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22 Quads, 25 Riders, 30 kms of Rocky TrailEnderby AreaJuly 9/06 Written by Bentwheel Photos by Outback (Ann Penrose)  If you were standing outside the Ashton Creek Store on Sunday July 9 you would have seen a group of people from around the Okanagan and a few from Red Deer, AB. With them was a quad or two or even three on one truck. Our mission was to get to the Mara Forestry Lookout. Everyone who was going was on time (a nice thing when you get a large group), and we were gone from the store a few minutes later.Twenty kms up the road we turned onto Kingfisher Rd and parked at the 2k marker. It took us about a half hour to get ourselves together and ready to go. As usual, I was the last one ready; I can be so disorganized sometimes. We rode the main road up another 10k to our turn off, and regrouped a short ways in. Allen did a head count (or maybe it was a quad count?). I double checked it: 22 was the number we got, with about five or six sport quads including a snazzy Bombardier from Salmon Arm. Allen gave the trail explanation: "There is only one left turn off this road; don't take it and you will get to the lookout, and watch out for the water bars!" Great! Let’s go; the sport quads took off first with a Honda Fourtrax chasing them. I got in next with the kids and off we went, there was no real plan to stay in a group, just let everyone spread out and recount heads at the top. The sport quads were gone and we were moving along pretty good until I spotted the WATERBAR!!!! WOOOAAAAAH big quad, WOOOOOOAAAAAH! The first one was the size of the Fraser River. Holy moly I gotta pay attention. 
Off we go having a good time for the next twenty minutes or so until we spotted three quads from Red Deer pulled off to one side of the trail. "Oh, must be a tire repair" I think as they are working on the tire. The repair required was going to be a little more than we were going to be able to deal with on the trail as the axle had broken clear off. No amount of JB Weld (tm) was going to fix this one. We decided to stuff it in the woods and double-up to the top. 
The trail up was one of the most scenic trips I'd been on in a long time. I've been up here in the past but forgot just how breath-taking it really was. The only thing that was a little hard were the rocks; they kept you on your toes. We climbed and climbed, a couple of the units didn't care for the elevation change but they were hanging in, although a little sickly. Up and up we went for 20k. To the top, 7000 feet up. Pretty much top-of-the-world around here. One of the quads from Vernon broke an A-arm bolt. After a little bit of trail MacGyver 101 they had 'er on the trail heading down. 
All was going well until we got back to the Kingfisher Rd to go back to the trucks. As we were going along the skies opened up like we were in Vancouver. The rain poured, and I mean POURED, down. For 10k it was one of the wetter moments. Kurt from Salmon Arm commented when he got back "It's not true the faster you go the less you get wet!" Quads were loaded pretty quickly when we got to the trucks, then the rain stopped as fast as it arrived. My favorite ride time is the after-loaded-up visit. We got a chance to get better acquainted with some of the other riders and talk about all things quad-like. I got out a few Quads.ca stickers and gave them out. The Red Deer gang got their broken quad out and loaded-up okay. A big thank you to Allen (TRX-350) and his family for taking on the responsibility of the leading chores. |
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