On August 7 , 2009, two friends and I took off on our motorcycles to ride from the California/Oregon border to the Washington/Oregon border.

Big deal, you might say. Ha! Try doing it all on dirt. Barely discernable rails and forest roads, over steep, rocky, mountain passes, through the barren desert, across rivers and streams, and… well, you get the picture.

The route is called the OBDR: Oregon Backcountry Discovery Route. (http://www.treknow.com/obcdr/). It is unclear when it was first done, or by who, or why. But it was, and it is, and it’s now a virtual rite-of-passage for any serious adventure rider in the northwest. Indeed, riders come from all over the world to test their endurance, equipment, and most of all, their route finding skills on the OBDR.

Starting just south of Lakeview, Oregon, the route winds it’s way gradually north for 900 grueling miles. Occasionally there are a few miles of paved roads, but it engages 95% dirt. All kinds of dirt. And sand and rocks. Over high mountain passes and across hip-deep rivers and creeks. Fun!

Our start was auspicious: we arrived at our starting point just after several days of torrential (and highly unusual) rain. In fact, because of the mud, we couldn’t even make it to our first campground that night—and we hadn’t even begun the ride. The next day we took our time getting started, hoping things would dry out a bit as we poured over our maps and gear. Finally around 10am we headed out.

We rode hard all day. And ended up, around 4pm, right back where we started. That, as it would turn out, was the story of our trip. We were lost for virtually the entire time. Occasionally we would find ourselves where we had set out to go, but usually by accident, and not before at least fifty stops at unmarked trail and road junctions, trying to figure out where the hell we were.

The riding was fun and challenging, but the route finding heinous. One day it took us nine hours to travel forty-five miles. Actually, we rode over a hundred miles, but mostly in the wrong direction, or simply up (and back down) dead-end roads trying to find our way. Think of it this way: you’re in New York City and you want to drive to Chicago. There are virtually no street signs or road numbers. Most of the time you’re unable to see where you’re headed, but it doesn’t really matter because 75% of the roads you go down simply end. That’s the OBDR. Woohoo!!!

We took seven days to cover 2/3 of the route, encountering perhaps three other groups of riders along the way. Some people ride north to south; we rode south to north. The three roughest days (some very challenging terrain) are the one heading north from California; it gets a bit easier the further north you get, but the navigation is still a chore.

Yes, we had lost of maps and route descriptions and a GPS. Didn’t matter. There were roads on the maps that weren’t there; there were roads on the ground that weren’t on the map. There were totally unmarked six way intersections. There were steep, rocky single-tracks, washed out roads and boulder fields, deep-sand desert sections, mud bogs, dust-choked logging roads with piles of loose gravel, and yes, occasional sections of beautiful traveling.

Mostly, we camped, aside from a couple nights in small hotels in a couple of the tiny towns not far from the trail along the way. The camping was beautiful and the Oregon State Parks were remote, spotless, and virtually empty. What a treat!

As we packed up for our sixth day, it began to rain. Hard. We delayed and procrastinated until noon, and finally decided to throw everything in the truck and head further north out of the rain and into the desert where we hoped it would be dryer since the section of the trail we were planning on riding that day was deep in the forest which would have been a dangerous mud-fest.

I rode an old Suzuki DR350, Kelly rode a brand new Beta 450 and Wayne had a Yamaha WR250. All were street-legal dirt bikes with very aggressive knobby tires. A friend of mine had done the route last year on her BMW F650GS—and indeed we passed one group on huge, fully loaded touring bikes (BMW F800GS and KTM 950 Adventure). While I guess it’s possible to do it this way, it is much more enjoyable on a lighter dual-sport bike, that’s for sure. I’ve ridden similar terrain in Patagonia, Alaska and the western US on my BMW and it’s a chore!

Of course we secured everything to our bikes with Mini-Shockles, ShockStraps and SofTies and nothing came loose. That was in sharp contrast to the stories I heard from other riders who lost all sorts of gear as their bikes bucked and jumped around, especially in the rocky sections. One rider we talked to had his tent tied on with heavy duty bungie cords, only to discover that it had wiggled it’s way loose somewhere in the past twenty miles. Oops.

I’m working on putting together an off-road route from the Washington/Oregon border all the way north to Canada. All on dirt. I’ll keep you posted. Indeed, the journey is the destination.

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