This ride all started a couple weeks ago in the thread "Calling Old Man Time" in which MyFirstThumper asked if I would be willing to guide him and his friends on a Green Dot adventure. Always willing to show a brother rider the area I agreed and the plans for the ride began. Other's seeing the thread chimed in and before you know it we had an awesome crew of 14 riders.

I promised a 100 mile ride into the upper and lower Green Dot road system. I didn't quite deliver on the 100 miles. It seems we had only gone 98 miles by the end of the day. Sorry guys, in the future I will have to work on my mileage estimates :excuseme: . When the ride was first planned the weather had been rather overcast and cool. We even had a major rain storm come in a little more than a week before the ride and it dropped a lot of snow in the area where we would be riding. In fact a radio broadcast said Mission Ridge recorded 6 to 8 inches of new snow in the parking lot. But no sooner had it snowed and the weather started to warm up a lot. By the week of our ride it was in the upper seventies and eighties. By Saturday 6/2/2007, the day of the ride the predicted temps were in the upper 90's. At 6:00 in the morning, as I was getting ready to leave Quincy for Ellensburg, it was already in the 70s.

I met up with almost everyone at the traditional breakfast spot, the Bar-14 Ranch House Restaurant in Ellensburg.

Here is most of the crew at the restaurant having a great time chatting and anticipating the ride . In the far left of the picture you can see our waitress taking orders.


I asked the guys to give me their meanest dirt bike look as they sat around the table. It was so pathetic I am too embarrassed to post the picture. :p

After breakfast Alan and Katy showed up and we were ready to head over to the Kittitas Shell Station where Mike was waiting for us on his KLX650. He rode all the way from Moses Lake on that bike and then did the 98 miles of forest and desert Green Dots. He is one tough cookie.

We pulled into the staging area a few minutes early. It was about 9:40.


That toy hauler from Mexico was indeed huge. It has everything - air conditioning, bathroom, cooking appliances:


Here is Alan unloading and his wife Katy standing next to their rig.


It did not take too long and everyone was suited up and ready to go. It also was starting to feel hot out and it was still morning.


It was suggested that maybe we should do the loop down to the river first while the temps were cooler. I knew if we went down to the river first most of the guys would not do the upper loop. They would be too exhausted from the rocks. So I made sure we did the easier upper roads first so everyone would still be gung-ho to do the river loop. Out of 14 riders 12 finished the entire ride. Not bad at all.

One of the guys mentioned he hoped we would not be moving too quickly since he wanted to take a lot of pictures. I too love to take pictures but on a 100 mile ride with this many riders you do have to keep things moving if you want to finish the ride. Still we were able to take some nice shots of the ride.

I stopped at the first scenic vista maybe 6 minutes into the ride for a brief photo opportunity. It's scenes like this that take your breath away and it only gets better.




The thing about the upper Green Dots is you are traveling through a sparsely treed forest which often times runs right on the edge of a ravine. You can see through the corner of your goggles that there are beautiful valleys below you. If you don't watch where your going it would be real easy to drive off the side of the road or into a riding partner who may want to pass you. The views distract you.



We would stop every now and then for a photo op and to let other riders catch up to the group. Always we made it a point to stop in a shady area cause of the heat. It was rather pleasant as long as you were moving and the altitude does keep the temps down a bit.


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We stopped at Judy's Tamarack Park for a a few pictures. The sign tells the story. I think I would have liked this Grandma:
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Here are the guys gathered around the sign:
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Up close and personal:
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Now Jerry is a dead ringer for "Kilroy was here":
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From here we decided to try to make the Mission Ridge lookout. We knew there was a good chance that we would hit snow but just maybe because of the hot weather the week before we decided to give it a try. We didn't make it but still had fun.
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Jerry decided to try his DRZ400S on this stuff. He did pretty good but it finally got the better of him.




This seemed to be a good place to turn around and head back to the trucks.


The ride back to the trucks was pretty uneventful except that DJ's front tire went flat. I always carry tubes in my truck so it didn't take long to get him fixed up and ready to do the second loop down to the river. The first loop was about 35 miles. The loop to the river turned out to be 63 miles.

We crossed the creek and headed up the power line road till it pours out onto the Colockum Pass road. We took the Colockum Road to the Power line road. Followed the power line road till it runs into Brewton road. We took the Brewton road north till it intersect the Colockum road and then took the Colockum road till it intersects the road that would take us down to the Tarpiscan Road.

This picture is looking back toward the Colockum Road just before we head down to the Tarpiscan.


There is quite a view from here of the West Bar which is our destination.
If you look closely off into the distance you can see the Columbia River and the West Bar jutting out into the River:


Here is a zoomed shot of the West Bar:


There is a look out point located here, which some guys rode up to get a eye full of where we would be heading.


Coming back:


One of my favorite roads down to the river is the Tarpiscan. The valleys you ride through are just gorgeous.

