Wow, I can't believe it's November 1st, 2007. So far so good in that it's been a mild fall so far. That means no perm. snow on the ground. Although I realize it's only a matter of time before it comes.
A buddy of mine and I decided to venture out to the sand flats of the Great Salt Lake and even explore a majorly large mountain range called Stansbury Island. It is accesible from a man made causway (road leading to the island) from the the south shore of the lake. Though when the water level on the lake is low enough you'd be hard pressed to pass this mountain range off for a lake. The mountains on this island are pretty high, I'd say about 1500 feet above the lake level and they run for about 7 miles or so. My buddy was on a brand new Honda 4-wheeler and I was on my dirtbike.
So after playing on some long open stretches of flat sand we decided we should try a very steep dirt trail to the top of one of the smaller mountain island peaks. Sounded like fun to me since I'd been to the top of this area and the view was amazing. There's a 4 wheeling trail that leads to the top of this peak. It's a very steep, rocky and loose trail accesible only to a good 4 wheeler or dirtbike. My friend went first and through fancy manuevering was able to get to the top. I on the other hand had a hard time, only getting 3/4 of the way up before almost flipping my bike over on top of me. After some struggle I was able to get it the rest of the way up and we enjoyed a nice view of the Great Salt Lake, the west desert and surrounding mountains. Not content with this I decided to trail blaze up to a further peak that didn't have a trail. I made it up with only a minor struggle. My friend made it up as well with his machine.
The hard part would be getting down.You ever gotten yourself into a perdicament where you were able to get up but not down? Like, climbing up a tree? Well this is where the 4 wheeler was. They can climb but they're not agile enough to get down like a motorcycle can. I was taking it slow trying to scout out areas for him to get his 4 wheeler down the side of the very steep, rocky peak. Next thing I know I'm looking up to see the 4 wheeler falling over on my friend. It happend really slowly. I could only hope the thing would not stay on top of him as I was a good 35 feet below him on the hill and it'd take a few more seconds for me to get to him. Well, as luck would have it the thing didn't stay put. Instead it proceeded to roll, tumble, somersault and catapult it's self 800 feet down the side of the mountain. We watched with amazement for what seemed like an eternity of flips and scattering of gear and plastic w/ metal 4 wheeler parts flying everywhere. Eventually in the distance below we didn't see any more movement and summised the thing had stopped tumbling.
At this point we gingerly worked our way down picking up and gathering scattered pieces of gear and 4 wheeler equipment along the way. At the bottom of a small raving we found the mangled and completely destroyed wreck of a Honda. Wheels were bent, smashed and flat. Bodywork was missing, lights thrashed. It hardly looked like a Honda 4 wheeler. Jokingly my buddy asked me if he should start it? Sure, why not? The worst that could happen is that it catches on fire and burns up the whole island. Surprisingly enough the darn Honda started right up! Wow, that's a Honda for you.
The story ends with me riding my little 125cc dirtbike 15 miles into town to get his wife and car while my friend limps down the mountain. Eventually the piece of balled up metal was pulled down from the mountain island and luck of luck he had full coverage insurance!
Moral of story: don't try to take a 4 wheeler where a 2 wheeled vehicle ridden by an expert can go!
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