Sometimes its good to be dirty

One of the things I enjoying doing but I don't do enough is ATV riding with my son. This Saturday we brought along one of his friends and went up to ride at Cisco Grove. I have driven the Sierra Trek trail from the Eagle lakes side in my Jeep my times but I haven't driven in from the Cisco Grove side. We stopped at the Cisco Grove Campground and paid $5 for their day use parking lot and unloaded the quads. They also rent new Polaris 800 two seat quads for $275 a day I think.

About a mile into the trip up FS Road 82 we ran into a gentleman from the US Forrest Service, he motioned us over to the side of the road. He was checking for green stickers on our quads, I won't get into the details, but lets just say, if you pay for the darn things, put them on your quad! This was the first time my quad has been on public property in ten years. Off we went.

After a few miles of rough trails we came to the top of the hill just under the radio towers.

We continued down the trail to Fordyce lake and played around, climbing hills, crossing the dry lake beds and having a good time. The trails are steep and full off loose rocks the size of your head and if you have a stock pickup, you may get down to the lake, but good luck getting back up the hills. There were a few four wheel drives down at the lake and we may have seen a dozen quad and dirt bike riders that day, so the trail was not crowded. I hear the labor day weekend was a zoo. There have been 7 serious accidents with quads and dirt bikes on the tails in the last two years, all from riders coming around corners too fast and hitting another rider head on. If you have race quad and feel the need to try out for the Crusty's Dirt Demons show, head to Prairie City OHV park and race your heart out, these trials are for 15 mile an hour site seeing and families.

We had been riding for three hours or so and when I check the fuel level in my son's Quadsport 250, it was half full, we decided to head back. We checked out Lake Sterling on the way back from the trail above, because I took a wrong turn, but it looked full and beautiful. We stopped at the Campground store where we had a snack and I decided to wash up, my son wanted his ice cream first.

Nice face huh?

We leaded up the quads on the trailer and headed down the hill. Five hours of rough trail riding is plenty for my 42 year old body, but I think the young guys were feeling it too.

All in all, a great day.