Annual Gifford Camp & Ride Report

[liv2day]

Thanks to better weather this year, we were able to plan the trek up to Gifford Pinchot and my buddy booked flights from the Cheddarland. Initial research into conditions after the crazy winter showed lots of flood damage with many roads closed due to washout. One of the guys going headed up on his DS bike to do some recon for camping and found that we could get to Council Lake and farther north on FR23, but only 12 miles before the road went bye bye.

I picked up my best bud from college Wednesday morning and we made it to camp early in the afternoon. Found our friend who'd done the previous recon already setup and heading out for a quick rip when we arrived. We had a couple Giff newbs coming up this year, and a smaller group than years past - only 5 nutballs could make the dates work for their schedules.





After getting camp setup, we decided to head out for a quick afternoon rip to get warmed up for the next 3 days of riding. Two of the five guys wouldn't be there until Thursday morning and afternoon respectively, so three of us jumped on the Boundary Trail with the intention of riding out to Trail 2 (Summit Prairie). Figured we'd ride 3-4 miles "down" Summit Prairie and then turn back toward camp.





The trip out Boundary was uneventful, though I did catch my buddy Al goofing up the root step you have to clear after the wash. We had one navigational issue as we were heading west and ended up bombing down trail 18 for several miles before realizing I'd taken a wrong turn...lol. Trail 18 is a ton of fun anyway, so we kept riding it for a while, then turned back around to keep heading out to trail 2.

Al decided he was going to head back to camp and check out how bad the wash was on the bail-out road off trail 18, so Jim and I hit trail 2 to see what it had to offer. Fun trail with some decent switchback climbs and other things to get past. Al thought he remembered the trail getting a little rough as you started the descent toward the road, so we stopped around the top of the trail and turned around. It did have a couple of cool view points, and one flat spot that had concrete footings or what appeared to be something like a foundation base. Not sure what was there, but the concrete was the only thing left - be curious to hear if anyone knows what was there.