Trail 613 (Divide Ridge) Run
August 1st, 2004
There were 4 of us that went on this Divide Ridge run. Ron, Les, Hank and myself (Clay). We started out at Snow Cabin Camp Ground. We took the North Fork Ahtanum Rd. west to the Blue Lake cut off. We went up to Trail 615 and followed it passed Blue Lake up to Blue Slide lookout.
On the way up to Blue Slide we stopped for the view. Mt Adams in the background.
Once on top we took a quick look off at the Blue Slide Lookout. From there we turn around and headed east on A 2300 (Jackass Rd.) A few miles down the road we turned onto Trail 613. It was a nice ride down the hill, through the woods. At the bottom of the hill the woods opened up to a burnt out forest. We had to start climbing again. This part of the trail was mostly sideways driving. I took a wrong turn so we stopped for a break.
After our break we headed on up the ridge past the Dome Peak cut off and came across this sign.
I little ways down the trail we could see Rimrock Lake so we stopped for a picture.
The ridge started drop down in to the Louie Way Gap. We went down until we came out on a gravel road. We had lost the trail. I had forgotten the maps at home so I wasn’t for sure if we were on a DNR road or a US Forest service road so we headed back up to see if maybe we went the wrong way. (I found out later that we were still on DNR land.) It was a long climb back up to where we seen the last Green Dot Marker. I started off going up the hill just fine on my Bayou 250. The hill got steeper and steeper. I had to keep shifting down. I was close to being at the flat part of the trail when I burried the back wheels in the loose gravel and dirt. My brother Ron came up to help me. It took two tries for Ron to ride my Bayou 250 to the flat area. Here is a picture of his first try.
Here is Ron on his Raptor 660 going up the same hill.
Hank riding Dallas’s Sportrax 250 on the same hill
Ron a little higher on the trail
We all made it up to the flat area where the Green Dot Marker was. We found that we were going the right way but didn’t want to go back down and look for the trail. We had a long ways to go back to the truck. We weren’t for sure if we had the fuel to make it back. Ron took off first so he could take some pictures. We thought we had just gone through the worst part. We were wrong. Ron wasn’t 100 feet up the trail when he got high centered on a bolder. We all had a hard time climbing up on top of the bolder. It was taking up most of the trail and there was no way around it. After the bolder we kept going up the steep trail until it flattened out. We stopped here for a quick look at the view.
We hit the trail for another stretch and then took a break in the shade.
After that break we rode hard for a lot of miles then took our last break at Blue Lake.
Then it was time to hit the road back to Snow Cabin to load up. Ron and Les had a long drive back to Renton after dropping Hank, me and my quad off in Gromore.
The views were great. The ride was challenging. This was a great trip. One of the best I have been on.
This run is rated Most Difficult and is not for people with little or no experience.