2021 Pashnit Touring on a Hayabusa
- Thread starter pashnit
- Start date
It's time to head for Oregon.
Up at 3am, on the road by 4am
And it's been a couple of years since we've come up here. Last time I brought a tour group into Oregon was in 2017, I was still recovering from a brain hemorrhage I had while leading a tour only 90 days prior. I didn't even have a motorcycle yet as I had crashed my Z1000 during my hemorrhagic stroke and was still searching for a new bike.
I wasn’t allowed to drive a vehicle for at least a month, and was sent to a speech therapist to re-learn how to talk. Wildly intent on getting back on a bike, I was still finishing up my speech therapy when I borrowed a VFR from a good buddy of mine to lead the motorcycle tour into Oregon after my stroke only 2-1/2 months prior.
The borrowed VFR in 2017
Oregon Tours meet in Red Bluff, a city at the very northern end of the 400-mile long Central Valley. We spend a full day in NorCal making our way north through the Trinity Alps and Marble Wilderness before heading across the border. Red Bluff is a great meeting spot for this, but it’s a fair distance to get up to Northern California to the meet point. One of the guys traveled 9 hours to get to the meet spot from SoCal. Two others flew in from NY and PA for the ride weekend.
Meeting up in Red Bluff. And yes, that's a GSXR1000.
Up at 3am, on the road by 4am
And it's been a couple of years since we've come up here. Last time I brought a tour group into Oregon was in 2017, I was still recovering from a brain hemorrhage I had while leading a tour only 90 days prior. I didn't even have a motorcycle yet as I had crashed my Z1000 during my hemorrhagic stroke and was still searching for a new bike.
I wasn’t allowed to drive a vehicle for at least a month, and was sent to a speech therapist to re-learn how to talk. Wildly intent on getting back on a bike, I was still finishing up my speech therapy when I borrowed a VFR from a good buddy of mine to lead the motorcycle tour into Oregon after my stroke only 2-1/2 months prior.
The borrowed VFR in 2017
Oregon Tours meet in Red Bluff, a city at the very northern end of the 400-mile long Central Valley. We spend a full day in NorCal making our way north through the Trinity Alps and Marble Wilderness before heading across the border. Red Bluff is a great meeting spot for this, but it’s a fair distance to get up to Northern California to the meet point. One of the guys traveled 9 hours to get to the meet spot from SoCal. Two others flew in from NY and PA for the ride weekend.
Meeting up in Red Bluff. And yes, that's a GSXR1000.
But first, we are very near the Northern California Veterans Cemetery. It’s new, and was established a few years ago in 2005 under then-governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. I like to bring tour groups here for a quick stop, and we’re only there for a few minutes. Enough to pay respects to those that served. As of 2021, there are already 8000 veterans buried here. The 133 acre site is located in the middle of nowhere near Igo along Gas Point Rd which is a twisty little backroad.
What's most surprising is the distant hillsides along Highway 36 are all burned, recently, it's all scrub here at this lower elevation, but it doesn't always look like this.
Looking down on Highway 36 from Platina Rd
....during our brief spring...
Looking down on Highway 36 from Platina Rd
....during our brief spring...
Have you ever been riding past something for a long time – decades even, and never stopped to check it out? On this ride, it was a natural bridge along Wildwood Rd.
The turn-off is 13-miles north of Wildwood, and there's a tiny sign about simply said, arrow, natural bridge. (can ya see the sign below as you're blasting by?)
Obviously, no one is promoting this as a touristy destination. And, it’s a 1-mile long dirt road to get there.
We don’t do dirt on these rides, unless there’s something really cool at the end of that dirt road, like Bodie Ghost Town, for example (which is three-miles of bumpy hard pack to reach).
There's a natural bridge that's worth checking out along Wildwood Rd that I’ve known about for years. Never made it to the top of my To-Do List. Till today.
The exterior mass of the limestone rock formation is bigger than a large house and was all solid rock until water, through the course of time, forced itself through and under the soft limestone, creating the passage. It looks like a cave, but it’s open on both ends.
Super cool thing to go check out, and you won’t ever find any other people there.
The last portion was a little hairy, but everyone did fine getting there
The turn-off is 13-miles north of Wildwood, and there's a tiny sign about simply said, arrow, natural bridge. (can ya see the sign below as you're blasting by?)
Obviously, no one is promoting this as a touristy destination. And, it’s a 1-mile long dirt road to get there.
We don’t do dirt on these rides, unless there’s something really cool at the end of that dirt road, like Bodie Ghost Town, for example (which is three-miles of bumpy hard pack to reach).
There's a natural bridge that's worth checking out along Wildwood Rd that I’ve known about for years. Never made it to the top of my To-Do List. Till today.
The exterior mass of the limestone rock formation is bigger than a large house and was all solid rock until water, through the course of time, forced itself through and under the soft limestone, creating the passage. It looks like a cave, but it’s open on both ends.
Super cool thing to go check out, and you won’t ever find any other people there.
The last portion was a little hairy, but everyone did fine getting there
Last edited:
This location has great historical significance, and it's a sacred site to local Native Americans. This site is the location of the Bridge Gulch Massacre, also known as the Hayfork Massacre or Natural Bridge Massacre, that took place on April 23, 1852.
But you would never know that unless you actually looked this place up online. There are no signs here to read of the local history.
I’ve been told through the years I shouldn’t highlight these places in my article writing, but I disagree. We should embrace our shared history, however uncomfortable it makes us.
en.wikipedia.org
Atop bus sized boulders
Cathy for scale
But you would never know that unless you actually looked this place up online. There are no signs here to read of the local history.
I’ve been told through the years I shouldn’t highlight these places in my article writing, but I disagree. We should embrace our shared history, however uncomfortable it makes us.
Bridge Gulch massacre - Wikipedia
Atop bus sized boulders
Cathy for scale
Quick hike back to the bikesSimilar threads
