The Dirt Biker Chronicles

The plan was to ride a 50 mile loop starting from camp near Burgdorf, in the Payette National Forest of Idaho. We were going to ride Bear Pete Trail to Victor Creek Trail, to Loon Lake Trail, and back to camp.

We knew that Victor Creek Trail had not been cleared this year and we were bringing a chainsaw to cut it out. It was the kind of loop that we’d all done before with no problems. After all, we riders of the TVTMA cut out hundreds of miles of forest trail every year.

We had a big dinner planned for when we returned. The gals staying behind were going to prepare a great meal. We’d eat by a big fire while drinking cold beer, and afterwards head down to soak in the hot pool at Burgdorf. It was going to be a perfect Saturday night.

We left camp at about 10:15am with 11 of us heading to Bear Pete trailhead. Bear Pete is a well used, intermediate level trail that rolls 25 miles along the ridgeline of Bear Pete Mountain.

We made good time and had covered 23 miles by my odometer when we stopped for a snack at 11:40am. We said goodbye to two of our party who were splitting off there for a shorter ride back to camp. The remaining nine of us headed on to Victor Creek Trail.

Victor Creek Trail is a little over 11 miles long. The first five miles climb up the rocky Diamond Ridge saddle; the next six miles drop down into Victor Creek basin and follow it down to Loon Lake.

The Diamond Ridge saddle has a spectacular view and we stopped there to take a break. I figured we’d ride through Victor creek within a few hours, then ride the other 15 miles to camp in plenty of time to be back by 6pm.

Steve Frisbie told us the trail hadn’t been ridden this year and would need some trees cut out. However, he didn’t think it would be excessive. He had rode the trail two summers before, as had Anne Libengood, who was also riding with us. By their recollections, once we rode down the mountainside into the basin it was a pretty easy ride to Loon Lake.

It was right about 2pm when we started the descent into the basin. We moved along pretty smoothly for the first mile, which was rocky mountainside with few trees. As we got down to the valley floor, though, we came into a stand of burned trees and the number of fallen trees increased. We were still high enough to see to the end of the valley and beyond and we could see the end of the burnt area about a half-mile ahead. We believed that once we cut our way through it, we’d start making good time again.

Things didn’t happen that way, though. The forested sections that weren’t burned also had a lot of fallen trees; a lot more than a trail cleared just two years ago would usually have. There were also more burnt sections ahead than anyone remembered.

Still we kept pushing on, believing that the trail would get better. I remember Anne telling me it was 5:20pm when I noted the mileage on my odometer at 34 miles for the day. I figured we had to get to about 38 miles to punch out onto the Loon Lake trail. The next time I asked her for the time it was 7:40pm and we had only gone little over a mile further.

This is when I started having real doubt. Even if we could ride strait through I knew we wouldn’t make it back to camp until almost 9pm. Somehow, though, we believed we were going to make it out, even if it did get dark on us. We never discussed turning back.

Of course, the trail didn’t get better. We could only ride 2/10th of a mile before running into another roadblock. It was one battle after another. We had long since stopped cutting every fallen tree and were riding over all that were navigable. We even hoisted the bikes over and drug them under some large trees that would have taken a long time to cut.

As the sun began to set we were still over two miles from the end of Victor Creek Trail. It was now too dangerous to even consider backtracking over Diamond Ridge in the dark. We had no choice but to press on, even with hundreds of dead pines littering our path.

Nightfall only made it harder to stay on the trail. We’d cut an impassable tree, ride over some more, around some more, and then there would be another roadblock to cut out. Our progress was unbelievably slow.

At about 11:40pm we were in another burned section with trees lying around like a box of spilled toothpicks. Steve Frisbie, Verrick Bach and JD Mullin walked ahead to scout while the rest of us – Mark Weaver, Steve Carr, Tresa Worrell, Chris Horgan, Anne Libengood and myself - sat and waited in the dark.

Now that we’d stopped riding and working we were getting a little cold. None of us brought anything more than a riding jacket and the temperature was dropping. We debated building a little fire while we waited for Steve, JD and Verrick, but decided against it, hoping they would return soon with a clear path ahead scouted.

Whatever hopes we had of getting out that night were crushed when they returned. They had found several trees that needed cut ahead, and they couldn’t follow the trail very far before losing it in the darkness. If we got off the trail our situation would be that much worse. We decided unanimously to build a fire and wait for sun rise to continue on.  

Fortunately there was an abundance of firewood around and we had a chainsaw. Verrick built a big fire in no time and soon we were all huddled around it, wrapped in our solar blankets, ponchos, and whatever else we had to keep us warm.

We all tried to sleep but it was mostly a restless night. The temperature was freezing and you had to be within a few feet of the fire to keep warm. The ground was also cold to lie on. I got just enough sleep to consider it a power nap.

The night went surprisingly fast all things considered. It was joyous watching the twilight creep across the horizon. By 6:30am it was light enough to begin mobilizing. Frisbie and Verrick left first to start cutting the trail ahead of us. The rest of us put out the fire, and pumped water for our hydro packs.

Once we got moving we made a lot better time cutting and jumping logs. It was so much easier in the light of day than the darkness of night. It took us about an hour-and-a-half to ride to the end of the trail. It turned out we had spent the night less than two miles from the end of the trail. So close yet so far away.

We still had about 15 miles to ride back to camp from the end of Victor Creek, but it was open trail all the way. I was so anxious to get back to camp I was counting the miles down the whole way. It felt like riding to the last checkpoint in an enduro, you’re just so excited to finish.

We rolled back into camp around 8:30am. Of course everyone at camp was curious what had happened. They had been worried. They figured we were staying together and that made them believe we were okay. They had decided they would wait until noon for our return before organizing a search.

In retrospect, it was a great adventure. Of course, if I had known we were destined to spend the night out there, I probably wouldn’t have gone. Or at least I would have packed a few more items; a head sock, jacket, and flask come to mind right off. It is the unknown challenges you have to overcome that make an adventure, though. And that’s what this trail ride had.

Filed under: The Dirt Biker Chronicles on September 9th, 2008