JARBIDGE DAIMOND A DESERT April 09

Several of us spent a long weekend in the Jarbidge area.

Byron Defenbach

Scott & Shelby Moore

Brad Watters and his wife.

Bryon riding backwards out of truck !

We camped at the Juniper Grove Campground on the East Fork of the Jarbidge just past Murphy Hot Springs.

Saturday Byron & I rode on the Diamond A Desert. On the left is the route I wanted to ride- Arch Canyon, Look Out Pt & Black Rock Crossing. The right is what we rode ~ 130 miles. We had a late start waiting for it to warm up it was 28’ when we got up, so I wanted to skip Look Out Pt and do Arch Canyon & Black Crossing on the Bruneau River.

WHAT I WANTED TO RIDE

What we rode

Over looking Diamond A Ranch to the Jarbidge Range

Byron and me at the state line

Byron ripping into the homestead

Cowan Homestead

Arch Canyon- Is a box canyon off the Jarbidge which forms a natural corral that the cowboys would use to hold horses in the winter.

The corrals

The Arch Cowboy rock is under the ARCH

Cowboy Rock

Rock wall and fencing that completed the corral.

We ate lunch here in the bottom of the canyon.

After we climbed out of the canyon we headed off to Black Rock Crossing. I had a route plotted from the Arch to Look Out Pt, then from Look Out to Black Rock Crossing.

I though I could wing it directly to Black Rock Crossing.

Along the way we crossed Cougar Creek and the Larios Cow Camp.

Although several tracks are in Garmin database and seemed to show up Google Earth that would cut across the plateau to Black Rock Crossing I couldn’t find them on the ground

.

We decided to head south to connect to Forest Road 71 to buzz back home. We followed a fairly established two track that followed a water pipeline and every fence had a gate.

Along the way we saw a huge cloud of dust just over the rise, which was a large heard of elk. The 4-wheelers I meet on Sunday thought the heard was 200 or more.

It was large enough that Byron had time to fish out his camera and snap this photo.

It felt like a good plan until the track fizzled out at the bottom of Bear Paw Mountain ( FSR 71 was on the other side of the mountain ).

Byron guessed he only had about 50 miles of gas so we backed tracked to the last fence and followed it east and we eventually found the road.

Main street in downtown Jarbidge. Current fulltime population = 3. Grows to 50 in the summertime with 250 “guests” on the weekends.

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Sunday Scott, Brad & I headed south to see if we could make it to Jack Creek and into Jarbidge. It was windy , cold and snowing. The ride took us over 7500 feet.

Brad & Scott @ Dave Creek

Chimney at cow camp along Rattlesnake Creek

Freighters Defeat Canyon

After negotiating snow banks, mud and sage brush we made to the Jack Creek Road.

Then the four wheelers came up and told us there was a long snow bank around the corner.

They were right !

We back tracked our way back to camp.

One of Obama’s many accomplishments in his 1^st 100 days was leading me out of the wilderness !

East Fork of the Jarbidge

FOSSIL SINKER CREEK 4 8 09

I originally wanted to ride from Birch Creek to Poison Creek and loop into the hills back thru Doyle Place, but because of the storms we decided it would be better to get rained out closer to home.

We stopped at Fossil Creek trail head.

1) I discovered I had left my gloves in the garage & only had 2 right handed gloves in my gear bag. Dave loaned me a pair.

2) After pounding thru the whoops, we stopped in sand wash to take some layers off. I took off not checking on Dave, but he found me after climbing a ridge and scouting around.

3) Dave took the lead. He rounded the point right before a creek crossing and I lost him. I crossed the creek but he wasn’t there. I waited then doubled back and couldn’t pick up his trail.

After 30 minutes of waiting, scouting & listening I headed back to the truck. Dave showed up at the truck about 5 minutes after I did.

4) We traded stories and decided to head back toward Sinker Creek to salvage the ride. When we took off from there I forgot to turn my gas on and almost lost Dave again but he had to stop and open a

fence.

We did clock about 45 miles and only got few sprinkles so the day was salvaged.

Obama didn’t help that much, but he did make feel bad about being born in America and having enough money to go dirt biking.

BRUNEAU APRIL 5 2009

Byron & I took advantage of the warm weather with our 950’s. Made a quick 200 mile loop south just past Bruneau. Totally uneventful – no flats, no mechanical breakdowns, no speeding J , no get offs , hospital visits , pain meds , all the cops waved at us , didn’t see any of Bryon’s girl friends and we got back on time. I’ll probably be going back to ride more of the ranch roads between Hwy 51 & Bruneau Canyon.

 

 

In Bruneau we had lunch at the “1 Stop”.

While we were there a fellow told about the ride below. One of his buddies is signed up.

Grady this is the real Iron Butt, I’ll have to sign up next year.

He also told about a dirt bike loop the follows the north side of the Snake from Hammond to the crossing at Hwy51 the heads south around the Bruneau Sand Dune .He also said there is cross county ride every year in Sailor Creek area.

http://www.motorcyclejazz.com/TID.htm

On the way back I took Byron to the Crater Rings. I finally found something Byron didn’t know about the Boise area.

I had fun on the 950 although it took a bit of concentration to not ride it like two-stroke in the dirt.