Trask

Mapping Adventure

Jan 7, 1998

Attendees
Name	Rig	Roll
Group 1 - Bushhong Road
Glen ?	?? Wagoneer	Driver
Dan Patrick		Group Leader
Dave ?		Passenger
John ?		Passenger
David Lutz	97 Toyota	Driver, Report Writer
Brett Carlson	83 Toyota PU	Driver
?		Passenger
Trevor Limbocker	96 Hummer	Driver
Meghan Limbocker		Navigator?
Bill Boyk		Passenger
Cody Boyk		Passenger
Peter ?	?? Toyota PU	Driver
?		Passenger
Group 2 - Blue Bus Road
Rick Anderson	77 Chevy Blazer	Driver, Group Leader, Report Writer
Guy Hammer	87 Suzuki Samuari	Driver
Eric Bewley	?? Suzuki Samuari	Driver
Clark Mason	81 Jeep CJ-8	Driver
Donald Daugherty	?? Jeep	Driver
Tiffany Daugherty		Passenger
Lance Means?	?? Jeep	Driver
Group 3 - Toll Road
Denny Zander	72 Chevy Blazer	Driver, Group Leader, Report Writer
Gordon Compton		Passenger
Kevin Ryder	?? Toyota 4Runner	Driver
Bruce Wold		Passenger
Ryan Wold		Passenger
James Ryder		Passenger
Davin Mursu	73 Chevy Blazer	Driver
Dan Kisor		Passenger
Todd O'Brien		Passenger

Group 1

9:20 we get to Kansas Creek Rd and hit the gravel. Up the road a bit to the junction with Trask River Cut-Off where we stopped and aired down. By 9:40 we all had flat tires and were rolling again, down Trask River Cut-Off to Trask River Road (Hey, what a sec, that there road be black top. Oh, well). We headed up river until Toll Road took off to the left. 14 rigs all in a line, jabbering on the CB, while a PGE wait patiently behind us. Finally a bit of common sense strikes us and we decided to get out of the way and let the poor PGE guy through. Well at that time three rigs head up Toll road to see what's up there and the rest of the line rolls down the road a bit to the general store.. Ok, time to split up the rest of the group. One of the initial goals of this trip was to map some of the 4WD roads in the area.

My group was assigned to Bushong Road. Our Fearless Leader was Dan riding in a Cherokee (can somebody let me know who the driver and rest of the crew were?). Trevor (dude in the driver seat), Meghan (Professional Navigator), Bill and Chris (Back seat drivers and chief kibitzers in the rear seats) all in a big green Hummer. Of course all the Toy Pickups in the crowd joined this group. In the blue was Peter and Fearless Sidekick (What name does this fearless sidekick go by?). The orange toy was driven by Brett and Chief Radio Operator (also of currently unknown name). Fearfully piloting the Green one was yours truly, David.

OK, 10:10 our road parts from the other group. After crossing a bridge over the North Fork of the Trask River, we immediately hang a right up Bushong road. Oops. That one went up and around the corner and straight back to the river. First reverse of the day. (Don't worry many more to come.) Up the gravel road a bit more, and now a right. Hey this looks good, so up we go. Watch out for low branches, they wipe out MAG Mount antennas. No damage, keep going.

We are going along nicely on this road when we round a corner and find a nice V rutted spot. Well the Cherokee and Hummer go right through. Peter tries to avoid the rut and head up the left side. This turned out a to be a bit slippy and he found him self sliding down in the rut. Ok, back up and straddle the rut. A little spotting by Dan and every body is across and rolling again. We continue merrily along our way, stopping on occasion to speculate just how far up that motorcycle trail could we really get. (We decide to save that for later.) At 11:00 start to get our first real mud. Everybody gets excited, but there were no problems. We continue along the way hitting good mud pits every so often. Just give it plenty of gas and you'll make it through.

At about 11:30 we take a look at the map. We were slightly clueless where we were. The map showed Bushong road coming to a dead end a few miles back. Oh, well! Continuing on we come to a nice little berm in the road that lets us all practice our three wheeling. Just as you drove over the edge, up went that right rear wheel. (My first experience with a wheel in the air. Way Fun!!!) Anyway we finally get to a Y in the road, having no particular reason, we all voted to go right.

A few minutes up the road we get a wide spot in the road and see this nice steep hill (cliff) up to the left. Well after scrambling up the hill its nothing but a nice flat spot up there. The crazy Hummer turns left and heads straight up. That was medium part. The easy part was turning around on top and coming down. Hit the brakes, lock the wheels and slide down the hill. He made it look so easy. Then came the harder part, going up in reverse. Nope, that wasn't going to happen. As the Hummer slides down the hill, vroom the Cherokee wisely guns it and gets out of the way.

