2008-10-5 Rat Dog Recon Ride
Posted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 3:42 pm
Dave Klug, Walt Koch, Dan Hatcher and I all met up at a local cafe in Washougal for breakfast. We were originally going to do this exploratory ride on Saturday, but the weather guessers said Sunday would be better and only 30% chance of rain, as opposed to Saturday's 80%. Leaving Washougal, the rain started in - and basically never quit all day. Evidently 100% of the 30% stayed directly above us!
Man, we sure hit some wet pockets! We also encountered one dead-end road, where we had to do a reroute, which sucked up a large amount of time, but the newer route was totally worth it. As expected, there were a few hunters (powder season) out, a couple of which took their lane out of the middle of the road. It rained so hard, my camera got wet and wasn't focusing properly. Wow, did we all freeze our pinkies off at the top of one 4,000' pass! We thankfully descended from from there and warmed back up. We found a nice bar in Yacolt that had soup and spanish coffees - yes! Once we got back, it was time for more drinks and there was a few of us that drank just a bit too much, but slept good that night.
The event route is way cool, but there are concerns such as:
* The date happens to be the opening day of rifle hunting season in Washington - not good at all.
* The extended-weather forecast for the event isn't looking too promising.
* Since I was on my sabbatical (Europe), there wasn't much time to work on the event.
With that, we're tempted to cancel the event. We'll bottom out on that decision tonight.
-Tom
The Fall colors were in full display, even though it was a dark, dank day!
Emerging from the bush in unison.
Hey Danno, whaddaya doing over there?
As Walt demonstrates, some of the mudholes were DEEP!
Inside Dave's Pub in Yacolt - warm soup and spanish coffees!
Man, we sure hit some wet pockets! We also encountered one dead-end road, where we had to do a reroute, which sucked up a large amount of time, but the newer route was totally worth it. As expected, there were a few hunters (powder season) out, a couple of which took their lane out of the middle of the road. It rained so hard, my camera got wet and wasn't focusing properly. Wow, did we all freeze our pinkies off at the top of one 4,000' pass! We thankfully descended from from there and warmed back up. We found a nice bar in Yacolt that had soup and spanish coffees - yes! Once we got back, it was time for more drinks and there was a few of us that drank just a bit too much, but slept good that night.
The event route is way cool, but there are concerns such as:
* The date happens to be the opening day of rifle hunting season in Washington - not good at all.
* The extended-weather forecast for the event isn't looking too promising.
* Since I was on my sabbatical (Europe), there wasn't much time to work on the event.
With that, we're tempted to cancel the event. We'll bottom out on that decision tonight.
-Tom
The Fall colors were in full display, even though it was a dark, dank day!
Emerging from the bush in unison.
Hey Danno, whaddaya doing over there?
As Walt demonstrates, some of the mudholes were DEEP!
Inside Dave's Pub in Yacolt - warm soup and spanish coffees!
