Saturday June 13th 0830

[tannerc]

This Saturday we will be out to do some riding. Myself and a FNG that has not experienced riding in the hills. We plan on leaving Piedmont around 0830-0900. The plan is to ride over to Johnson Siding area do some single, ride over to the Silver City area do some single, hit some double track/forest roads up to the Galena area, ride the double track in the Camp 5/Galena area, Head back to the Nemo area.. It is a ambitious plan, the plan may change depending on trail conditions & tiredness.

Also is anyone planning on riding the ORA poker ride on Sunday?

[Fletch]

Unfortunately I will be working in either the garage or the rock pile also referred to as my yard. Have fun.

[Stevsie]

West west 250 in Sturgis Saturday! Get there and support offroad racing for the black hills!!!

[tannerc]

West west 250 in Sturgis Saturday! Get there and support offroad racing for the black hills!!!

I would like to go watch those guys,  seen some video of some of twisted customs jeep running, but.. i have to ride,  drove 5hrs to ride

[tannerc]

It is pretty muddy out there



Coming over to Nemo from the Piedmont trail head everything was amazingly dry, this was traveling on the main road, we did not get on to any of the double track in between Piedmont and Nemo. There was water standing at some of the double track entry points so we did not even try, and because of the Forest Service memo about the motorized portion of 89 being closed. We skipped the Nemo area for the same reason you could tell the entire area was pretty soggy looking.



The areas in circled in blue are super wet, the areas in green were dry and good for travel.

The single track to the west and south west of the Johnson Siding area running along 385 are in good shape, actually perfect for riding no mud and no dust. The single track north of Sliver City is in the same condition.

The stuff on the east side of the Johnson siding area is really wet, the tank traps/erosion berms a full of water over flowing and some are sink a bike deep. Areas on the double track have had a good amount of 4 wheel vehicle damage. We ended up walking our bikes around places just because it was so soggy, soft and already tore up a bit.
The double track west of the Silver City area circled in blue is also very wet, lots of water running and standing. There are some really soft spots in the forest roads too, I would skip this area all together. The little stretch of single track over there is not passable.

Video of wetness in the east side of JS

[tannerc]

We traveled up to the Galena/Camp 5 area, things were in real good shape, the creek is running pretty hard and full making the water crossing between Galena and Camp5 a bit deeper then usual.
It was GHOST WALK day in Galena. More pictures and vids to come.

[tannerc]

The single north of Silver City

[tannerc]

We went through Galena and found the place to be hopping, cars and people everywhere. Turns out they were having a historic walk fund raiser. The town was marked out with the locations and images of all the old buildings and mines in the area.


While I was talking to Dale Baity he mentioned Thomas Walsh lived in Galena for a while and his cabin was still there. I remember seeing his house, mine and history in CO while on vacation as kids.

We rode through and I stopped and asked about the location of the Walsh Cabin

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Walsh_%28miner%29

[tannerc]

We passed through Galena and headed up and around to get to the west side of Camp5, on the way we rode up to the "Chinese Walls" or Hercules White Walls. Evidently you are not supposed to ride up there (we found out after) there was no signage and a 4 wheeler was coming out as we went in. (we were on our best low decibel behavior as the walk was going on)

[tannerc]

[tannerc]