Three Days in Central Oregon - Day 1

What does it take to be a great adventurer? Bear Grylls is a great adventurer. You know the type: fearless, multi-talented, outdoorsman, skins snakes alive, never sleeps by the same river twice, dashing and completely unhinged. Most of us aren’t that person. Most of us have responsibilities like work that allows us to make motorbike payments and deal with a honey-do list that never seems to get shorter. On a good day we can squeeze in an episode of Sons of Anarchy between mowing the lawn and staining the fence.

Many, many motorcycle riders have repressed a primal desire to drop everything and head into the hills - forever. Yet so powerful is that impulse, that ignoring it will quite literally make you blind. The good news is that not every motorcycling adventure requires you to sell your house, quit your job and commit to two years of the squits in some fly-blown backwater. Sometimes the best adventures only require a long weekend in your backyard. Especially if your backyard is Oregon.

Lily

In 2014, my Triumph Tiger 800XC motorcycle, Lily (you named your bike, right?), and I left Portland for the wilderness somewhere east of the Cascades. It was mid-June. Our goals were to find new roads and explore the John Day Fossil Beds; a place whose very name exudes discovery. We headed out on state highway 26 towards the Barlow Pass. There we turned right and headed southeast towards Shaniko, a real live ghost town.

Mount Hood stands an hour outside Portland and is the most climbed peak in the United States. Covered by clouds for much of the year, it’s easy to forget it’s there. But on this day, around noon, the clouds parted and sunshine lit up Hood’s brilliantly snow-capped peak in all its glory. By now most of the highway’s winter grit had been swept aside and things were drying out.

Nevertheless, at several turns along the winding road cold air swept out of the woods and fogged my visor. The highway forked just outside Government Camp, and we turned south, then due east at the next split. As we descended, the dense forests of Douglas Fir up the mountain gave way to thinner stands of Ponderosa Pine in the foothills. Eventually we flattened out onto broad, empty grasslands for as far as I could see.

Maupin

Maupin’s claim to fame is serving as a put-in point for rafters heading down the Deschutes River. The town is barely three streets wide and lined with coffee shops, and, of course, adventure outfitters. Unsure when I’d find gas again, I looked for a top-up on Google maps. It showed a service station in Maupin, but I was buggered if I could find it. It was then I began to realize that gas was going to be a challenge. Out here the distances between towns stretches out, so I started keeping a more watchful eye on my fuel gauge and odometer.

Leaving town, a few hairpin turns downhill set me alongside the river. I followed that for a bit, eventually turning back uphill. A couple more sharp bends and I arrived in my third ecosystem of the day. Prairie rolled away on either side of me, interrupted only by occasional crags and red, rocky outcrops at the very top of the river’s gorge. With the mountains fading into my rearview mirrors, the scene in front of me was pure Kansas.

Shaniko

Shaniko isn’t completely abandoned. Besides an aging hotel and dilapidated, weatherbeaten barns, there’s a small antique emporium with a deli manned by a fellow who makes a damn fine turkey sandwich. After I ordered I wandered around the bric-a-brac and chatted briefly with a woman about my age.

“How do you pronounce this town's name?”, I asked. “Shan-nee´-ko?, Shan-eye´-ko?”

“Shan´-i-ko,” she replied, “and it's not really a ghost town. Bodie, California is a real ghost town. Now that's a place to visit. It's a state park now. You can't go in the buildings anymore because people stole things in the early days.” She looked past me and out the door to the south. “I miss California,” she said, a little wistfully.

Quaint as it was, Shaniko had no gas. Just an abandoned garage with a set of rusty pumps. “There’s a guy up the road selling cans of gas for 10 bucks a gallon if you need it,” the deli guy said. Madras, 38 miles south and the county seat, is so big even Safeway has gas there. Since the wind had been behind me most of the day, I did the mental math and headed south. 

John Day

My rough plan called for the John Day Painted Hills that night. That meant I had another couple of hours riding ahead of me. Heading down highway 26 I passed a big sign stating, ‘Welcome to the Crooked River National Grasslands’, I fought the temptation to get off the highway and explore the beautiful rolling hills. Instead, I made a mental note to return when I had time to do them justice. Ahead of me the road rose steadily, winding its way up through the Ochoco National Forest.

