Today is July 1 and it is going to be remembered in our official records as “I Survived Day Five”.  We left about 10.30 from Sumptor, Oregon and Aaron decided to drive the transport this day and let Rod get a taste of the beautiful sights.  So AJ, Rod and I took off for a wide spot in the road east of a town called Ukiah.

It started normal with a few trails that were wide and a few that were designated ATV, snowmobile trails that were narrow and on high ridges.  Very beautiful. 
Then things went downhill as one trail after another just ended.  They were on our maps and some of the official forest road maps, but they weren’t used for the last 20 years and were not passable as there were hundreds of trees down or small trees growing on the road. 

The local folks in Sumptor said this was just part of the process of our National Forest Service trying to close down all roads to off highway vehicles and atv usage.  I have never seen so many atvs in one place as there were in Sumptor the day we were there.  I tried to convince them that they needed to organize like other states have and keep the existing roads open for all to use.  As of that day, we started seeing the first sign of civilization and all of them were on atv’s  Kind of gives you an idea of how folks want to use the forest doesn’t it!!  A huge craft show/town garage sale was in progress and there were a few thousand tourist, everyone on an atv. 

So back to my trip, we spent about 8 hours on roads that would not work, got not really lost since we had a GPS, but did get in areas that we had to back track on for a long time.  Finally we came back to Sumptor and realized that Aaron was 3 hours up the road in an isolated area with no cell phone coverage and we had no cell phone coverage in town.  I knew he would be worried since it was around 6:00 and he was expecting us around 3:00

So I did what any normal person would do.  They were giving helicopter rides and we knew Aaron was lost and getting cold and probably had only 2 or 3 naps in the truck by that time.  So I hired a great pilot named Troy and gave him the long/Lat were we were supposed to meet Aaron.  40 minutes later Troy, I and the helicopter landed in a field next to my truck and trailer.  Aaron seemed confused by the entire incident, but I just told him I was tired of atving for the day so I took a helicopter ride.  He flew back with Troy and I drove the truck/trailer 3 hours back to Sumptor, Oregon. 

Since we had to start the next day on the Oregon/Idaho border in order to keep our schedule, we had to drive to the Idaho side of the Snake River at Hells Canyon.  You could almost see where we wanted to be from Oregon, but the only road over there was a four hour trip.  So at 3:00 in the morning we arrived at Riggins, Idaho.  Can’t wait for tomorrow.  At this point, I have one comment on my new Arctic Cat 700….”She’s a darn good machine”!

Click Here Photos from Today!!!