My brother (HRR) and I, along with my 18 year old son, decided to head up to Gifford Pinchot for our very first trip to the notorious NW jewel. Gifford has a huge reputation up here in the NW as a pristine riding area with spectacular scenery. It does seem odd to be able to ride in such an amazingly beautiful Nat. forest.
We arrived around 10:30 at Blue Lake staging area and unloaded the 3 Gassers to head up toward Hamilton Butte. Liv2day had given us a nice route to follow. There was no warm up as we hit 271 for a long climb up to Blue Lake. Pretty rocky, but not too bad. Arrived at Blue Lake which is very beautiful.
Great day riding with my son whose become a really good woods rider:
We then headed up toward 276 Yozoo. Rocky singletrack with a decent slope on your left. Not too trecherous, but some steep country. Got to the top to find this view:
Absolutely stunning up here!
Beginning of Yozoo:
Rode up toward Hamiliton Butte and back down through some very fun flowing singletrack to staging area for some lunch. Hit another 14 miles of pristine singletrack in the woods where you could really rip. Very fun
Great day with my brother and son riding. My son rode awesome all day and had no problems climbing up rocky singletrack. All 3 Gassers did awesome. We only ran into 2 other bikes all day and wouldn't you know it they were Gasgas! An older couple on EC300's! We stopped and chatted a bit and remarked how it might be the first time 5 Gasgas were all stopped on the trail up here
It would have made a great Gasgas commercial:
You meet the nicest people when riding your Gasgas
Both my son's and my EC200's performed flawlessly and I am so impressed with these little bikes. Perfect amount of grunt and snap and light weight combined with good stability. Great combination for NW riding.
Thanks to Liv2day for a great route.