Day 3 - WPG and More Exploring...
Day 3... wow that seems like such a long time ago. My brain has already turned into mush after this weekend. First, we spent almost $9k on a new HVAC system on Friday. Then, it didn't work for crap for two days and I was NOT happy. Tonight I did my due diligence and stuck my head into the attic before firing off a (polite) nasty gram to the installers. Low and behold, our attic was cool.... when it would normally be about 140 deg F?
Yes, one of the main ducts had blown apart or was never re-attached. Whoa...
Anyway. Day 3 was more Wolf Pen Gap and additional exploring beyond the WPG area. On Day 2 we had split into two groups, both of which had a ball on their chosen trails. This time we split and took the alternate trails followed by a run to the Tall Peak Fire Tower, Shady Lake Rec. Area, Langley Store (yumm... good BLT), and Blue Hole for Andrew. After that, Ken and I blazed our own way home on Trail #5 and Trail #3 of WPG... sweeeet off-road goodness.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. The day dawned really early again. I'm not very good at sleeping in sleeping bags on sleeping pads so by now I was feeling the sleep deficit.
Gary's snoring didn't help, but fortunately I had ear plugs. So, I'm not sure if I have my fly down here or what, by the looks on their faces, but Kyle was feeling the KTMButt-deficit as well. After being off of dirt bikes for many years he was pooped out and eager to get home to his family and little two year old kid. Can't say as I blame him.
It was fun Kyle, looking forward to riding with you again sometime! Hopefully you don't almost go up in flames like you did this time.
By now (most) of us were in the groove. Loads were paired down to the minimum. In Gary's case that meant only one 6-pack of Silver Bullets per pannier.
Ride Leader Pecos was ready to roll with his pieced together footpeg, recently welded back brake pedal bracket, duct-taped 10-year old Arai helmet, and sweet BMW.
We started at the West Wolf Pen Trail Head again and this time my group went on Trail #6 to the south of Trail #8. Ken and Stephen (and one other) took their first pass at the more difficult #8. If you ever get a chance to do Trail #8, try to imagine doing it on a KLR with like 43% of it's bolts missing. Now you are Stephen.
If you look all dashing and ride a high dollar dirt bike with all the best kit while secretly wishing you were racing a Hodaka, you must be Gary.
Trail #6 was a ball, especially West to East. More perfectly formed jumps prior to each mud puddle with some good ups and downs and quick turns. About half way through, South of the Hawk Overlook I believe, there's a trail that will link #6 with #8. Pretty funny. There are quite a few spots where I was glad I was on two wheels instead of four...
Here's Jeff negotiating a rutted, slippery snot section. I was to swap ends and swan dive over the bars in a similar spot later that day...
Speaking of Jeff, if that guy ever throws down for suspension on his Dizzer he'll be
fast. Heck he is already fast, and I could see that thing bottoming out and bouncing like a saddle bronc every time he launched it. That guy is a master of the save after riding that thing. Can't wait to see some of your helmet cam videos dude... get those suckers up
We met again at the East WPG trail head and decided to take Gary and Andrew down the "Water Trail" before dropping south. They hadn't done it before since Gary was on a beer run and Andrew was rally ridin' all over the country looking for us. It was fun but I only have video... and I tell ya, it was
DEEPER the first time!!
Of course they'll never believe us, but this time the water only came 3/4 of the way up the wheels. Even so, it was enough to make Stephen squeeze out his socks (again). Gore Tex guys.. . Gore Tex.
Ken's 2nd Helping of the Deep Crossing
Pecos and Jeff Hit the Water at Speed
The Beer Bike with it's Anti-KTM Butt Walmart Pad on the Water Trail.
Jeff took a lot of foliage samples... hmmm...
We stopped again at the Sugar Creek Vista for the other guys and discussed plans for the rest of the day. Nobody wanted to man-up with a route for fear of it being a flop and nobody knew the area, so we were in a bit of a conundrum. But what the heck... I still had a few stolen GPS waypoints to check out so off I went and darned if they didn't follow me
On the way south from Sugar Creek Vista I had probably my closest call of the weekend (at least I think it was this section). I was in my usual Tail End Charlie position, cruising at a good clip on a gravel road when I realized I was on the first descending, decreasing radius, off-camber gravel corner I'd seen. I was a few MPH over safe speed for this particular corner... well into "rally ridin'" territory, and the "oh crap I screwed this up" pucker was immediate. I couldn't get on the brakes because I'd lowside into the trees. I couldn't straighten it out because of the trees and I'd already passed the "oh crap" skidmarks of the guys in front of me. So I did what I'd been practicing and what
Neduro taught me on Disc #1. I got my weight massively on that outside peg, leaned the bike massively into the turn, and blasted through that nasty decreasing radius off camber gravel turn without even losing my line.
Rally Ridin.
(Of course the other guys, even Stephen on his bald-tired 400 lb KLR, had no problem with it...
)
Whew... thankfully, after a really nice hill climb (stay in your lane... because the green Forest Service trucks don't) the Tall Peak fire tower turned out to be a pretty cool place as well. Lewis and Clark deliver again
Arriving at Tall Peak
More Riders Show...
The Non-Beer Hauler KTM 690 Option at the Tall Peak tower...
Rally Machine, slowly stripping out peg bolts not optional. Have you seen what MetalJockey on ADV has done to his for Africa riding? Crazy.
