All Terrain Vehicle

I love my silent sports as much as the next person, but I have no hang-ups grabbing hold of the handlebars of a motorized vehicle. In the early fall my youngest son Big D, and two other friends did an ATV trip on the north shore of Lake Superior.    Note: pics are out of chronological  order....sorry

Schtave' stuck ...Soo Pits

Lunch at the pits

End of the line

  We started near Finland, making use of the Moose Run ,Moose Walk , and Red Top Trails. We were very fortunate to have good weather the first day of riding, cold and rain are not ideal. Our plan was to ride all day, grab some food in Silver Bay and be back to camp with enough time for dinner and a campfire.

Almost got suck here a couple years ago when the water was higher

Schtave'

De-Rocker

A long day on the trails

Red Top Trail overlooking Lake Superior 

  Long ago (2007) when my oldest boy was about five, he and I did a similar trip as father and son. We didn't do too much riding, so I was excited to see how much trail the area had to offer. Having a couple others along was key to have a better time...... more people= more fun. We had a fantastic day covering a little more than 90 miles with out doing too much of the same trail twice. We got back around dark and had lots of time to chill out at camp ,eat, and stay warm by the fire.

Bean Lake 

Near Silver Bay

Slick rock ?

Unload

No.....he's not going to drive his own 4-wheeler

 .The next day the weather was looking cloudy and was forecast for rain. Since we had already ridden pretty much everything we wanted too, we decided to head south to Moose Lake. This would not only give us a chance to ride more ,but it would get us a little closer to home so the final push would be shorter. We started out with the Soo Pits and moved on to the Soo Line Trail headed south. Our furthest point was where the Soo Line crossed the Kettle River. We took a short ride to the banks and headed back to the pits for more fun.

1st stop along the trail

Lunch in Silver Bay....Gas station fare 

De-rocker's mojo 

This hill is waaayyy steeper than it looks

     Big D and myself had an excellent time four-wheeling with our friends Schtave' and De-Rocker. Unfortunately my boys are getting too big to ride on the wheeler with me, so it may be the last trip of it's kind...

Abandoned

This past summer I got a call from Best in Schow. It went something like "hey, my boy will take us to an abandoned building and show us around". I was a little hesitant since he wanted to go in daylight and I don't really like doing urban exploration in buildings, I prefer underground. On the other hand I was passively asking to go a couple weeks previous and I don't like to pass up an opportunity.

going up

No Thanks 

  We met at B.I.S.'s house and rode our bikes to Lavender Town, locked up our bikes, and made the final approach on foot. My initial nervousness was replaced with amazement as soon as we got inside. There was lots of graffiti and the entire complex was well traveled. We made our way to the roof for an amazing view a couple hours before sunset. We didn't spend too much time in the building and headed out after we felt like we saw enough of it.

going down

  Not wanting the fun to end, BIS's son suggested a couple other sites nearby. We were game for it and rode on the bikes to the next location. There were three separate buildings, all in terrible shape. I'm guessing they will all be torn down soon, so it was cool to see them before they're gone.

This must be what the end of the world looks like 

I don't think this will ever be renovated 

 11th WUNDR 

   

t 2

testing

testing

Off Highway Motorcycle

We rode about 45 miles this day..G Man had at least 10 more than the rest of us by doing laps around the parking area 

 After our family trip with the moto-bikes, I was kind of on a roll and wanted to keep it going with multiple trips up to the same area. I had just gotten my bike out of the garage and was feeling good about twisting a throttle after a couple years of mothballing it.  G Man had just gotten his OHM youth training out of the way and had a new bike. I wanted to get him out and do some real riding before the trails closed for the year and/or the weather got nasty.

Vandy

A little deeper than he thought 

This was nice and clean

  My friends, Best in Schow, and Vandy just got their Yamaha Big Wheels trail worthy so it took very little arm twisting to get them to take a day off of work to go ride. G Man was excited to get a day off of school as well. We choose Wednesday, which turned out to be a fantastic, warm, sunny day in October.  So, with all the bikes loaded up early in the morning we headed north to Nemadji State Forest.

Hmmmm....is that a hand gun on the table?

I don't really like taking pics of food but this was soooooo   good

 There are many single track,two track, and fast, open roads up there to get lost on. I've been there  a half a dozen times, but still can't make any sort of judgment as to where I am once I get going. Not knowing your way around up there just means you may have to ride longer, which is not a problem when all you have to do is twist the throttle. Our group of four spent the first part of the day on some twisty, rough single track, and then backtracked all of it to try and find a lost GPS unit. We never found it, but ended up back at the vehicles around 1PM to cook some lunch.

Best in Schow

  The second half of the day was much less technical and fast. We hit mostly the two track 4-wheeler trails and the logging roads. We all had a ton of fun and G Man proved himself a worthy rider. I was very impressed with his ability and thrilled that I could do something this awesome with my oldest son. It was one of those times that I thought would never be a reality while changing diapers and feeding him that nasty stuff out of a baby food jar. I've had a lot of these kinds of moments with all of my boys, they are growing into some fine young adventurers and I am grateful to be experiencing all of it with them. I was fun to ride with my homies as well, even though one of those big wheels nearly broke my ankle.

Motorcycle Gang