Making the most of my limited time on Earth

Yesterday's update did not convey the magnitude of the challenge of making it up to the beaver dam and back home. My photos do not do it justice. I don't know if I have the words to describe it. The process of writing helps to clarify things for me and even if nobody is reading after the initial account, I’m okay with that. 

To everyone giving me the gift of reading this: “Thank You”. This is a longer read with fewer photos. Any comments are welcome. 

Or you can wait a few more days for the adventure to continue, skip over this account until I have more photographs to share.

The road towards Armstrong, Hwy 587, is nicely paved, curvy and hilly, with very little traffic, and is wonderful to drive. As I headed North on my “Dry Run”, it started to rain. It didn’t bother me: I was happy. It's just over 80 km from the junction with the Trans-Canada Highway (Hwy 11/17) to the turn-off to Camp 45. 

Camp 45 road looked grumpy from the start but I have driven it before, with a camping trailer towed behind my truck, and I thought, naively, "how bad could it be?"

It could be pretty bad.

To start with, I was dealing with loose gravel, rocks and ruts, potholes and puddles. I expected that. I drove slowly, cautiously. The first major obstacle was barely 5 km in. A deep washout (depicted on previous photos, but in pictures it looks like a little divot in the road). This washout, or gully crossing the road was about six feet across, and maybe three feet deep, steeper going in, not bad coming out, rocky with loose gravel and which I would have no hesitation tackling on a mountain bike but had to consider seriously the wisdom of attempting on a fully loaded motorcycle. It would not be passable even for my 4 wheel drive pickup truck. If anything bad were to happen after this point, I’m fucked.

The rain continued.

"What the hell?" I thought, "I’ve come this far, I’m only 5 k in from the main road, I can use my satellite communicator to get help here if necessary!"

So: hands on bars, first gear, methodical approach, down  the gully - success! back up and out - not success! 

I lost control and Betty is lying in the mud. And seems suddenly much heavier? Can I lift her up? No!  Too heavy! I’m feeling weak and defeated. I needed a few minutes to gather myself. Did I break anything? 

After a few minutes I managed to right her, no damage, lesson learned (maybe): keep weight forward for the second part of the ditch as you exit uphill, look where you're going, don't over-correct.

Then I looked back at the washout and realized that the exit would be a lot harder going the other way. I shuddered. I did not think I could make it out. Hopefully, I prayed to whichever god is listening, I can continue on my loop and never see this washout again! (I would be disappointed).

It continued to rain.

After that, the road got a lot better for a while. It's nearly 50 km to the campground at the top of the lake, so there would be plenty of time for nature to throw in some more challenges.

I tried not to think what I’d do if I came to another washout: now beyond easy rescue and really not wanting to confront that first one again. 

Of course I encountered another washout. Maybe I should have turned around at that point. This one looked about the same as that first one, but I now remembered what I had read and full of bravado and false courage. Turning around was not really an option.  I thought I'd learned my lesson from the prior gully, I went a wee bit faster, kept my weight back going in, weight forward going out, look ahead where I want to go - it was like magic! I'm figuring this out! 

I carried on and came to a partial washout with a bit of ground still seeming to be firm, I took that at a decent speed and no problem at all. 

Continuing in the rain, my visor fogging up, mud splattering me, my gear, my visor, my hands are damp and every time I try to put on my gloves my pinky gets stuck and my thumb,  too. And in case I haven’t made it clear: It’s not easy-peasy like riding on asphalt!

Then I got to the mother of all washouts, I was a bit of scared shitless but what am I going to do?  So with reasonable speed, I picked a good line, looking ahead; planned my exit and got through unharmed and with only a small amount of sphincter clenching.  “Wow,” I thought, “I got this for sure!”

I think I drove for something like two hours in this manner, following what looked to be some recent vehicle tire tracks for a part of the way but they disappeared, I still don't know where or how. Maybe some poor unfortunate guys are lost and stuck in a truck somewhere out there?  I sure hope not.

Finslly, I arrived at a beaver dam that was truly impassable even by my now elevated standards  and possibly reduced common sense. The water was at least four feet deep and the road was covered for several hundred feet. I describe my actions at this point on a previous entry: suffice to say that I would probably have shot the beaver if I’d been armed. And possibly have cooked and eaten it and used the pelt to make a hat  

It was at that point that I turned around, and I followed another side track where the previously observed tire marks seemed to lead but then they turned around. Examining the road beyond, which was just a big swamp at that point, I understood why they had not attempted it. This would not be a good place to get stuck!

The rain continued unabated.

So I turned back again, my appetite for adventure satisfied for the day, and aimed my bike back at Hwy 527, intending to camp when I reached a nice place with few bugs, and not going past my driving deadline of 8:30. No lovely Black Surgeon Sandy Eggo camping for me!

It did not feel like a failure at all: you go out, do your best, and life is what happens along the way. This was an adventure, after all: even if only a short one: two days.

A few issues came up while riding, including the front brakes possibly needing bleeding as they felt a bit soft. Thank god I’d fixed the rear brakes which functioned exactly as they should have. Good predictable stopping, no sticking, ABS engages when I’m overdoing it. (Should I have turned ABS off for gravel riding?  I’ll have to read about it). And I'll have some more fine tuning to do on Betty when I got home. 

