[admiral]

Yesterday, I went for a ride with youngest daughter (officially Kid #6), and of course Georgie in the Hitt Mtns along the western border of Idaho and Oregon. Plan A: ride up Adams Creek, head north towards Sturgill Lookout, and drop down the north side of the L.O. and explore the old Hitt Mtn Ski Area. Now, for those familiar with the food analogy, "my eyes where bigger than my stomach", this is what the Adams Crk to Hitt Mtn Ski area turned out to be. On to Plan B: from Adams Crk connect to 4th of July Crk rd, and head back to the truck (half as long of a ride).



I don't really know how some riders can ride for 250 miles in 8 hrs, and still be able to stop and smell the roses, but we rode for alittle over 5 hours and put on a whopping 35 miles. Needless to say, we stopped and smelled a bunch of roses. Still a great ride on a great day. Gonna be over 100 degrees come this weekend. Yikes!



Depart the homestead at 0700, with some not so eager to get up that early.

And some very eager!

Stopped and unloaded the rigs at a roadside camping spot along Adams Creek rd.

On the way to a cache, (which we found), spotted the "camp host" with a few extra guests!

After finding the first cache, headed up to the top of the ridge in search of another cache. Here we are on top of the ridge. Good riding here.

Gonna head down yonder in search of the next cache. In the background is Hell's Canyon.

From the trail, if you look close you can see the roof of an old cabin, and the cache is down there.

Now you can see it. At first I thought this was a old miners cabin, but I'm not so sure now. With a spring at the location, it could have been a line cabin and barn for a ranching operation. Lots of mines in the area, but nothing shown on the maps at this spot.

Made a half attempt at the nearby cache without success, but got more interested in the cabin and out-building. Kid #6 at the cabin.

Here inside the cabin, I discovered that cattle can get in also...stepped in a fresh one! (Cow pattie)

More to come.

 

[admiral]

Here's a few photo's of the out-building. Wonder what was here, miners equipment or ranching gear?

From the cabin, Admiral treks back UP to the rigs. Huffing and puffing the whole way! I should keep better tabs on the location of the camera!

There they are!

And I'm not the only one pooped from the climb back up to the rigs! See who has the camera now!

From here no more caches to find, just some fun riding. Stopped here for some noon-time vittles.

In the far distant mountain top to the north is Sturgill Lookout. Yep, didn't make it that far on today's ride.

Sturgill L.O. zoomed way in.

One more small section to come.

 

[admiral]

And across the Snake River/Brownlee Reservoir is Big Mountain Lookout, Oregon.

Zoomed in view of Big Mtn L.O.

After lunch didn't take many pictures. However, on the way back to the truck, took a photo of this mine area. Will have to come back and explore this area again!

Hope ya'll have a good weekend and get some riding in. I'll be hunkered down with the A/C on! I melt over 90 degrees!

 

[mtngirl]

Hey Admiral, thanks for sharing that trip! Which Idaho maps do you use for these great roads? I need to get some plus maybe a little gps unit. As always your posts are appreciated.

 

[admiral]

Which Idaho maps do you use for these great roads? I need to get some plus maybe a little gps unit.

Thanks for reading my simple, usually day only trips.



I'm no gps expert, but I use a Garmin etrex vista H GPS. It has a limited internal memory which limits the amount of mapping data I can load at any one time, it's grayscale not color, and has a small screen. Short story, I use it to find caches and other waypoints, but I don't navigate by it using tracks and routes. I'd rather look at the road and the scenery than a gps. With a larger color screen model, I might use it more for navigation, but where I ride I really don't need it for that.



As for the maps I use, boy, to think about it I use alot of different ones and goggle earth too. They all have different points of interest, roads listed, etc, which is why I study them all. I mainly study the maps and google earth ahead of time of where I'm going to ride, but on riding day I usually just go and don't pay much attention to the maps, though I carry one just in case.



On this ride as an example, I studied the Idaho Benchmark atlas, and Delorme for starters. I then studied goggle earth, mapsource maps (bought for the gps, basecamp was free). I carried the forest service travel map of the area with me. I also go online to the USGS store and can download then print a topo map too. In this case I just looked at it on the computer as printing it large enough to see requires printing out serveral pages then taping them together. You can see why I don't print them out too much.



Maybe someday I will try navigating using the gps by loading routes/tracks, but I'm having to much fun just going out riding!



Have fun riding this summer!

 

[gfletcb]

Looks like you were down toward Mineral, was an old mining town last century, remnants here and there.



The best "ride" in that area loops from Hitt creek up the hill, back toward the lookout, back down to Keithly creek, then back up and over to Hitt creek again. There are some rough rocky sections that would no doubt test the TW suspension, bit of a workout on a quad.

 

[admiral]

Looks like you were down toward Mineral, was an old mining town last century, remnants here and there.

gfl,



We were not to far from mineral. Matter of fact we at lunch on the road that leads down to mineral. On Memorial weekend, wife and I came up mineral road from the reservoir. Weather was not good that weekend so we continued on, but I plan to go back, hopefully this year. There is a couple of geocache's by mineral that I would like to visit.



On this trip I stayed on the easy roads due to Kid 6's riding ability, but still had a fun time. Looks like tons of area to explore and roads/trails to ride. Here was my route for the day, and no doubt you will recognize the area!

 

[gfletcb]

If you had questions on routes when you go back, let me know. I'll suggest timber and shade

this time of year!



and yes, the route I mentioned would be a little much for a beginner with only one monitor.

 

[Bagger]

Admiral,

Give me one more month and I'll be ready to be a monitor!!

(I'll even bring my own subway) Thanks Jared!



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