Annual Chili Ride
Feb. 23

The forecast was for 80% chance of rain and wind gusts up to 40 MPH. The ride at Hellsgate State Park was fantastic with wonderful weather, we really lucked out. We had a great turnout with around 20 riders. We weren’t so lucky for the potluck potluck after the ride at the Don Uhlman Shelter. It started raining and then the wind came. We parked Billie’s new trailer to make a wind break and dove into the chili and chicken noodles that she made from scratch. They were soooo good. We made a mistake by sitting around the fire and socializing when we should have been cleaning up after the great potluck. The weather forecast hit us full force. The day was cut short with all of us still there. We got drowned by the time we had everything picked up and ready to leave. Thanks to Billie Havens for bringing the main dishes and Tom Barnes for the fire ring and wood.

Ranger Creek & Indian Tom Trails -
Umatilla National Forest Trail Clearing
June 10

Living in the Lewiston-Clarkston Valley, Twin Rivers BCH does a lot of riding and volunteering in both states. Since Asotin County in Washington State is only in phase 2 for Covid-19 Twin Rivers BCH could not schedule a chapter sponsored project due to social distancing regulations. Some of us wanted to ride this loop trail and we knew the forest service trail crew had not cleared it this year so we headed out ready to log it out.

The Ranger Creek Trailhead is 28 miles southwest of Asotin WA. The ride is down Wenatchee Trail #3137 and up Indian Tom Trail #3119, then riding three miles on forest service Road #4304 back to our trailers, about a five hour ride when the trail is clear. Six of us ended up cutting out ten trees, some brushing, and clearing rocks in a small slide are. The weather could not have been better. Everything at this elevation was so green with lots of wild flowers. We have plans to take this loop ride again this fall.

Submitted by Rod Parks

Dough Creek Adopt-A-Cabin
June 18

Twin Rivers BCH adopted this cabin in 2008 after members and friends rebuilt the cabin that year. The original cabin burned in the 2007 Chimney Complex fire. This cabin is one of six located on Idaho Fish & Game land south of Lewiston, Idaho. Access to all of them is by old roads that are closed to motorized use. The use of the cabins is on a first come basis and there is no charge. They are stocked with basic supplies, have wood stoves, and usually enough food that in an emergency a person could survive without bringing any of their own supplies.

June 14, eight eager volunteers, Rod & Karen Parks, Connie Marshall, Steve Cooper, Kathy Brooks, Carl Paulson,  Andrew Mackey and Jessica Patterson from Idaho Fish and Game rode down to the cabin to do some maintenance. Since Idaho State has classed electric bikes the same a peddle bikes Carl Paulson rode his electric bike to the project. He learned a disadvantage a bike can have, a flat tire. He had to push the bike to the top of the hill as he forgot his patch material.

Members were a little skeptical of the weather, as it was raining heavily as we drove to the trailhead and as we got closer it changed to snow and the temperature dropped to 30 degrees. By the time we parked our trailers, the snow had stopped and the ride was dry all the way to the cabin.

New boards were installed on the steps to the deck. The deck was cleaned for staining the deck and steps, but rain ruined that plan. Birds have been roosting between the rafters, so new boards were installed to keep them from making a mess on the deck.

Earlier in the week, Rod & Karen got permission to take ATV’s down and spray weeds in the meadow and trail as well as spray some roundup around the cabin and outhouse for a fire break. The hitchrail that was installed in 2003 had about lived its life as stock has been eating it away. With the atv’s they dragged two pieces of 10 foot 3” pipe and removed the wooden rail. The crew removed the wooden rail, made firewood out of it and installed the pipe top rail to the existing posts. The pipe was a real hassle to manhandle and get the sections threaded together with a coupling. The cabin siding is cedar and cracks have appeared in some of the boards. This has been letting flies and bees inside. We put caulking in all the places where we felt they have been getting in. Next trip down, we will have to see if we were successful.

The last jobs were washing windows and cleaning the outhouse plus a new coat of paint on the toilet seat. Thank you all that worked so hard to get the projects finished. We only had a little rain on the ride back up the hill and most agreed it was a great day other than poor Carl who had to push his bike up the hill.

Submitted by Rod Parks

Dry Diggins Ridge Trail Clearing

Six members met at Windy Saddle Trailhead, 20 miles from Riggins ID, loaded up gear and stock and headed down the trail in the Seven Devils Wilderness to set up camp for a week clearing the Dry Diggins Ridge Trail. As is usually the case, the Windy Saddle Trail had not been cleared yet, so there were challenges going around and over trees as we did not want to leave the string of eleven standing in the trail any more than necessary. We did cut what was needed to proceed.

The meadow at camp was more of a swamp than a meadow with all the snow this past winter. The estimate was 200- 300 trees down on the 3.6 mile long trail. Comments went from eager to get it cleared to what in the world had we got our self into, on to we will never get it done as fatigue set in at the end of the first day.

We had two crews working with crosscut saws and used hand saws on the smaller trees. We were lucky that we could drag many of the trees off the tread after only having to make one cut. Motivation for day two was generated from the ice cold beer that we had packed in for happy Hour.

We had some fantastic meals every evening and hot breakfast every morning. Well, there was one meal that Rod will never live down. He put way to much water in the pancake mix. They were so runny that you could have drank them. Adding powdered coffee sweetener did not help at all. Billie did a great job of cooking them and Rod is not allowed to make pancake mix anymore.

Our days started at 6:00 am, on the trail by 8:00 am and back to camp to relax by 5:30 pm. Another motivator was that we had to ride a little farther every day to the work area and back, so less time hanging on to the saw handles. We were so lucky to be over six thousand feet in elevation as it was over 100 degrees in Riggins almost every day we worked.