Riding rough roads on a loaded bike is a lot of work. Did I mention that it was raining most of the time? I was exhausted by 8:30 and set up the tent and had something to eat and slept like a log. I will avoid the awful memory of the hordes of voracious mosquitoes and black flies while setting up my camp.

Friday morning arrived with a beautiful sunrise and I was feeling a mixture of nerves, excitement, and fatalism about my trek back, remembering the washouts, wondering if the rain had made them worse, and that third one that I had crossed through on my way in had me spooked for some ominous reason.

I packed up and set off about 7:30 after a nice coffee and a breakfast of instant oatmeal with dried fruit. 

I had about 20 k of beautiful driving. I was in the zone and I was much more relaxed on the bike, took the bumps and potholes and rocks and gravel in stride, feeling on top of the world. I raced some snowshoe hares who were out for a bite of breakfast and seemed quite surprised to see me coming. But all the while in the back of my mind was that damned gully: six feet across, four feet deep, water running through it, a steep exit, and no alternatives.

It occurred to me that I could take everything off the bike, and cross up and over and then carry my stuff and put it all back on. When I got to what I was now beginning to think of as a fjord, it was about as bad as I remembered it. If I got stuck here I was in some trouble. No one could reach me. 

Possibly I was (over) confident or trying to convince myself not to be a pussy and I attacked it without really scoping out the exit. I did not pay it the respect it deserved. 

In, down, out, loss of control, bike down, helmet bashed the ground, things bent and broken, windscreen gone, my airbag (vest) inflated.

Oh, I haven't mentioned in addition to the boots there was another gift from my loving wife, a year or two ago: an Alpinestar Tech-Air T-5 inflatable motorbike vest. You wear it under your motorcycle jacket, and if it senses a sudden change in direction, or inertial redirection, it inflates automatically, anticipating the crash. It protects the chest, back, abdomen, shoulders, and neck, all within a split second. I was likely spared a broken rib or very sore neck (or worse) or possibly abdominal injury. 

The experience was not much short of amazing: in the time it took for me to transition from riding, somewhat ineptly through the ditch, to being flat on the ground dazed and breathless, the vest had inflated and let me land in a nice cushion of air.  My bike, I can fix. Me: not so much!

Also, feet, legs, ankles were well protected by the Adventure boots by Givi. Solid. All the gear, all the time!

Boots, helmet, gloves, pants with armor padding, motorcycle jacket with protection over elbows, vest that has extra protection and inflates to protect chest, shoulders, and neck. I'm fine. . . .

A bit shaken, but not stirred!!

Anyway, I got over my disappointment, (be a goldfish) and I managed to pick up the bike (this is one good reason to be on an F650 rather than a R1250). Broken pieces here and there, no mirror, no windscreen, and it didn't want to start. It turned over, increasingly slowly as if the battery doesn’t have much juice left.

Shit, I thought, still 20 km to the road. . . that's a long walk. And two more nasty washouts, so no one is coming in here by vehicle to rescue me. Although if I'd been badly injured, my Garmin has an SOS button that would presumably summon a chopper. Not something I want to find out.

Looking at the hill ahead, I had an image of myself, pushing the bike to the top of the hill and turning around and rolling down in third gear with the ignition on and popping the clutch for a “bump start”. That sounds like fun!

I gave Betty (Betty? Still not sure of her name) a few minutes to get over the shock, and she did start, thank Christ, praise Allah, merci Buddha, and whoever else looks out for fools.

Still, there were two more washouts to go, and now my confidence was shaken. Well, nothing for it but to attempt to re-learn my lesson from the previous day. I can only choose to live in this precise moment, a realization that has pervaded the two days of my trek. And allowed me to sleep the night before. 

I arrived at a moderate washout, about five feet across and two feet deep with a bunch of logs lying across the bottom and some awkward rocks jutting out everywhere. I stopped about 30 feet ahead of the gully, walked up, scoped it out carefully this time and planned exactly how I'd go through: my speed would be about 20 km/h to ensure I’d get through to the other side, I'd be in second gear for the right combination of speed and ability to power through and out; I planned my exit and where I'd aim after I got through, (don’t veer off the road into the trees to the side or the swamp to the other side) and I visualized myself up on the foot pegs, leaning back as I enter, forward as I exit, and a clean traverse. And it went exactly as planned, with no drama at all. Whew!

The final washout, the first one from yesterday and where I had previously dropped the bike upon exit, was a hard one. Especially as it had quite a bit steep exit now going out making speed and balance critical. I approached it the exact same way as the last one, however, and knew that if I lost it here, I'm reachable by rescuers quite easily. It's only 5 k to the highway with no more major obstructions.

Planning was successful, in, down, up, and out with no drama at all, and I felt mostly on top of the world. The relief was tremendous! The drive home, another hour and a bit, was a glorious feeling of accomplishment, accompanied by some chagrin, knowing that my departure would be delayed while I ordered a new windscreen and mirror, and the thought about what I'd do regarding the deployed airbag vest that I'd now have to send out to be repacked. That takes weeks! Ordering a new one would probably take at least a week as well. 

Or could I wait until I get to Edmonton, where there's an Alpinestars dealer, and buy another one? Is $900.00 worth my life? (You bet your ass.)

I haven't decided on how I’ll deal with the no vest situation yet but the windshield and mirror are on order and should be delivered to the border store on Monday or Tuesday. Meanwhile, I've got some wrenching to do on Betty. (Or should she be Brunhilda?) (Bluehilda?)