Royce, who's a buddy from klr650.net, and I rode our KLRs on Saturday up Stevens Canyon (dirt road just W of Indian Ford Road a few miles W of Indian Ford/Camp Polk jct) north to USFS Road 64. For you non-PNWers, that jct is a few miles N of the town of Sisters.
Then we went west to Balancing Rocks, which required a brief hike in motorcycle boots. After that we rode along another dirt road on the south side of the Metolious Bench on Lake Billy Chinook past the Perry South campground until we finally reached a locked gate.
Left at 10a and got home about 5:30p after 150 miles of riding of which probably a third was on dirt. Stevens Canyon road ranged from well-graded gravel to rutted, potholed mess, to sketchy two track to mud bog. Really pretty country, ponderosa pines, mountain meadows, transitioning to grasslands and sagebrush. Then we rode through the canyons along the Metolious River arm of the lake.
While red riding gear made great sense on the hwy, I didn't feel too good about our red jackets in the woods as turkey season had begun. The area we were in is one of the places in Central Orygun with wild turkeys that are not of the bottle kind. For you non-hunters, wild turkeys have red heads and wearing red n the woods in turkey season is kind of like wearing a light tan during deer season.
We came across several hunters on our ride, but thankfully they were hunters and not slob hunters so no shotguns fired our way.
Only minor inconvenience, besides the locked gate, was the throttle on Royce's KLR went wonky. Wouldn't roll fully on, then would, then wouldn't. We couldn't find any binding on the cable and the locknut at the grip was still tight. When he got home and pulled the gas tank, it turned out a small stone had wedged itself on the backside of the carb linkage where we couldn't see it. Sometimes it would vibrate around and let the linkage fully engage and other times it would vibrate around and act as chock, blocking the throttle linkage's movement.
And no, we didn't go past the posted sign.
