First of all, thumbs up on the weather. It's about time! As you all know, Casey and I are gearing up for our Montana Mega Ride this June. What better way to train than riding a fuckload of miles on a beautiful day!
Case and I left my house around 10:45am. We zipped over to O.B. Riley via Empire, rolled through Tumalo State Park, revved our engines by Wach's house and proceeded to Tumalo Res. We stopped at T Rez for a quick check of the chain tightness on our new chains and the torque on our rear sprocket bolts. Yeah, 15/44 baby!
We zig-zagged our way into Sisters and up Wilt Rd/Squaw Flat and into the Crooked River Nat'l Grassland.
A stop at the Grandview Cemetary...
Back down Squaw Flat to Lake Billy...
Bill himself...
From Lake Billy we crossed 97 to see Haystack Res. So lame, I didn't bother to stop for a pic. We headed into the mountains to the south of Haystack. Pretty cool area! It was our first time through Henderson Flat.
Grey Butte
We rolled down Skull Hollow to Lone Pine Rd and took the O'Neil Hwy into Prineville. Another pretty drive.
After a break at the P'ville Mick's we agreed to rock it to Post and try to get over the Maurys.
Casey on the road to Post...
The geographic center of Oregon...
A few miles past Post we busted a right onto Newsome Creek Road. This would take us to the "ridge of despair".
Gettin' up into the trees. Lookin' good!
Taking the Maurys by the nuts wasn't gonna be easy. The snow was thickening. Damn.
But...We had made it to what seemed to be the highest and most difficult portion of the road...
We had found a road that would lead us into this valley (below). The shitty thing was, it was private property. Clearly marked and locked shut.
As you look at that pic, you can see Pine Mountain and the Paulina Mtns in the background. A clear, snow free route to the desert and home. WEAK!
We tried a couple alternate routes, but nothing panned out...
There were possible long-winded options to get around this shit without backtracking. It was 5pm and we were at 150 miles at this point. Not to mention in the middle of nowhere. We made the difficult decision to back-track and get home ASAP.
About 5:30, east of Post
We made great time back to Bend. Just over an hour from Post.
Though it technically hit it 200 miles ago, the DRZ rolled 10,000 miles today along the PBH.
I think Casey was at 220 miles and I got 216 for the day.
5h7m moving time
2h37m stopped
5453ft Max elev (Maurys)
1950ft low spot (Lake Billy Chinook)
Overview
Northern zoom
Maury Madness
I hope y'all enjoyed. We sure did!
Mark my words...I will be back to conquer the Maury Mountains!!!
Home 
Subject: Central Oregon bomber (4-5-9) 
4/5/2009, 10:25 pm
