Three Pacific NorthWet Dudes Dry Out on the UTBDR

“Dude, you have the perfect bike for our trip to Utah later this year”, said a friendly rider at one of the Portland Offroad meetups. I had just purchased a WR250R, and although I hadn’t considered touring on it, this sparked my interest. As I kitted out the bike for day long adventures, I slowly decided to set it up for overnight adventures also. Fast forward a couple of months and the idea of camping off the little bike sounded more and more “reasonable”.

I’d done a few rides with the guys planning on doing a big summer trip. Asrvivor, Jungleman, S1Marks and Apple Jam were planning on attending a rally in Colorado and doing the UTBDR on the way. I was able to rearrange my vacation schedule to get two weeks off at the end of July to attend with them. During our planning stages, S1Marks and Apple Jam had to bail out due to conflicts but John (Asrvivor) and Jessie (JungleMan) were committed.

(L to R) - JungleMan (Jessie), Asrvivor (John) and scott_pdx (Scott...aka...me)


After staring at the maps for a few weeks, it soon became evident that to go from Portland to Denver and spending a week on the UTBDR was either going to be a “Slab Adventure” or skip either the rally or the UTBDR. Additionally, just to get to the start of the UTBDR from Portland was 3 long tire eating days in the heat on the little bikes. Since we could always explore Oregon on shorter rides, we needed to make major tracks out of Oregon to take advantage of our time off. Since I have family in Idaho, I pitched the idea of trailering the bikes to Pocatello and leaving the truck and trailer there, do a big loop then return to Pocatello. This saved us about 4 days of riding slab to and fro and means we wouldn’t have to “Push” so hard and miss stuff on our trip.

The crappy map below shows our general route.


So Friday July 20th, after work. I load up my F350 and Trailer and head over to John’s place in Boring. Jessie is already there, and we make quick work out of loading up the bikes and securing our gear. John has a great place and is a hospitable host and I get a great nice rest in his spare bedroom. Tomorrow begins the first phase of our adventure…an 11 hour drive to the REAL start of our adventure.

As this isn’t a truck report, I won’t bore you with details of this tedious drive, but in case you want to know, it was boring as hell.

The drive included a LOT of this…


Some of this…


And TONS of this


11 Hours and a couple hundred dollars in Diesel later we arrive in Pocatello to drop the truck off with my Uncle Eddie and Aunt Paula.


Come on Paula Smile…ah that’s better


They even cooked us up quite a feast. That’s Venison Tenderderloin Finger Steaks and awesome stuffed peppers.


Thanks for the great eats, deluxe parking and use of the facilities Eddie and Paula. We then proceeded to drink all their beer and eat all their food the rest of the night. After that things gets a little bit blurry, but tents were set up, and riders got SOME sleep. I can say this though about Pocatello, it sure SOUNDS like a big city when you are sleeping in a side yard.

I don’t’ think we were this clean for the next two weeks.


Tommorrow we actually RIDE MOTORCYCLES in this Ride Report.

Great start.

Hey Scott__PDX,

It was Great to meet you guys in Gunnison,CO.........looking forward to the RR!!!

Scott

Another boring ride on girl bikes..... I'm in...

Aha.. this year's studly Adventurers!



Ps who is writing this, John, would you be sure to write the last few pages on arriving back home?

Zinger noted Barb. Now that I have witnesses I'll really try to FINISH this report [unlike last years pathetic attempt].

Scott - Meeting you and Big Dog was one of the highlights of my trip. We should have gotten all 4 WR's in one picture! I do have some though of our chance meeting when I get to the Gunnison section. Hope you didn't burn through any more Fuel Pumps!

EDIT: DingWeed's and BigDog's AWESOME ride report here: http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=818682

John has a habit of waking up before light, but the trains made this a habit for all of us. Still I managed to stay in my tent until the early morning light told me it was time to get movin. John already had a shower, some coffee and was raring to go. As a pattern for the next few weeks, he got experience waiting on me to get my shit together. Hey, I’m on vacation after all. We loaded up our camping gear, said goodbye to our hosts Eddie and Paula and headed to a nearby gas station to fuel up.

Eddie had given us some route suggestions, and I had programmed a route full of “Squigly” lines to get us to Bear Lake, the official start of the UTBDR. The two routes had a lot in common so we took off. Soon after getting out of the Valley (BuckSkin Road, Hoot Owl and Rapid Creek), I began to see the advantages of this part of Idaho. Nice cottonwood groves and deep canyons revealed tons of off-roading opportunities. We, however, pretty much just wanted to get down to Bear Lake and get the UTBDR started.

We stopped at Lava Hot Springs after an hour or so for a nice Breakfast Buffet which, although crowded, really hit the spot. Funny thing was, young Jungle Man, had misplaced his wallet. A frantic search later, revealed no wallet, last time he saw it was back in Pocatello at the gas station, and since he had no pockets, he wasn’t sure where it ended up. So Jessie ran back to Pocatello, why we made some calls to find the number of the gas station (no wallet though). We decided we’d backtrack and give him a hand. John rode on the shoulder on the wrong side of the road and I kept a look out for oncoming cars and was a second set of eyes. At 25 mph, it was a long ride back to Pocatello. Alas, no wallet was found, but Jessie did manage to build up his Karma bank by picking up some hitchhiker dude out in the desert (he’ll have to tell you why – I cannot confirm if a reach-around was provided or not Fortunately, Jessie had the forethought to split his cash up, and even if he lost it all we were still making this trip happen.