At an elevation of 4,100’ the Ochoco Pass tips over and you find yourself gliding down big sweepers and gentle twisties into what I later learned was the original west coast of America. Canyons reared up in front of me and the road apparently dead-ended smack into the hillside. At the last minute a hairpin turn tracking the river wriggled through the folds in the earth and I was through the blockade. I wasn’t in Kansas anymore.

John Day Painted Hills Unit. That way, the sign indicated. Turning off the highway as the sun dropped, the golds and greens of the scrubland steadily intensified. Three miles in a couple of small, layered knolls were just an overture to the upcoming symphony. Pavement gave way to gravel at the entrance to the Painted Hills State Park. Around the corner, visitors are treated to a panoramic view of the brilliantly multi-coloured hills in a wide, natural amphitheatre.

Like a wedding cake, each distinct layer is separated by a fossil-rich limestone frosting. It was about 7:30PM and golden hour was almost on us. Humbled by my surroundings and feeling more than a little insignificant in the face of millions of years of geological history, I spent a quiet hour wandering the trails taking pictures. Long shadows drew over me as the sun dropped. A knot that had sat between my shoulder blades all week quietly unravelled as I relaxed and drank in my surroundings.

Ten miles further up the trail I found a Bureau of Land Management campsite alongside the John Day River. A steep winding track led me into the Land That Time Forgot. Big, fist-like projections of basalt and groves of lush deciduous trees loomed under the surrounding overhang of tall cliffs. I expected Doug McClure and a couple of T-Rex’s to jump me at any minute. I pitched my tent and threw my sleeping bag inside. The night was clear and cool and most of all quiet. I slept soundly.

Go!

Was the Ice Run the hardest thing I’ve ever attempted? Quite probably. The life of an adventurer means constantly having to live outside your comfort zone, a zone with a border that continually slips from your grasp. Fellow Ice Runner Ben Cooke wrote, “I think the only way to determine who you are is by putting yourself in situations, internally or externally, which will reveal more of how you work, how you tick. Many people are afraid to see the gears that work the clock, in case they are dirty. I would rather be dirty and know than live in blissful ignorance.” We humans all revert to type under stress. It turns out my grimy gears expose me for the grouchy control freak I am.  

For example, on our last morning in Siberia I lay unconscious in my bed after the night’s finish line party. Our day began with a ceremony on the Arctic Circle which included the ritual torching of a Ural and finished with dinner and dancing with Salekhard’s chief of police, after which we drank vodka in a night club until 3:00AM. My last, dim memory of the evening was watching the barman pour brandy over the counter and setting it alight to shoo the strippers away. Four hours later Nick and Paddy attempted to wake me for our early taxi ride to the airport by switching on the light. “Turn that bloody light off!”, I shouted, apparently (I have no recollection of the exchange). Björn and Rico tried again to wake me an hour later with more success. But it goes to show, the inner workings of your soul, or at least your limbic brain, like mine, is probably in need of a good cleaning. 

So, go. Go find out who you are. Who you are under stress. Stretch the limits of your experience and your capacity. It’s easy. If the challenge scares you then it’s a good sign it’s something that will ultimately enrich you and help you learn who you are. With that knowledge you can become anyone you want to be. As the Germans like to say, “Geh mit Gott, aber geh.” 

Ice Run Syndrome

This is what two weeks on the Ice Run in Siberia looks like. The youth on the left transformed into the shattered hull of a man on the right after a mere 17 days in Russia. We have confirmed through DNA testing that these are indeed the same individuals.

Medical researchers are asking, how is this dramatically accelerated aging possible? In an unpublished report Prof. Heinz Schnitzengruben of the Allgemeine Forschung und Motorradfahrer Entwicklung Institut, in Arschloch, Bavaria, made an empirical analysis of both the causes and mitigating factors effecting this poor lad's condition.

