trail eventually intersected the road from Moon Pass along the Slate Creek Divide. From there we headed down Moon Pass Road and explored a two-track that took us to the back slopes of Stevens Peak.
Mountains and mountains
From the backside of Stevens Peak we rode up a steep trail that took us to the summit of Gold Hill.
Another marker
I mentioned in a previous report that just about every summit we've visited has one or more homebrew memorials. Gold Hill was no different.
Heading back on the ridge trail
GPS track of the ride
Our ride was about 29 miles long. Back home I walked to the hardware store to get a 25 lb bag of white grout. They were all out. That night John and Natalie drove to Spokane to pick up Daniel at the airport. They stopped at a Home Depot on the way and got me two 10 lb boxes of grout. They left the boxes on our front porch at midnight so we could start grouting the walls and floor of the bathroom first thing Friday morning. Meanwhile, my parents were driving to Wallace from Provo. They stopped this evening for the night in Butte, MT. On Friday morning, Carolyn I grouted the walls (hard - fighting gravity) and then the floor (easy). Around noon my parents arrived. Carolyn made us some tacos and then we headed up to John's house.
Daniel crossing Grouse Gulch Creek
Later Friday afternoon John and Daniel loaded their bikes on their trailer and I led them on my motorcycle over to a trail system off of Canyon Creek in Burke Canyon. So far Daniel has been mostly riding on smooth railroad trails. This afternoon we planned to up the difficulty a notch. Daniel did great.
Steep wash-out
We rode from Wallace high along the slopes of the mountains that border I-90. When we got close to Mullan we started down a steep trail that only got steeper and more rutted. John and Daniel stopped and I continued riding down until I found a road that would take us the rest of the way to Mullan. I rode back up and parked here while John and Daniel worked their way down the trail.
John and Daniel way down there
Steep gets steeper
Daniel heading down the trail
We popped out at the Morning mine and followed a dirt road to the town of Mullan.
Riding through Mullan
Bitterroot Cafe
Our destination was the Bitterroot Cafe. All of us stopped here last Thanksgiving for breakfast, but the place was closed and out of business. On one of the rides during ATV week we rode by the cafe and I saw it was re-opened. Even though it was 4pm and we were all going out to dinner in a couple of hours, we went inside the Bitterroot and John bought us three glasses of milk and a giant cinnamon roll we split three ways. It hit the spot.
GPS track of 28 mile ride to Mullan and back
We exited Mullan a different way so we could avoid the treacherous hill we came down. We made it back just in time to get cleaned up and meet at the City Limits Pub for dinner. Afterwards we went up to John's house to watch a movie.
Repairs on Bad Tom Mountain
On Saturday morning I worked on cutting and applying bead board to the bathroom walls. Today was the start of the three day Under the Freeway Flea Market event. Carolyn and I walked over to the market to see what kind of junk was for sale. We were both interested in looking at different things and I was in a hurry to get back and go on a ride with John, so we split up. Carolyn got sidetracked looking at an old album of photos and postcards. She even found some from Lake Wenatchee. I zipped through all the stalls and at the last one, bought a box of loose electronic tubes (332 of them, to be exact) for $20. At another booth I found two Weller 225w soldering guns for $3 each (both work perfectly). I carried my loot home, John called and we headed off on a ride. We rode up to Slate Creek Saddle and up trail 16 to Bad Tom Mountain. This morning John had installed a fan kit on his motorcycle and when we stopped, I noticed a bolt was working its way out from under the tank. He stopped and fixed it. From here there's a steep singletrack trail that heads down to the bottom of Slate Creek. The map showed a small trail to a viewpoint if we headed down the trail part way to Slate Creek.
Trail 16 to Bad Tom Mountain
While John was fixing his bike, I snapped this photo of the trail we had ridden up. When John's bike was fixed we took off down another trail toward Slate Creek. We rode a mile or two. I obviously missed the turnoff to the viewpoint. At the point we stopped we could see the trail switchbacked steeply down to Slate Creek. I was tempted to continue down the trail. This is the stuff I enjoy the most. We decided, though, to turn back before we got ourselves into something over our heads.
Hiking up to the viewpoint
We back tracked and found the trail to the viewpoint. The reason we missed it was the trail has been decommissioned with an "Experimental Forest" sign and a bunch of sticks and logs tossed over the trail for the first quarter mile. John is a good sport to indulge my side trips and we hiked about a half mile to point 5376 where we had a great view of the upper Slate Creek area.
Flume Creek left, Dam Creek center, Slate Creek right
All of these valleys and ridge tops have singletrack motorcycle trails.
