My third trail ride was "thrilling" to say the least. We made a decision to follow this trail instead of that one. It was very steep and very rocky, the very diffinition of a black diamond trail. We rode about a mile and a half down, over big boulders, into big washouts. Way too difficult for a rookie like me. We get to the bottom only to realize it was a dead end! Hey, always take a good map. We had no choice but to ride back up that awful trail. I learned uphill was more difficult than downhill. I now have my rock crawling merit badge! Twice I though I was going to flip over backwards and my machine is the long wheel base model (2 up). Several times I thought I was going to roll over. My buddy in front of me had wheels off the ground more times than I could count. The buddy behind me said I did too. I scraped up my Outlander on big rocks. My friend got hung up on a big rock like a turtle on a fence post. He could not dismount for fear of flipping backwards. We winched his machine off the rock. The hill was so steep I had trouble walking up, almost had to crawl on all fours. Then I had to follow him over that rock. I somehow made it over. Wow!
We made it back to the top without injury to man or machine. Eighty percent of the ride was merely "moderate" according to my OHV trail map, with difficult sections. We did the Empire Loop and rode to Bill Moore Lake and the ghost mining town of "Red Elephant". I also saw bristle pine trees, likely hundreds of years old. They grow sideways due to the sometimes fierce winds up at 11,000 feet.
Here are a couple of pictures of the more sedate moments of our ride. I can tell you about one trail not to take. I am looking forward to our next ATV adventure.
David
