The Posse Rides Again.....The OBDR To Seneca

In a previous RR, I made reference to a comment my son made about me and my riding partners. He refers to us as the Posse. Well since we have known each other since we were basically kids, I guess that could be true.
The plan was to ride Section 4 of the Oregon Backcountry Discovery Route. Basically it runs fom Sisters, OR. over to Seneca, OR. about 260 miles of scenic backcountry.

Me


Well dressed Sheriff Martin "Dorksport"


and Cowboy Gordon


We headed to Troutdale via Marine Drive and wound around (You know like "The Long Way Around"!) towards Sandy, then down to Estacada and followed the Clackamas River down to Detroit Lake. A very nice ride.






"My ass hurts...my back hurts and we have matching pants!"


From Detroit lake I hooked up on some tracks someone had posted but can't remember who. They followed some logging roads up and over the ridge down to Hiway 22. Nice 30 mile detour. Any way thanks who ever posted them.










We hit 22 and followed it to 20 and on over to Camp Sherman. Stopped at the Camp Sherman Store.


For a burger


and a beer


and some gas


Headed down the Metolius River to find camp


Made a fire and BS'd, then went to bed.


A 200 mile day

more..........

Can we have more please

Looks like you guys had a great time. I always enjoy the views over there. In fact, I think I need to go again...

Mick

Got up and made coffee


We picked up the route and headed north. It was a nice day.






Looking down to Lake Billy Chinook.



Party boat


East through the Crooked River Grasslands and an ORV area that reminds us we might need a sticker. Do we? Maybe Dorksport can get one in Prineville.



We blast down to Prineville and cruise around looking to get some kind of sticker and some gas. I spy a black and white Dakar and a KLR sitting at the Arctic Circle. Come to find out that is Dakar Dave and Jeffer returning from the same ride with his group.
We leave Pville and head up to the Ochocco's, A sign of the times to come awaits us. The roads we want are open. Up and into the wide open places.





We come out on 26 on the divide and throw out our options. Camp without water or blast to Mitchell for food and find somewhere to sleep down there. So Mitchell it is, about 10-15 miles. It's still early and we're still having fun.


beer and burgers


At the Little Pine Cafe


We check out and feel sorry for Henry the bear. Big guy, but couldn't get a decent picture through the fence. Stop there if you haven't.


In pulls Pat Case heading home to Colorado from 5 week trip to Alaska. Check out his travels here at Globalbikers.com


We invite him to set up camp in the big city park with us. Free camping BTW unless you use the hookups. Pat used an outlet for his camera battery charger. No park cops came around.


We BS the night away. Pat's got some good travel stories and he has a KLR like mine so fit right in. They are faster!


The deer come out at night




A 170 mile day


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In the morning it looked like rain in the direction we were going


I look concerned. My vents are open, can't get them closed while riding and I am underdressed. It got cold. Those guys were leading so I beared it. Let the rain begin.


We got to ride through some rain over the divide and dropped down to our turn to hook back up withe route.


Not far down the road the forest service gal started teasing us and then told us the road was closed due to a large fire. She could have told us anything and we would have believed her! She rerouted us (Anytime BTW) around the burn area and asked if we were with the group that just came through? No, how long ago? About an hour. Maybe we will catch them. The Posse is off and riding.






We blast on ahead and run into another closed area, excited to see who we would greet us this time. Bummer, just some guys. We get down to the Rager RS and they said our group was about 10-15 mins ahead of us. This was just like being in a real Posse hot on the trail!


We were on their tracks every turn, not much longer. Who were they? The boys got ahead of me and missed a turn. We lost valuable time, I waited until they turned around and came back. By then the trail was getting cold. Maybe they doubled back on us and were coming from behind?







We hit 395 and head south to Seneca, really the only reason was for a picture. Martins folks lived there during the lumber days long ago. There is not much there, until we spied the bikes. Whats this about?



The owners JW Everitt and his wife Carol run the place. We get shown around and invited to stay. After a long day on the trail a very nice welcome. A definite stop for anyone passing through. Check it out here at Bearcatlodge.
There were many highlights here.
This is Bob


this is Big


Big walked away and decided to hide for awhile


This is Bob and his Arctic Cat going to look for Big


Big came home like cats do and we had a nice sit down family dinner


JW played some tunes for us, another highlight of the night. Martin signs the guestbook. I think we were totally overwhelmed by how this all came to be. Totally unplanned or expected. Very generous hospitality. And if you go, just because JW can rough house with Bob doesn't mean you can. Ask Martin? Fortunately Bob released and no meat was taken. And Martin was being nice....Bob is a cat! The look on Martins face was Priceless!



A 150 mile day


more.........

Excellent! That's super fun tracking guys down huh?

Day 4 we are off to a slow start......a late night.

We take a spin on JW's 990's.........too nice!



JW and Carol see us off, stop by and say hello.



We hit the road towards Paulina, a nice open road with no traffic until Prineville. From there its home.



















Post Office Shot



Usual Warm Springs stop down on the Deschutes River.



A google look at the route




a 286 mile day


That's it, thanks for reading.


The Posse

Great report! Sounds just like our experiance a couple of days earlier. That Bob is a hoot on the Prowler.

Jeffer

Thanks Wachs, it was fun. Surprisingly, the tracks stood out pretty good.

Thanks Jeffer, would have been fun to bump into you guys. JW told us about the bike trouble.

GREAT report!

Hi everyone! This was a great ride and champout trip. I think the best part was the time we had at the Bearcat Lodge. I was kind of out of it from to much drinking and not much sleep and I looked like death wormed over by the time we were at the lodge. I would like to see J.W. and Carol again before they forget who I am. I tell you what! J.W. can rock your socks off on his Lodge stage! He is also a straight shooter and will let you know what he thinks. I would like to thank both of them for the great time we had. - Martin - The I want a KTM guy!

I want to clarify if I can, death wormed over when we left! Our choice. JW can rock!

Hey Blitz,
Great pictures and looks like a fun ride.
Nice meeting you at the Prineville Chevron, last Tuesday.
Chip

I think that we were the ones in front of you! I am surprised that you did not catch us. We made a few extended stops due to one in our group thinking that a motorcycle trip would be a good time to try and pass a kidney stone, other then that the rest of us had a great trip but also had to go around the two fires. There were four of us; we had two KLRs and two BMW GSAs. <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" /><o></o>
I did have a question for anyone that has completed the route. At the second to last GPS coordinate, they have you turn left on what looks to be a road on the map, but it was actually a pack trail. I did go up the trail for a ways but there was a tree down that would have been hard to lift the BMWs over. Has anyone else run into this problem? We just detoured around and met back up with the final coordinate.<o></o>
Ryan<o></o>

Cool...We probably would have caught you but I had the GPS and the others were ahead of me and missed a turn. I just stopped and waited for like a half hour or so for them to come back! This wasn't too far past Rager RS, where they said you were 10-15 mins ahead. As far as the route I had a GPS track that we followed. I saw your tracks make the turn they missed but not sure after that where I stopped seeing them. Where did you come out at? We popped out on 395 about 8 miles from Seneca? I did have a track that would take us to Seneca but we decided to take the other route. It was a nice ride, thanks for posting

I do not have the maps in front of me, but I think that we came out on CR 63 then to 395. We had the Trek Now GPS points which I believe are the same as the ones printed in the maps. We got to the last point, but it was the trail/road from the second-to-last to the last points that I was questioning.

Great report, I sure missed out. So BUMMED OUT after reading and seeing the pictures.

KLR004

Wished you were there