Lava Hot Springs


Floating Down the Crick in Lava – That plus the waterslides and pools looked like FUN!


Back in Lava for a second time, we then try to follow my pre-programmed route, but run into a private road almost immediately. So, screw it, we jumped back on the Hwy and decided to slab it down to Bear Lake.

We climbed a pass right out of Lava and as typical for the Trip, John sped off (he’s got 400cc on Jessie and I), but Jessie managed to lock on to him. As we decended the pass I was nearly all out on the little 250 only to have my Temperature indicate light come on. Great, a mechanical on the first day. As I ease up on the throttle the light goes out, so I take it easy for a bit. We dodge a few rainstorms and finally get gas in Montpelier (nice little town). Next stop Bear Lake.

John in Montpelier – note the huge 5th wheel in the background also towing a Ski Boat. How’d you like to try backing that rig up?


Bear Lake has a beautiful color but is quite a bit more developed than we thought. We tried to find a place to camp by the lake, but decided to run up the hill to get on the UTBDR after not finding a suitable spot. We were a little giddy by the time we found the first section of off-road, and less than a ¼ mile later found a spot in the trees we would call home for the night. Dry camp, but were on the route…finally.

This way…or


This way?


Hey guys this looks like fun [followed by two drops]


Big Sky, Big Lake


Our first “stealth camp”


John’s got a tiny one…


But Jessies is tiny-er. Also note the wierd fungus in the background, wonder what that was?


My “Big tent” is still packed as I’m enjoying a cold beer instead (Thanks to Jessie hauling our cold beer for us each day in a little Kelty Binto Cooler). That’s what happens when you pack light


Tomorrow…a full day on the UTBDR!

Very interested in the route. My bucket list includes some wabdr, then tied to the UT section in a big loop. Traveled most of the northern half of the UT area as I grew up there.

So neat meeting you guys in Gunnison-----first adventure riders we met on our ride.
I was so impressed with the guy riding with you on the DR650 that had over 70,000 miles on it---wow.

Me and Scott finished our trip with no further mechanicals-----and our ride report will start one of these days.
We got some good pictures of you guys------and I did find the parts I needed for my KTM at the Husaberg dealership in Gunnison.

So a big howdy from Sam (Correro), John, Scott (Dingweeds) and Me
Sam and John only rode with us for the first 2 days.

Continue on boys.

Cool opening shot! Sure looks like a lot of fun, can't wait to see more.

Can't wait for more

Great start Scott! Just got the camera cords and am working on it.

Got up and broke camp and ran the first off-road section for us (N to S), it actually had some intermediate technical stuff in it. But was a lot of fun, and nice to have some challenges. Soon after it opened up as we ran into Woodruff Ut. From there we decided to run down to Evanston WY and grab some grub there. Ended up in some bar right downtown (lots of glass block – which I find is a good thing to look for in old bars), and began to stink the place up while drinking some lunch – we washed the beer down with some sandwiches also.

Early Morning Ridin






More like it


Things get drier


Our first red rocks





Evanston had everything you need, including some chain lube at the local Yammy shop. Nice guys there, can’t remember the name –can’t be more than one. Got some gas, and decided to load up on some cool drinks and ice for camp, but of course, being Wyoming we were told, you have to go to a liquor store to buy beer. What are we in the Bible belt or something? So we do that, and decide to pick up a new camping buddy…Captain Morgan.

Why-oming




South of Evanston we pick up our first alternate sections. The first one lead to a deceptively deep water crossing. I think the rains made a bit more water than normal. Jessie barreled into it going about 30 and about kissed his front fender, but a big hop later and he bounced out of the deep water. Of course, John goes bezerker on the crossing and guns it for a different section, the water goes up to his tank and stalls him out, but he keeps it upright. A few tense minutes of cranking and he’s out of the crossing also. I wuss out and tip toe across it like a little girl. We then strip down and use the crossing for a makeshift Jacuzzi tub. There was pretty good flow in it so it stayed clear and cold which felt great after the heat that had built in Wyoming.

After lunch, back to Utah


Don’t know what I’m doing here, but I’m not doin it very fast


The next expert section appeared to be a short rocky hill climb easily by-passed, and since dark clouds were threatening, we made a run south to some campgrouns up by Mirror Lake. We stop at one that looked like it had our main preferences (Crapper, Creek, Table and Firering). I believe it was called Sulphur. Soon after we arrive, the heavens opened up on us – I made a quick dash for the tent just in time, but left my boots out to get soaked. John went looking for wood and came back with a couple of pyromanics from the next campsite, and they proceeded to build a roaring white gas fire in no time. The rain passes after an hour or so and it dries right up and we have a great evening of camaraderie – and some Pirate Plunder (See Capt Morgan reference above)

Nice Camping at Sulfer Campgroung


Next, up Camping in Canyons.

Scott, good stuff so far, wow two weeks of adventure, life is good

very much looking forward to the rest of your trip...

btw, the trail wings sitting in my garage have your name on them if still interested

also, that lightning pic is front page material, nice shot!

Sorry, I kinda forgot about the Trailwings, what was the deal with those again?

I was running Shinko's on my WR (Seemed okay actually), but had some Kenda's shipped to Moab, that I had installed on my trip (Didn't really need them at that point, but didn't want to carry them, or pay to ship them back home). So far like the Kenda's. Asrvivor, had shipped Trailwings to have installed in Moab, which I think were the same as the stockers. I didn't think they were too bad. I'm thinking I don't know squat about tires - Short of bald ones, or using road tires off-road, I don't notice much difference between the above.

-= Scott