After three hard days cutting and dragging trees out of the way, we could see that we were going to get the entire section cleared. Day four we all celebrated with the last of the cold beer after getting back to camp at 6:30 pm.

The work crews were fantastic, as everyone worked well together, all had their jobs and just kept their heads down until we finished.

The next day we took a relaxing loop ride to Dry Diggins Lookout, then Bernard Lakes and back to camp. What a blessing to only have to saw out six trees to make the loop. This was quite a change from the 120+ trees we had to handle the previous days. On the pack out to the trailhead members cut some more tree as well as other stock users had cut some of the ones that we crossed going in.

We noticed some gear over the edge of the trail about 150 feet down. Ardel went down and found a destroyed pack bag and two 50# bags of horse feed. There was no sign of fresh blood so we feel the horse or mule survived the fall. We met a string of 13 head and assume they were the group that had the mishap. Ardel packed one bag of feed and a canteen back to the trail. Not much of a reward for the pack up the rocky hill.

TRBCH Chapter Outing
July 3 - 5

Some members started arriving on the 2nd at the Autrey Campground. The campground is located up Cougar Cr. Road on WDFW property. It is about an hour drive from Lewiston. The setting is fantastic, located in the Pine trees with a great view and grass for our stock. Then there is the Elk that we saw every morning from camp.

Members went for a short ride on Friday up a ridge where you could see clear to the Wallowa Mountains. Saturday was the big ride with eleven riders. The ride was about four hours through forested and meadow terrain. We came across a wrecked Model A and did some discussion about what it could say if it could talk, then on to the Mountain View Cemetery for lunch.

The ride back to camp got a little interesting as we were looking for the school house and took a wrong turn. Brush whacking for about 20 minutes got us down to the road we started on and back to camp. There were fifteen members in camp for the Saturday Night Potluck.

There was much laughter and jokes about the chicken cooked on a beer can during happy hour as we waited for the chicken and steaks to be ready on the BBQ for the potluck. We had so much food that we had leftovers for breakfast and lunch on Sunday.

Sundays ride was successful in that we found the school house and explored the sawmill remnants. We then rode along the breaks looking down into the Grande Ronde River. Lorelei McNamee wanted to explore a road that we had turned around on Saturday as she felt it would take us back to camp. Well, only one wrong road to back track on, and shortly we found a road that got us to where we rode Friday and we were back to camp in no time for the leftovers for lunch.

I do not think we could have had any better weather that what we had for the entire weekend. Thanks to everyone for making this a memorable outing for TRBCH members.

Mount Misery Chapter Campout
August 7-9

Bob Hough agreed to host this outing. He picked a great location, but possibly gave members too many options as to how to get there as a good share of them seemed to get lost or missed their turn. We ended up with fifteen showing up, about half staying overnight and the rest coming to visit or ride for a day. Mount Misery is located in the Umatilla National Forest, Pomeroy District, on the northeastern edge of the Wenaha-Tucannon Wilderness. The trail rides started on Trail # 3113 all three days.

Bob Hough & Rod Parks cut trees on the trail Thursday until they ran out of saw gas. Friday the rest of the trail was cut out so we did not have to ride a road to get to the rest of the trail. Saturdays ride took us to Diamond Peak and we continued on to Clover Spring for lunch. The ride back was on the same trail. Some great views of the Eagle Cap and Seven Devils Mountains, but the sky was not real clear for great pictures. Jim Bunch wanted to know where Oregon Butte was, so a picture is posted on the website.

After the ride was over and happy hour was winding down, Rod Parks fired up the BBQ for some pork ribs and marinated chicken breast provided by the chapter. A picture is on the website of the feast provided by the members for the potluck.

Many left on Sunday late morning after a great potluck breakfast mostly from leftovers from the night before. Four diehards took a nice ride down to the Tucannon River on Bear Cr trail # 3110, a well designed trail that had many switchbacks before our destination of the Tucannon River. 

We had plans to ride the Melton Fork Trail # 3124 but after the first ¼ mile decided we would rather not have to drop down so far on the trail and have to return in the hot part of the day. At the end of the day, we thought the ride down trail # 3124 might have been a shorter ride.

We are not sure if volunteers or the Pomeroy Dist Trail Crew cleared the trails that we rode, but someone did a great job. There were only two trees to cross in the two days of riding with over 100 cut out. Thanks trail crew!

Elmer Creek Pack Support Project
Aug.18-19

Elmer Creek Tr# 96 is a connector trail between Isabella Creek Trail and Smith Ridge Trail. Access is from Isabella Trailhead or Smith Ridge Trailhead off of the North Fork of the Clearwater River.

The North Fork Ranger District trail crew, with help from the Great Burns Study Group, has been rebuilding this trail for the last several years.

Twin Rivers Chapter and Palouse Chapter have been volunteering to pack crews into their work camps.

Covid-19 added some additional challenges for the workers as well as Twin Rivers packers. Each crew member had to have their own duffle bag, food boxes, cook gear, coolers, and own hand tools. Packing in the crews is always a challenge as to what they may bring for us to pack. This year was no exception. Six shovels, six polaskis, six grub hoes, 10 five gallon buckets, sledge hammer, heavy duty come a long, ten gallons gas, three gallons bar oil, four chainsaws, five sets of saw chaps, and large water filter, were just some of the items.

We ended up with ten pack loads. Most years, six pack loads gets everything into their camp. Since we had plans to go on a five day pack trip into the Mallard-Larkin Primitive Area after we packed in the crew we only brought four pack animals. Luckily their camp was only about 3.5 miles from the Smith Ridge Trailhead. So three round trips and twenty one miles later, we had all their gear to camp and some tired stock and packers.