Major causal factors include:

• Stress
• Sleep deprivation
• Vodka 
• Harsh environmental conditions 
• Mechanical failure 
• Lack of necessary skills in: motorcycling, Arctic survival, vodka metabolism, orienteering, motorcycle repair, and speaking Russian

Mitigating factors include: 

• Vodka 
• Teamwork 
• Dancing
• More vodka 
• The natural beauty of Siberia
• Russian hospitality

Crossing the Line

As soon as night fell the wind dropped and the cold returned. The faint orange glow of civilization drew us onward. After towing Eva for a dozen kilometers, Nick and Paddy’s bike, La Poderosa, was faltering. We paused at a narrow section of the road and flagged down a passing 4x4 to ask for directions. Zaya spoke with the driver who said we were only three kilometers from Labytnangi and the finish line. 

Of course we were never actually going to Salekhard. The Adventurists don’t put finish lines in places that the locals may have heard of. They put them in obscure, out of the way spots that are impossible to find at night. Labytnangi is just that type of place. Besides, all that information was in the official Ice Run handbook - which presupposes that one actually reads the handbook. Still, being so close to the end was, in the circumstances, unbelievably welcome news.

The dominoes started falling into place. The largest truck on the planet carrying a crane the size of an Antonov Mriya pulled over and its driver agreed to tow us to the outskirts of town. With directions from the road guard, we turned left and dragged Eva for another three kilometers until La Poderosa decided enough was enough and finally stopped dead. Five minutes later a Land Rover drove up and offered to tow both our bikes. Inside the car were Björn and Rico who had wisely abandoned the road for the night and hitched a lift. That meant, thankfully, all the Ice Runners were now present and accounted for. 

Fifteen kilometers of perilously steep hills and no brakes later we arrived at our hotel. We had made it! We had completed this most mental of adventures in one piece with the entire crew almost, and not for want of trying, uninjured. What a gas! What an adventure! What an amazing bunch of people the Russians are!

Time to celebrate. We dropped our kit, turned around and piled into a taxi and headed for a bar...  

Salekhard or Bust!

Our electricians finally declared Eva's battery charged, helped us reinstall it and sent us on our way. It was 2:00PM. That meant, we had convinced ourselves, there was still plenty of time to reach Salekhard, even if we took it easy.

Out on the road the weather had changed. The wind was now fully at our backs and increasing in strength. Over the next few hours it rose from light gusts to a full-on 20 knot tailwind. Snow chased us in swirls alongside and sometimes ahead of us as we pushed north. Coming out of the southwest the breeze felt warmer and at cruising speed it was calm and almost downright pleasant. Blank, shapeless clouds, white grey and blue gently settled over us, then slowly joined the horizon until the gap between the sky and the land closed and disappeared. Trees and shrubs faded away until our only directional clues were the ruts of the ice road and the gale pushing us forward. At times it felt as though we were floating. It was beautiful. Awesomely beautiful. A dazzlingly disorienting dream. 

A dream rudely interrupted every time we fell headlong into a crater filled with soft snow and bogged down. We’d swap off. Zaya and I would get stuck and, with Nick and Paddy’s help, we'd drag Eva onto firmer ground. Then it was Nick and Paddy’s turn to get stuck and we’d help push them out. All the while I kept Eva running for fear of losing her battery’s charge. And then, of course, it happened. After trudging back a couple of hundred yards to help Nick and Paddy, the snow blowing so hard I almost lost sight of both Zaya and our bike, Eva stalled and wouldn’t restart. 

Darkness was coming to complicate the incredulously hostile conditions and, oddly, none of us was worried. By now we’d learned that the worst that would happen is the police would come and shake us awake in our tents in the middle of the night. We had water, food, stoves, fuel, youth, beauty, and sang-froid. What else could we possibly need to survive a night in a Siberian blizzard? It was the moment that, for me, the adventure was complete. We had looked the harshest of conditions in the eye and stared them down. All that remained was the logistical challenge of getting both bikes to the finish line in time for cocktails. 