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Oh did I forget to mention that dust was a major issue through out the ride. We all need to thank Jerry for volunteering to ride sweep for the majority of the ride.
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Back to the Tarpiscan scenery:
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The closer we got to the river the hotter the air around us became. It must of been close to 97 or 98 degrees. Between the heat and dust we all felt like jumping into the river but only two brave souls actually took the plunge.
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We might have considered trading our bikes in on one of these:
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Now notice the scrape and bruise starting to develop on his back. That happened while he and his riding partner were riding side by side so they didn't have to eat dust. Well the story goes that his partner wanted to play a joke on him and reached over and grabbed his throttle causing them both to go down but guess who got the worst of it.


The guys at the river:


Well it was 5:30 p.m. so we decided to head back. Everyone getting ready. Well not everyone. Alan and Katy decided to get a jump on everyone so they would not have to eat any dust. (Smart move) I had been the lead rider all day long but now that everyone knew the way out, I was eating dust all the way up Brewton road to the power line road. Brewton is by far the worst rock infested road that we rode all day long. It's always nice to ride rocks when your the most tired and likely to make mistakes. I didn't take any pictures of the rocks.


It was about 6:30 once we got up into the upper elevations again and it was cooler up there.


I love the purple flowers. They were everywhere on the ride:


We all got back to the staging area safely with only one minor problem. Alan had to ride a flat back the last few miles of the ride.

Well there you have it. Our Epic ride. Every one felt great about finishing this ride and learning about a riding area that most had never ridden before. It was fun guys lets do it again some time. :thumbsup: :ride: :thumbsup:

Great trip report as usual Nick. I'm already making plans to go back for a weekend. I live Waaaay too far away to try and do it in one day again.

:banana: Nice report Nick as always, thanks for showing us around:thumbsup:


This was my first flat ever. Thanks for your help.:applause:

Yeah thanks again Nick i had a great time. Thanks to all you fellow riders too, i had a great time riding with you guys.

BTW the scratches are already healing up lol :thumbsup: :ride:

Thank you Nick for the great ride. Katy and I have a good time. We both really enjoyed the section from the rive back up the hills to the trees. One section, the rocks were bad enough to slow us down a little. Looking forward to doing the 150 miles later on.


BTW, My flat tire was caused by a nail. I was going along just fine and all of a sudden, the rear end of my bike felt real loose. I stopped to make sure everything was okay and my tire was flat. :cry: There was a nail sticking out of my tire. I was about 8 miles away from trucks. Rode slow and made it back fine.

Thanks again Nick
Alan

:applause:

NE_Oregon_KTM said:

Alan, that is really interesting about the nail. About 6 weeks ago I took a fellow down to the river and several miles from the truck I picked up a nail in my rear tire. It was a rather new looking nail too. I wonder where these nails are coming from?

Hey all,

It was great riding with all of you this weekend.

Thanks to Alan and Katy and Jerry for the band-aid fix for my floppy rear fender on the way back up from the river. It was much more pleasant not having to stop and back up to free the fender out of the back tire all the time.:thumbsup:

Also I have to thank Nick again. :applause: Once he had me and the KLX in the clutches of his Toyota, he would not let me out until we were parked in front of my garage in Moses Lake. What a great guy. Oh, he did let me out once so I could get ice cream in Kittitas. AAHHH, that was good. Anyway what a great guy. I look forward to riding some more with you once I get some more time.

That rocky section on our way out from the river would best be described as vicious terrain. It was challenging.

Great pics. I can not wait to see some more.

Later,
Mike
MasterMarine

Wow looks like an awesome ride! I'd love to get it on the next one, if there is a next one? Was it all fire roads and such? I have an SM and it handles fire roads just fine but any real trails and I think I'll have to wait til I get a set of S wheels for it.

DR_BUSA said:

I would hold of until you get some S wheels and Knobbies. My nephew was having a hard time on his DR650 with the stock Deathwing tires,

That was a good time guys. It was a bit too dusty for my tastes but I am used to riding in mud/rock/trees. It sure did feel good to get in the river on the second leg of the ride!

Here are a few shots DJ took of the first loop including his front flat tire which we quickly fixed before doing the second loop. Leave no riders behind.


The first loop had one water crossing and DJ was in the right spot at the right time with his camera ready:


Back at the trucks we went to work on DJ's front tire.


These little posts with the Green Dot on them is where the Green Dot Road system gets it name:


Heading down to the river DJ did document one of the tamer rock sections:


Thanks for the photos DJ.:thumbsup:

awesome pics...

Cool ride man!

Do you have to have a plate to ride the green dots? It looks like everyone did...

I was actually up in that exact same spot a few weeks ago where you guys parked. Anyone try that nasty hill climb out of the lot there up the hill just above the road?

Thumpmeister said:

No, plates are not required to ride on the Green Dot roads. :thumbsup:

Thumpmeister said:

No plate to ride there. Over half the guys were from our local Dual Sport club hence all the plates.

A few of our B'ham guys tried the hill. I don't think anyone made it.

Looked like a good ride, cant wait till we can make it over Grouse Springs into the Devils Gulch/Table Mtn areas. Lots of area you still have not explored.

Did I miss something? Why did Mike (mastermarine) need a lift home?

TONY

hayshaker said:

He broke off his Tail light and a turn signal as well as his license plate.

MyFirstThumper said:

Thanks, I was worried it was worse than that. :thumbsup: The part about the buddies horsing around is kinda comical....:crazy: glad no one got hurt! Long way from help over there if something goes wrong.

TONY