Twenty-two of our club members participated in visiting one or more of the 2013 Challenge sites. The four club members who made the bronze tire level (10-19 sites visited) are Gordon White, Ronald Schinnerer, Eric Exline and James Wilson. Another four reached the silver tire level (20-29 sites visited) and include Michael Hardy, Kevin Peter, Don Nesbitt and Ron Hoppins.
Rigging and loading my custom-built Happy Trails Products Kawasaki KLR 650 for the first multi-day ride of the year brought a Cheshire grin to my mug. I hadn’t been out for a proper ride since the previous September, meaning a winter’s worth of pent-up throttle lust had go9en the be9er of me.
The Wallowa Valley Jamboree is an annual event that is held in Enterprise Oregon. It is coordinated through a thread in the Pacific North Wet forum on Adventure Rider. Our own IdahoSam is one of the original founders of this event. In recent years, Sam has led a group on a two day over to Enterprise. It is the route that Sam created, that formed the basis for our ride this year.
posted the ride late in January, and by early March I already had a full 8 man roster. I was pleasantly surprised at the quick response, but then had requests from other individuals asking if I was really going to limit the ride to 8 riders only. My next thought was, “Now what am I going to do?” I know the saying that you can’t make all the people happy all the 2me, but I really wanted everyone to be able to go.
When I visited Bell Mountain Lookout in mid September, about three months ager Wayne Smith’s post, I was greeted to a view without a room! The lookout was in the process of being torn down. All that remained was a small 4 X 4 foot building with solar panels about the size of an out door privy, the funcTonal purpose of which I am not sure.
Do I always make it to every site? Nope. Do I and my bike always come back unscathed and unmarred? Nope. But for me, that is what I love about the Challenge. I have seen more of Idaho and surrounding states than I otherwise would have, and by trying to get to some of the more difficult sites, I have been forced to become a better rider.
The 2014 IAMC Challenge was another huge success and another great year to be riding the back roads of Idaho to visit the many challenge sites. This year I was able to visit, or get close to, 34 sites and logged close to 7,000 miles along the way.
There are not many World War II era military plane crashes in Idaho, and one of those is a B-23 crash site, the only one in the state. It is located at the south end of Loon Lake, a small alpine lake measuring approximately 0.5 miles long by 0.4 miles wide and located about 22 miles northeast of McCall, as the crow flies, in a difficult to get to area of the Payette National Forest.
Launched on April 3, 1860, the Pony Express connected California in the far West with the Eastern United States with the fastest means of communication up to that Mme – approximately ten days of hard, fast riding between St. Joseph, Missouri, and Sacramento, California. Though the Pony Express lasted only eighteen months, it became a lasting and endearing legend of the American West. It ceased its operaMons on October 26, 1861, just two days after completion of the transcontinental telegraph that made it obsolete. The last delivery of Pony Express mail arrived in San Francisco
This last year was challenging for a number of reasons, be it available vaca&on, motorcycle maintenance and opera&on, or my lack of organizational skills and &me management. There were sacrifices made and chances taken, but during the adventures, I was thankful for the opportunity to explore and engage in what our great outdoor world has to offer. My advice, if you see an opportunity or behold an inspiring landscape, take a moment to snap a picture and write a few notes in a journal.