Gifford Pinchot National Forest
Friday, June 5, 2009
I had planned on packing up in the morning, riding, and finding someplace new to camp on Friday night; but it had rained during the night and I didn't feel like packing up a wet tent so I decided stay at Paradise Creek Campground for one more night. It wasn't raining in the morning, but the weather had definitely cooled down from the previous day, and I would find myself rising through clouds and mist for much of the day.
So after cooking and eating breakfast, I headed out to ride the forest roads in the area. I headed south on the Wind River Highway, and then took the dirt road cutoff over to Panther Creek Campground, and east on Forest Road 65. I jumped onto FR 68 for just a short stretch before taking FR 6801 north, which was a very fun road winding through the forest.
My map showed FR 6801 going through to FR 60, but unfortunately I soon ran into this.
The road was closed due to a slide, and I was forced to turn around (and as it turns out this would become a common occurrence this day).
So I back-tracked to paved FR 65, and then headed north to Hwy 60. I planned to head east on Hwy 60 towards Goose Lake, but only got a few miles before running into this.
Time to turn around again, back to FR 65 and I continue north. Just north of FR 60, FR 65 turns to gravel/dirt, and I soon see another form of the local wildlife - this time it's a healthy full-grown panther that runs across the road about 30 yards in front of me and disappears into the forest. I only get a few more miles however before I again get stopped by snow and forced to turn around once more.
I headed back south to FR 60, and took it east back to the Wind River Hwy. Then I headed north and just started exploring various dirt spur roads. Most of the time either snow or downed trees would stop me at some point, and I would turn around to go explore a new road.
About 4:00pm, I headed back to Paradise Creek Campground to spend another night.