Oregon

[PastaPilot 17]

Thanks to everyone for the suggestions, recommendations and advice. The Deschutes Brewery tour and sampling was worth the trip alone.

My favorite photo from the trail.

More later.

[Bagstr 287]

Pasta,

And, were you solo or did you hook up with locals?

The drive to Shasta is painful. What did you do to compensate? Great that you made the escape. Good for you.

Bagstr

[PastaPilot 17]

Bagstr,

The riding was all solo. It was my second ever solo trip. The first one I was uneasy the entire time. This one was different. While I still carry some fear of riding solo this trip really changed my mind on the whole thing.

Riding solo is great!

I can start when I want, go where I want, stop whenever I want or not stop at all and just ride, ride, ride with no breaks. One day I did just that. The night before, I mapped out a route and the next day I got to the spot from the photo above and realized I hadn't stopped at all in the last 2 hours. The stop was just long enough to walk to the photo point and back then ride on for another 2 hours. I never felt any pressure to make sure my riding buddy was OK with the route, terrain or pace, had cleared any obstacles, etc.

Now don't get me wrong, I still prefer having riding buddies, but it was a nice change.

To pass the time while driving I took photos from the road. My Facebook friends here saw the steady stream of plain jane highway photos that I posted every hour.

[PastaPilot 17]

more highway photos here

https://www.facebook.com/jonathan.berges.3

[PastaPilot 17]

Well the van served me for 2,193 trouble free miles during last week's adventure. She drank 140 gallons of gas in that trip for just over 15 mpg. Not bad for a 19 year old behemoth loaded with too many supplies.

The bike gobbled a hair over 5 gallons returning an estmated 35 mpg. Not bad for a high strung motocross bike ridden on a majority of singletrack.

First night was at Timber Mt. OHV park located just outside of Medford. It was a huge area of BLM controlled land. I rode about 35 miles in the area before giving up to the mess of roads and trails. The maps only showed the dirt roads and very few were marked. Sounds about right? BLM administered to confuse users off the land.

The next stop was to Prospect OHV area located in the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest. Only about an hour from Medford so after riding Timber Mt I made the drive to Prospect and rode another 30 miles that evening.

What a massive area to ride. Lots and lots of ATV trails, but the straightest most direct route from one end to the other is over 60 miles. I rode most of the singletrack in the high country for just a bit over 45 miles on the day.

Photobucket uploads keep failing. To be continued.