Dad Rock Ice Run Playlist

Motorcycling is a sport for those comfortable in their own heads. I can't speak for other Ice Runners and what mental side roads they travelled down while riding, but I took a little inspiration from Ladyhawke Willings (The Adventurists own Hunting Girl) and came up with this playlist from the tunes that rattled around in my head on the way to Salekhard: 

1. The Revolution Starts... | Steve Earle | The Revolution Starts Now
2. Back in the U.S.S.R. | The Beatles | White Album
3. Russians | Sting | The Dream Of The Blue Turtles
4. (I Never Loved) Eva Braun | The Boomtown Rats | A Tonic for the Troops
5. Road To Nowhere | Talking Heads | Little Creatures
6. Come On, Eileen | Dexy's Midnight Runners | To-Uray-Eh!
7. Don't Eat The Yellow Snow | Frank Zappa | Apostrophe
8. The Sky Is Fallin' | Queens of the Stone Age | Songs for the Deaf 
9. Avenue B | Gogol Bordello | Gypsy Punks: Underdog World Strike
10. Skating Away (On The Thin Ice Of The New Day) | Jethro Tull | War Child
11. Ain't No Easy Way | Black Rebel Motorcycle Club | Howl
12. Fix You | Coldplay | X&Y
13. Gangnam Style | PSY | Gangnam Style

If the songs are not self-explanatory, please send a donation to Half the Sky Foundation and then contact me for more information. 

Power to the People

Of course I didn’t sleep - not a wink. For some reason I’d been taking on water for several days, probably some physiological response to the dry Arctic conditions. I wasn’t alone as I’d overheard others complaining about the same thing. But there’s a limit to how much interstitial fluid you can hold until it needs expressing. Quite why my body chose the wee hours of the coldest night of our journey to force me outside and make yellow snow only it knows. But it was a relief that my early morning systems were still functional at that latitude. (Really, way too much information - ed.)

Nick wasn’t quite so lucky. His toes had shut down again and he had no sensation or apparent circulation when he woke up. There was no way that he was going to get warm enough around the campfire that morning and evacuation seemed prudent. We flagged down a passing car and bundled him into it with the promise that we’d meet at the finish line. 

The last bulwark against Eva’s complete electrical failure occurred when her sole remaining battery isolation switch failed. We either kept her running or the battery would simply drain away. We weren’t that far from the finish and were intent on making a run for it, so stopping didn't seem necessary. At the next village, 45 minutes up the road, we found Nick all warmed up in the mayor’s office. He said the pain was excruciating as the blood returned to his toes, which meant we’d made the right call earlier. After a cup of tea we went back to the bikes and Eva had died. Simply died. She wasn’t going to bump-start either. Fortunately, the chief engineer of the town’s power station came by and towed us to the plant. There, he hooked up the battery to one of four diesel turbines that churned out a combined 800 kilowatts of power. And we waited. We had lunch, rode a snowmobile, and watched the sun slipping into afternoon, and waited… 

One Last Night Outdoors

We drove until early evening when we turned a corner and saw Geordie, Pat and Guy setting up camp and lighting a huge fire. Ever since Zaya had confided in me her attraction for Geordie, I felt it my duty to put opportunity in the way of circumstance. Nick on the other hand wanted to press on and find a camp in the next village somewhere up the road. Pat was equivocal, he’d stop or go on, whatever the majority decided. Zaya, for obvious reasons, was ready to stay and hang out. Geordie played it cool. As a crotchety, diehard romantic I played my “I’m old enough to be your dad and I’m going to make the final decision card” and overruled Nick.

Seated at the roaring fire an hour later Nick managed to thaw out his blanched and lifeless toes enough to get some blood circulating back in them. By 9:00PM the sun finally disappeared altogether and the temperature dropped off the scale of Pat’s thermometer. That meant it was colder than −25C and heading down. Passing around the vodka kept the stories flowing as we whittled the clock down towards midnight. Suddenly, out of the fog of our woodsmoke the peace was shattered by the throb of a Ural heading directly towards us at a hundred kilometers an hour. It was Ben Cooke roaring down the road, his long black hair and beard stiff with ice. As soon as he spotted us he hit the brake and spun to a stop directly beside the fire to a round of applause. He explained that two of the group's bikes were shot and they were heading to Salekhard with all possible dispatch. Shortly a truck appeared carrying the broken bikes and their riders. As Rob and Jenna opened the door of the cab it blew a jealous fug of warm air in our direction and we exchanged a few updates. Moments later with a wave and a flourish Ben and crew disappeared into the night. Heading to our tents under the stillness of the stars, I remember the only sounds were the faint snap of the dying fire releasing sparks into the darkness and the squeak of snow like styrofoam under my back as I turned over to sleep.