My trip was already a success. I had no right to expect it to continue to be amazing. Yet it was!
As next day’s exploration began I was still glowing. The spiritual bliss of the preceding afternoon had me positively chipper. However, I avoided the ghost town / church locale of the day before. You cannot live a day twice. Nor did I swing by my new homeland of Mud Ditch or search out twice deferred Antler.
Instead I looked at a big fat blob on the map that basically said “don’t even try it”. Brave homesteaders had settled much of the area, but they’d taken a look at this section and said “nope”. It is, was, and will always be a flat, wet, swampy, impassible nothing. It has attracted virtually no attention from anyone with a lick of sense. So, of course, I was fascinated.
As is common with land that’s precious in it’s uselessness, it’s managed for wildlife. My problem was that it’s trackless. That’s a word that we don’t use in common language but it applies here. Generally someone’s been everywhere and they’ve often left a path for me to follow. But I stared at the satellite image and there was just nothing that even hinted at access. Same for the map. I looked for the usual network of logging roads, ATV shortcuts, water works, power lines, old mines, hunting trails, old railroad grades… nope. Nothing at all.
The lack of snowmobile trails surprised me. Swamps are a snowmobile’s bitch! Snowmobiles (in season of course) can pass over shit that’s a quagmire in summer; some snowmobile trails are basically GPS points. I’m sure a snowmobiler could traverse much of what I looked at… assuming he had a long wide track and was fearless… but maybe not. Snowmobiles were probably banned but also it looked like no sane snowmobiler cares. All the designated snowmobile trails (which often echo older historic trails) just sorta’ went around… as if to say… “we’re crazy but not that crazy”.
None of the topology added up to anything either. There were ridges you couldn’t quite follow. Draws that didn’t quite lead anywhere. Just enough water to be impassible to a canoe. Just enough mud to sink a dozer. It was like God himself said “fuck it, just add some filler so the planetary sphere doesn’t have gaps”.
Being me, I sniffed around anyway. I skirted along roads and trails around the periphery of this area. Probably some trappers and hunters venture into it. They’d probably have little access points. They’d slip in here and there. Snowshoeing I guess. (Trapping and hunting is legal, the land is available for use… provided you can teleport to get there.)
I explored a few nooks and crannies. I thought maybe I’d find some trapper’s staging area, park my bike, and hike in a short mile or two. Just to say I’d done it. (It’s legal to walk directly across the whole thing but the terrain was pure hell. Hiking across would be a death slog.) I expected any trail would self limit; going about as far as a reasonably motivated man will chase a mink pelt. I didn’t even find that.
I found a few good grouse hunting spots so that kept me entertained. As I poked along one edge of this piece of vastness, I bumped into a main forest system road that formed a boundary. Ridge Highway* (*which isn’t called Ridge Highway) was neither a highway nor on a ridge but it did feel luxurious. Compared to the scruffy trails and fading traces I’d been following, it was well maintained, graded, easy, and uniform gravel… practically a runway!
I’d gained some confidence on Honey Badger and happily tested myself in a completely unwise manner. I wound up the little Yamaha to not quite but approaching its max speed. I was flying along soft dirt at about the speed I’d do on pavement. Foolish, since the gravel was soft and drifty, but the bike didn’t care. It floated on the surface like it was all that and a bag of chips. Delightful!
No matter what the cowering herds of Covid beaten half-men whimper from their suburban prisons, sometimes the right thing to do is open the throttle ands see what you can do. I played a bit closer to the edge than my habit. Was I immediately fucked by fate? Nah!
Hours later and after several pleasant detours, I passed East Elk*. (*Also not the actual name.) I checked my electronic gadgetry and sussed out that East Elk Road went straight into that big impassible place. I’d somehow remembered it as inserting from the south boundary, but here it was on the north boundary. I knew it didn’t traverse the whole thing and I’d ignored it before because it’s a dead end that started (I thought) on the wrong side.
But here it was and here I was. I had food, water, fuel, and time. Why the hell not?
East Elk Road began unremarkably; merely logging access into the area. Some parts of the area are forest; others hadn’t seen a tree since before the last glaciation. The road looked and felt very old. Meanwhile, some aspen stands looked like grouse central. Sweet! This would be a good place to hunt during grouse season! (However, I didn’t see any grouse.)