GPS track of the ride
While we were at the viewpoint we could hear some motorcycles coming up the distant trail from Slate Creek. By the time we hiked back to our motorcycles, we found our bikes surrounded by a dozen guys on KTM's (and one girl on a KLX140L, like Daniel's). They were from the Tri-Cities area and had staged from Avery. They were heading to Wallace for burgers and milkshakes. I asked which way they were headed and they planned to ride down Cranky Gulch. I've ridden up Cranky Gulch but never down it. I wanted to ride down Cranky Gulch, too, because it was the fastest way to get back to town. We waited for the KTM crew to head off and the dust settle and then John and I took off. We rode down the Cranky Gulch singletrack and John did great. He has his bike dialed in and we've done a lot of riding this summer and his skills and confidence have soared. The blue track in the upper left was our hike out to the knob's viewpoint. The red track directly below that was our adventure halfway down to Slate Creek.
When we got home I continued working on the bead board. John and Daniel loaded their bikes on the trailer, came over, and I led them to Osburn. We planned to ride up to Polaris Peak, the site of an old lookout. We unloaded the bikes and Daniel noticed his front brake didn't work. Pulling the brake lever did nothing. What could have happened to it? We thought that bleeding the front brake might restore brake function, but we had no wrench small enough to open the bleed valve. I rode Daniel's bike, sans front brake, down to Osburn's main street to see if I could purchase a wrench. All I found open was a drug store and fortunately they sold a tiny adjustable crescent wrench. I rode back to where we parked and we tried bleeding the front brake. It worked for a moment, but then all of a sudden the brake wouldn't hold the pressure and would stop working, even though the brake reservoir had plenty of fluid. Eventually we gave up, loaded the bikes on the trailer, and took them to my house where we could work on Daniel's bike with more tools. We didn't make any progress and had to throw in the towel and admit we weren't going on another ride. John got on the internet and on the phone to the Kawasaki dealer in Bellevue. They told him the warranty on the bike is only 6 months. Unfortunately, the closest Kawasaki dealer is in Spokane. Then I remembered the independent mechanic in Cataldo who fixed my KDX last summer for a good price. John called him and made arrangements to take Daniel's bike there on Monday. I'll pick up the bike the next time we come out to Wallace.
On Saturday night we all met at John's house for pizza. We were planning on watching a movie but we sat around the table talking so long that the movie didn't happen. On Sunday we went to church. Late that afternoon we went to John's for a late brunch. John, Natalie, and Daniel made apple and blueberry waffles and bacon. It was really good. After dinner John took Daniel practice driving. Daniel has his learners permit and he got to drive up the canyon past Burke and on the dirt road all the way to Cooper's Pass high on the Montana border, probably 50 miles round trip. That beats driving around a residential neighborhood any day. Sunday night around 8:30pm, everyone came over to our house and Carolyn made tacos. Carolyn makes delicious slow cooked pulled chicken and slow cooked pulled pork cooked in Dr. Pepper. We sat around the table talking until 10:30 and then everyone headed home.
Work in progress
On Monday morning I finished the bead board, bottom molding, and top cap. I applied two coats of tile sealer to the walls and the floor. Then I caulked the various joints in the bead board footers and headers. The bathroom is ready for paint.
Another view
The bathroom had a built-in medicine cabinet, but it was off-center from the sink because of the studs behind the wall. I removed the cabinet and patched the wall with a new piece of drywall, visible in this photo before we paint the walls.
Mom and dad heading home
Wallace was packed this three day weekend with a lot of visitors and touristas. Perhaps it's a sign of an improved economy. John, Natalie, and Daniel had to head to the Spokane airport mid-afternoon for their flight home. My parents needed to take off around the same time for their drive back to Utah. My parents invited us all out to lunch as a final send off. We planned to eat at the Red Light Garage, but they told us it'd be a one hour wait. Instead, we ate at the Smokehouse BBQ, one of my favorite restaurants in town. Afterwards, my parents left for the first leg of their journey to Butte. John, Natalie, and Daniel left for Spokane. Carolyn and I stuck around until 5pm, spraying the lawn and washing the ATVs before putting them away for the winter. We kept looking at the online traffic situation over Snoqualmie Pass. Traffic was horrible and delayed an hour or two. Our plan was to hit the pass around 10pm, hopefully after the pass cleared up. If it was still jammed, we'd turn off at the Columbia River and spend the night at the cabin and head home early Tuesday morning. When we reached the Columbia, the online traffic map showed no slowdowns so we continued on and made it home at 10:30 that night. We had a great Labor Day weekend.
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