11:45 we try another spur off to the right. Up the road a bit and we come to a stop and watch the Cherokee head up the hill, around a big tree, and up a deep V rut. A bit of finagling and a little dance as the truck slips in the ruts and then up the hill a bit. Ok, that was fun, but it doesn't look like goes anywhere 4 wheels can go. Well the Cherokee went up so it of course the Hummer has to try it. Well up around the tree the Hummer started having troubles. But I there should be some great shots of the underside of the Hummer. Fortunately it was still shiny side up. After attempting various tire pressures, (We are all envious of that CTIS), He rolls is back down the hill a bit and takes another run at it. Past the tree and up the hill. Then it got a bit slippery and darn those lockers aren't doing much good on the kitchen table. Back down past the tree where the rest of us were waiting. I'm sorry Trevor, but those bragging rights go to the Cherokee, it did make it two feet farther up the hill.

It's just afternoon by now so we decide to break and eat lunch. Everybody is enjoying lunch, including Peter and Brett who cheerily dug in to a can of cold baked beans. Yum! We pull out the maps and the GPS and had a good enough clearing to get a good satellite lock. So now we think we may know where we are. Not quite good enough though and we declare ourselves lost. But what the heck, we were having fun. As 12:30 rolled around we decided to get back on the road. Down the to the gravel road and continue.

A road appears off to the left that we thought we knew what it was. Of course we didn't, but there was some more mud. Nothing to terrible. Back on the gravel and soon there is a Power Line trail to the right. We that didn't go very far. More reverse. Finally we get to a fork in the road and lo and behold, signs! We have found East Fork Bypass. Well there was a bit of goofing off going on. Cherokee heads up a a good steep stretch, pretty far up, but it doesn't go anywhere, so he is back down.. The Orange Toyota heads up and darn, too steep for the carb. The Hummer finds a nice side road with a great Mud puddle. To great of a photo op to pass up, so out comes the tripods and video cameras. Everybody gets through the puddle. I certainly had to gun it, but there is nothing like a puddle deep enough to reach to doors and watching that bow wave come over the top of the hood. Yee Haw! Up the road it gets skinny and the consensus was that even us small toys would have problems, so we turn around and head back for the Killer Mud. The Cherokee is leading the way and decides that it was to easy the first time. So He drives through, backs through, drives through, backs through... (I think you get the picture) Anyway, still no problems.

1:45 we run into another fork with road signs. This Bales Creek and East Fork Bypass. Well East Fork was closed. Big ditch and berm. We thought about letting the Hummer get up some speed and try to plow through it for us. The Hummer decided to decline that option. While Dan and I tried to figure out where we were using the maps and GPS and road signs the Hummer was playing around and getting a lot of three wheel action. Gotta love that articulation.

So along we go up Bales creek. After a few side roads and some mud and I managed to get a screaming banshee caught in one my rotors. A little back and forth and braking in an attempt to dislodge what ever it was. No Luck. We after narrowing it down to the left front wheel. Out comes the jack and off comes the wheel. Yipee, my first trail repair. With the wheel off we flush out the whole thing with a bunch of water and put me back together. We never found exactly what was caught, but whatever we did it worked. No more screaming banshee. 2:30 and we are rolling again. A few minutes up the road we meet East Fork Road. Now it is time to decide how we are going to get out of the forest and back home. So we pull out the map and GPS. (Man I wish I laptop for that thing.) Ok, we decide to shoot for Yamhill.

3:20 we come up on another intersection, this time with Headquarters Grade, Rock Creek Grade, East Fork Road and some unnamed thing. But there are some great puddles around and nice gravel pile. So everybody goofs off for a while and then it's back to the Map and GPS. Well map and GPS and reality didn't seem to agree with each other. Do they ever? We are right on the edge of both my Metsker's Tillamook map and the USGS map and right on the crack in the DeLorme Oregon Atlas. Well by 3:40 we head up and toward Yamhill. Roads are confusing, fuel is getting low in some rigs and day light is thinking about leaving. So we turn around and following the Logging Mileage signs back to the Trask River Road black top. Right past where we started. Nothing like going in a big circle. Anyway we head back out to Tillamook.

Everybody breaks up and some wise guy in a Hummer starts making comments about his current tire pressure, just to rub it in. The Cherokee takes off like a rocket and is gone. When we reach Hwy 6, the Hummer heads toward Portland and the all three Toyota head for Tillamook looking for air. At that point I said goodbye and so I guess that ends this report.