After a few miles, the road shifted and changed its nature. Now it blasted straight through something that was no longer forest. Trees thinned out and became uncommon. Sedges and reeds became an ocean. It reminded me of the Florida Everglades. If I didn’t know that this place will become an icebox soon, I’d be looking for gators.
A unique concern popped up. The drought this year means everything is crackling dry; but what about this particular swamp? I hopped off the bike and walked out into the mess to see for myself. Where I expected moist, wet, slimy normalcy it just screamed “flammable edge of the bell curve”. This year the vegetation might carry flame very well… possibly faster than a man can run. Also, it was hard to see. It would be easy to lose sight of the bike and walk in circles for the rest of a short miserably truncated lifetime. I stayed close to the road and within sight of trees from which to mark my position. Swamp vegetation was chest high and often more. Walking sucked. Some spots were dry footing. Some weren’t. I’m not sure what defines quicksand, but if there’s a place that would have quicksand, this was it. Meanwhile, everything not actively tangling my ankles, from thigh high and above… was a tinderbox. It spread from horizon to horizon like this. Unbroken. Vast. Endless.
If a forest fire ignition hit that mess, it wouldn’t stop for nothing, no way, no how. The road, my umbilical to the outside world, might be nothing but a rounding error to a wall of flame. Little old me and his tiny bike had best not be there if it happened!
I wasn’t worried about me starting anything. My bike’s muffler has a spark arrestor, it runs reasonably cool, and I was keeping it on the dirt track; nowhere near weeds. Also, I wouldn’t so much as look at a match in this powder keg. But a lightning strike 20 miles away could unleash hell that would break over my little road like a tidal wave. Of course, this didn’t deter me. Risk is just risk. I planned around the possibility and kept enjoying life.
Occasionally there was a break in the vegetation, either higher ground with trees or lower ground with water. These could be decent safe zones. Places where fuel would be less uniformly fine. If shit got real, I’d be OK. Also, the road itself was narrow enough that a fire might burn straight across but conversely, I might use it to zip into the black if I needed to. None of this was likely, but it wasn’t impossible. Head on a swivel and all that.
You might think I’m being dour. Quite the opposite, the scenery was epic, the weather was fine, and the road surface was glorious! More or less unused, the road hadn’t been rutted in wet conditions or graded when dry. Unlike trees, which litter a road with branches, the reeds left it relatively clear. There was some light vegetation in the middle and two tracks packed hard. Very fun to ride! I found myself flying down the road with the bike nearly pinned to max RPM. I’d skip back and forth from track to track like a waterskier playing in the wake.
The little TW isn’t a speed demon but 45 mph is like Mach 2 in a place like that. If a deer or a bear or something similar jumped out, all that speed would have nowhere to go. I’d have no warning. The deer would have no warning. The road had no room to swerve. Things would go sideways fast when we met in the middle. I’d give the deer a Yamaha enema and a deer would surely send me over the bars. But… I did it anyway.
Speaking of critters, there was precious little animal life with the notable exception of raptors. Hawks were everywhere. I don’t know my raptor identification. (Ironically, I saw no eagles.) All I knew is that I spooked one or two hawks per mile and probably many more. I learned that if I rocketed as fast as I could go; I could jump them. My shrieking little lawnmower engine would be upon the hawk almost before they could take flight. At the risk of riding like a lunatic I got a good look at many desperately retreating hawks. I pretty much scared the shit out of a few of them.
I slowed down before anything stupid happened… I’m not as dumb as I sound. Regardless, I have no regrets over a few moment’s shenanigans.
In a patch of forest, I encountered a smallish downed tree. I pushed my front tire right up to it. I used the TW’s low gearing to walk the front tire right up and over the log. When the tire dropped to the other side, I clunked onto my very solid aftermarket skidplate. Then I revved and see-sawed like a bucking bronco to get the rear to hop over. I never even got off the bike. I was rather proud of myself.
I stopped at one spot to take a leak and a beaver wandered by; utterly unconcerned by a pants down bearded sweating fool. It waddled along the left wheel track while my bike and I were in the right. It got about 3 feet away, eyed me like it had zero fucks to give, and then kept walking. I assume it’s seen humans before but who knows? It didn’t seem perturbed. Maybe this year’s dry conditions had him pissed off?
Eventually I came to the end. The dead end. The road stopped. Nobody, not Paul Bunyan himself, could go further.
