Day 1 – Saturday morning cont...
I picked my bike up and we headed off into the deep canyon. It started getting darker and wetter. I noticed the trails looked to be saturated a lot more as we carried on. Moss was on everything and the trees started to change.
The trail split up ahead. Motorcycles and ATVs on the left and it looked Trucks had to dip into the river and drive upstream. Jarek told me to go ahead and we would meet where the trails connected. I head up to the left to find out this was not even meant for motorcycles let alone people with two legs! I was pushing and rocking my bike back and forth to get through the mud and trenches. Sadly no photos of this as I couldn’t even get off the bike to get a photo. I could hear Jarek’s truck down to the right gurgling through the water. I didn’t want him to think I was stuck and I also didn’t want him to need help and I wouldn’t be there so I think we both pushed through as quick as we could to meet back up.
We came together about 100 yards down the trail. What a relief! It was a nice area that reminded me of something out of FernGully and Avatar. Moss everywhere. Trees holding onto that last big of soil as the waters tried to wash them away.
I had to stop and take a cool Instagram moss photo!
This trail lead us to a bridge that was out. This bridge looked to be out for some time and there seemed to be a water cross to the right. It was a steep right hand turn down a hill into a shallow creek bed with a large uphill out. I learned my lesson from the last time and cranked the steering damper back as this looked like an easy crossing.
Jarek drove through it not problem. I could sense he was really digging this trip right about now and was looking for a good challenge…
…Well he got just that! After a light water crossing and broken bridge we happen to come across another similar situation but this made the previous obstacles look like a walk in the park. Trust me, photos & videos do not do it justice at all. There was a “rickety homemade, drunken Canadian, half put together something-you-call-it to get over a creek/waterfall bridge” that was washed out in front of us.
I looked at Ryan, Ryan looked at Jarek and Jarek looked at me with a very perplexed look in his eyes. You see, many of you know Jarek, many of you don’t. But in all my years out in the bush with him I have yet to see him nervous about an obstacle that is in his way of going further down the trail. He honestly looked very nervous which in turn made me nervous which sent Ryan running into the woods to relieve himself. There was really no way to turn around. The trail was so tight and there was a 50 foot drop on the right with an old car from the 1950s rolled onto its roof. Was this the last person to see this trail? Was this the person that made the “rickety homemade, drunken Canadian, half put together something-you-call-it to get over a creek/waterfall bridge?”
I think this was the first time Ryan said to me “I think we need to turn back” and I said “You should have brought walking shoes because its about 30 miles out.”
The 3 of us pushed the bike over the logs and up the embankment. We looked at the bridge for about 30 minutes before Jarek disappeared behind his truck. Is he walking back? Is he hiding and crying..?
All the sudden 2-stroke smoke filled the air and the smell brought smiles to our faces. Looks like my KTM wasn’t the only 1 cylinder we brought along! Jarek got his lumberjack on and wasn’t about to drive 14 hours from NJ to Gaspé to lay up and go home. He started chain sawing down old trees and Ryan and I started collecting all the wood we could get to make this bridge that would have to support 8000lbs. We even got out the sand ladders!
The first attempt wasn’t good. Ryan was pointing him to the left but Jarek was looking to get his driver’s side tire on the sand ladder. This was setting him crooked and he had to back up and reposition the passenger side sand ladder for the second attempt. He slowly crawled the front of the Discovery over and we knew once the front was up we were good, because if the rear slipped in then we could at least winch the truck up and out. As the front came up Jarek punched it up the hill and all our worries disappeared. It felt good. Felt like we were making some serious progress now. Nothing was holding us back.... Nothing yet.
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Originally Posted by Jarek M
"The Great Gaspé Crossing Part II"