Dan Patrick adds:

Great trail report, thanks David, I thought that I'd write that one but you did a great job. Now I need to add a few things, not that you missed anything that we did but I spent about an hour last night (Sunday) laying on my bed with a highlight pen, about 3-4 maps of the area, no rain and warmth and was able to pinpoint the exact roads that we were on, some I couldn't find a name for but I will give map locations for those of you who want to see if they can find where we were. Oh, BTW, Guy I have been at Murphy's Camp and that area wasn't Murphy's that you were talking about.

Allright, using Dovre Peak USGS:

We entered the map at between 453?? and 454?? on an unimprooved road called Bushhong, which needs to be brought up at the meeting as about a medium difficulty road that should be marked.

After thinking that we had left the road a number of times we came to a nice fork that had a road sign saying E Fork Bypass, great! our first sign of the day and we thought that we might have a clue as to where we were, at this point we were at between 453?? and 454?? and 5022?? and 5023??

Here we took a right after the photo shoot and proceeded to head for another fork in the roadwhich is where we took a right because the bypass was closed by a ditch. the road that we took was just a rout around the bypass and back to it which isn't what we had decided on but no-one paid too much attention to the map where it showed two lefts about a mile apart from each other and we ended up taking the first one, oh well, then after we were back on the bypass we came to a sign that said Tillamook left, B. K. rightand looked at the maps again, at this point we are at between 457?? and 458?? and 5022?? and 5023??

This is where we headed right again and came to another T in the road and played on the gravel hill for a bit, after we looked at the maps again David thought that he had been there and took us on the center road to the left. when we got to the next T in the road everyone out voted him and we turned around and headed back down the hill which brought us back to where we started at.

Now that I am sitting here looking at my maps more closely I see that David was possitive of where he was at that last T and we were only a couple of miles from the Nestucca River Highway but alas, it was a fun day and we should get one marked trail out of our excursion.

Group 2

We travelled Bushhong Road next. This road is just a single straight shot 4x4 road consisting of about 6 miles. It starts near Hollywood Camp and the Trask River Rearing Ponds. It is on section 7,18 and 19 of the Trask, Oregon quad and sections 30 and 31 of the Dovre Peak quad. On a 1-3 scale, I'd say this road was 1.5. There were a few spots that were difficult, like the corner with all the mud that I did some frame grabs of. However, in general if you have a stock vehicle with four wheel drive, you'll make it. There were not many 4x4 trails off this one to explore, although there were quite a few motorcycle ones.

The best 4x4 trail we found was off Rock Creek Road to the north. It is marked on the Dovre Peak Quad in section 27 and isn't all that far from Murphy's Camp. This 1 mile long trail is rated a strong 2 right now. We sent five vehicle up this trail. Guy didn't make it past the entrance. A relatively stock Jeep made it past the entrance (a bit more ground clearance), but didn't get past the first mud hole. A rear lockered Suzuki got stuck in the first mud hole. Rick and Clark made it through without lockers. We only ran the first 400 yards of this trail since we couldn't take the whole group up it, but it has much potential. I would imagine this is more difficult in the up-hill direction like we were tackling it. It comes out on some road I don't know the name of. Matt - this is another one you guys might investigate more thoroughly.

• Rick on muddy road
• Rick on muddy road
• YJ on muddy road
• Guy on muddy road
• YJ in mud
• Eric in water
• White CJ in mud (rear tire in deep hole)
• Eric stuck in deep hole
• Eric stuck in deep hole
• YJ pulling Eric out
• YJ pulling Eric out
• Eric in mud
• Eric crossed up on trail

Once off of Eagle Hill, we headed for the trail to Ginsberg. We start at the far end and worked our way North East(I think). I tried several times to make it to the top of Ginsberg, but could not. I got the farthest on my first try. I was past the big stump and pointed at the top and lost traction. The second and third tries, I was only able to get just past the row of trees, just before the big stump. The Toyota caught a front wheel and launched the front end up into the air. Kevin admitted that was one of the exciting moments he had run across in recent runs. We stopped at Murphy Camp and played on the gravel pile for a bit. I tried a run at the hole and high centered less that a 1/3rd of the way in. After pulling me back out, we noticed a load banging sound coming from under my engine. A quick inspection revealed a damaged torque converter inspection cover. A couple second and a few tools and the cover was off and we were on our way. I figured the hard work out on Ginsberg must have jammed a rock into my cover some how.

From Murphy we headed to Spar. We all made it up Spar. We decided that it was time to head home(around 4:30pm). It is always interesting getting back to Yamhill from up there. After several map check, road scoutings and GPS checks we made it to Pike road and home. We all stooped at the new Texico for fuel and air.