The View from Tall Peak
After checking out the scenery and the creative tagging...
Little did we know that Stephen was planning his escape. See, he was supposed to be in Houston that day with his woman, looking at houses. I don't know what story he concocted or how many more weeks he has doing dishes and mopping floors, but he got one more day out of her.
Then he started feeling guilty. So at this point we'd ridden most of a strenuous day after days of hard riding. And this guy decides to cut out back to the cabin, change out his countershaft sprocket AGAIN (he could do it in his sleep with his gloves on), and ride the 500 miles back to Austin.
The crazy bugger made it at like 1:00 AM or something...
After Tall Peak we took a not-entirely-planned cruise by the Shady Lake area and then on to Langley for tasty food and banter with the mother-daughter team holding down the fort. Word to the wise... don't try to tip them. It may be an Asian thing or an Arkansas thing, but it did generate quite a bit of discussion
And until the restroom is repaired, use the tree out back (her words). Interestingly enough we passed the only other DS bike I saw the entire time while on CR 82 (great road) headed for Albert Pike and Langley... a guy on a KTM 640 ADV. I was making the "slow down" sign hoping he'd recognize the fact that there were a bunch of riders on one of the switchbacks behind me, but he tried to slap high fives or something instead. At a closing speed of probably 90 mph... no thanks
Anybody know who that was? I almost turned around to say hi.
Once we'd fueled ourselves and the KTMs at Langley, it was off to the Blue Hole so Andrew could see it. Apparently he wasn't impressed. The Blue Hole was already passe
The group continued to splinter after the BH when the Beer Run/Rally Ridin' guys decided they wanted another pass at the Water Trail. Not wanting to risk my water crossing success again I opted to bail to the north for some new roads above the BH and in the northern portion of Wolf Pen. Ken decided to provide backup (his swimming prowess was already confirmed). He may have regretted his decision because the first cool looking road I wanted to try...
kept getting smaller...
... and petered out into this. This is Ken's "Nice job, Lewis" look. (Clark, (Stephen), had already headed home.)
Some of you locals need to get out there and put that road back through, heck all the signs are still there. Polk Creek to Highway 8 before you get to Mt. Gilead.
Thankfully Ken stuck with me long enough to get back to Wolf Pen where we caught a sneaky little portion of Trail #8 that winds along the road to the north of the East Trail Head. Very sneaky, very fun, and at times pretty darned technical. I was 100 yards from the end when my bike decided to buck me off in some greasy, rutted, steep quad tracks. Fatigue was setting in. No harm done other than (what I thought were) pretty badly bent bars. From there we connected through to the #5 trails as they head back west towards the West Trail Head. Very fun trails that start like this...
... but feature a continually lowering canopy until you are hiding behind the bars and still getting smacked with trees and poison ivy.
At this point I'm totally knackered, my bars are bent, and I can't keep up with the darned fast KTM rider with his oh-so-sweet KTM suspension. So what does he do? He trades me his $10k KTM for my $3k bent-handlebarred Suzuki.
He's darned lucky I didn't just take my GPS with me and ride off and leave him
What a sweet bike, I was immediately comfortable on it. It seems to do everything right. Did I mention that we just spent $9k on a new HVAC system?
After the #5 trail the day was getting long and we were both pooped. But look... to the north... another trail we may not get to ride... the #3 trail! At this point I'm just hanging on, trying not to really wad it up with my bent bars (yes, I gave back the KTM), and trying to make it home for dinner and beer. #3 was good stuff, tighter than the rest with more abrupt elevation changes, lots of fun. After talking with a giant extended family on quads (little kids to grandparents to 2nd cousins) about how the heck do we get out of here, we promptly missed the exit and ended up riding with them (they missed it too) up to the "High Point" of #3 Trail. The climb up was very newly cut and very rough, at least to my zonked state at the time. I got one crappy shot at the top...
And then thank goodness that Ken had seen a promising side trail on the way up, because it led to the parking lot and salvation.
Yeah when we got back there was a lot of this...
And a lot of this...
Another day in the bag and it was GREAT. Tomorrow we try round #2 on the K Trail (and therefore successfully avoid having to embarrass ourselves and possibly break something or someone on the CNT).
Oh and my bars? Old Man G took one look at them, chuckled his "aren't you youngsters cute" chuckle, and torqued them back into shape. They'd just been twisted around the vibration mounts.
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Make a margarita and finish thing thing off I think...
No bears this time though, just miles of nice, twisty slab. At the intersection of the Indian Highway and the K-Trail we tightened straps, got RID of some coffee, and headed out. (Note there are two guys missing. This was a carefully cropped shot.)
I hit a big buried rock while fighting my way uphill through dense trees and brush and about 6 inches of pine needles that dumped me abruptly into the brambles. By the time I found the road everyone else had wisely gone back, and, with no other option, rode through the puddle. It was shallow. And had a hard bottom. 
.
I took a quick run into town after some recovery time to poke around but the streets were pretty much rolled up. I did grab food and flea and tick medicine for the long suffering momma dog and her puppies though 
Yeah, I'm a sucker. I also checked out Janssen Park in Mena and had a nice conversation with the local town codger. He was telling me about tornados they've had since the 1940s, how three people were killed in the most recent one in 1999. (He was ten years off, the killer tornado was actually last year 