Finding Klickitat Lake: A Honda CRF250L Dual Sport Motorcycle Adventure, Part 1

There's this secret sort of hidden lake. Pretty cool right here. I'm gonna get wet. Oh well, there's a gate so we're definitely not going that way. Whoa, whoa, that's a f***ing coyote. Wow, we found it. I'm the Dork on the Road and I want to be your internet writing buddy. So please, consider subscribing and don't forget to turn on those notifications so that you know when I post awesome new content just like this. We are up near Mary's Peak. It's the tallest peak in the coast range. I'm on the 250L and we have really two goals in mind today. One, there's this secret sort of hidden lake that I found on the map that's about 11 miles from here that's in the middle of the woods so I'm going to try to get to that and see what it looks like. I've never been there. It seems to be accessible from what I can tell. So that's one goal. And two, just to kind of putter around and explore some side roads up here because I've done the main road a ton of times but I haven't done a lot on the sides. So there's a lot to be discovered. This is on the edge of the Siuslaw National Forest and so there's lots of National Forest land that's all open right now. We're going to head out and explore. Thanks for coming along. Got a little bit of riding on the road action before we actually get off into the dirt. Well, I hesitate to say this because every time I do I end up getting screwed but 10% chance of rain today. It's definitely cloudy. We're up so high, this isn't fog. We're in a cloud. I mean, maybe that's semantic difference. I don't know. There's a few of these ups I've never been up and I've always been curious about so we're going to check out a few while we're here because my guess is there's a cliff right here so they don't go very far but I like to explore so let's just see. I'm not going to let it deter us too much so if they get too long I'm going to turn around but I just don't think they go very far. They can't. This one goes farther than I thought. I think this is a landing. People have been target shooting up here even though that's firing directly toward the road so questionable safety of doing it that way. Let's remember this for the way back and maybe we'll hit it up. I don't know. There's a big rock. I'm sure you want me to ride through this puddle so here you go. I did it. I'm muddy now. Congratulations. This spring has been super weird. I think I say that every year. It's just Oregon. It's very temperamental. We've had some very nice days. Very nice. Like 85 and then bam it'll turn around and rain like this for a week because everything is all soggy still. This is a gorgeous view when it's not so rainy. Also I think I figured out what the formula is for making sure the weather is good. This seems to be the case every time I go out. But if I bring the drone like I did today, it rains. Every time. I can't fly it. But any time I go out without it then the weather is gorgeous and I wish I had it. Hi friends. I really want to try to get to this lake so I'm going to try to resist my urges to check out side roads. I often fail. But we're going to try. That's our state of goal. There I said it out loud. Here we go. We're turning. Alright. We're getting off the road now. Getting into some gravel. This is what we're after right here. There are a couple quick ups that I didn't check out on the twin that I may pop up while I'm here. Just to see. Just to see. We're about 7 miles from that lake. So that's not going to be the whole day. There's also like a lookout tower or something on the map that I'm going to see if we can get to. Not sure. And there may be gates. We may run into gates. I have no idea. A lot of this is private forest land. Good to be out. Stuck in the house a ton. It's like I need to be reminded that there's a lot more world than just the inside of my home where I'm now working every day. Don't get me wrong. I'm grateful. I'm grateful that I can work from home. And super appreciate all of you out there essential workers having to go out and brave potentially getting infected. I'm incredibly grateful that I'm no longer in a retail career like I was 10 years ago. This is one I wanted to check out on the twin but didn't. So let's check it right now. I think we're good. Steep. You probably can't tell. Steep. Oh I'm hitting this branch. It's happening. Shouldn't have closed my face mask. Oh yeah. This would have been interesting on the twin. Looks like it goes somewhere cool maybe. Just goes right here. Okay. Well there's probably a great view there when we're not inside a cloud. This goes around it looks like. Oh no. This is a power line trail. Okay. Let's see. Let's look. Sometimes there's access roads that parallel. Okay. Well this is definitely a come back and look at. Let's just see what's around the corner here. Oh the hat is a lot deeper than I thought. Okay. Remember when I said I wasn't going to go down side roads? Just can't help myself. This is a real discovery I feel like. Interesting. This will be really nice when it's not muddy. Oh yeah. Okay. So not. Okay. I'm not going to go down any muddy downhills. Actually the end is right there. You can see it. I'm going to turn around right here. We're getting distracted. Again. It's like that distracted boyfriend meme. Somebody should make one for me. Where my girlfriend is planned destination and the girl walking by. Interesting looking side road through the mud. Should we go up there and look? Let's go up there and look real quick. I keep coming up here on these overcast days and missing out on amazing views. Holy crap. This is how high I came up from the road just now. Let me give you a view. I mean it's beautiful in it's own way. So. A little technical. Kind of washed out. A lot of ruts and stuff. There's our branch that we met on the way up. It's a little out over here that we saw last time but you know what? We're here so let's just go up there and look at it. The foliage has definitely grown in some since then. Holy crap. And there's been a party or two up here. Whoa. None of these trees were here when I was here a couple weeks ago. Stuff grows fast. Quite a bit different. Okay. We freaked out the navigation enough. We'll stop at Parker Creek Falls too because well it's awesome. So I'm trying out the QuadLock Poncho today. That's this waterproof cover you see on my phone. It works with the QuadLock case and forms a watertight seal supposedly. Touch screen is supposed to work through it. I will tell you it works about 50% of the time. If I'm going to use the navigation today I want to try to keep the phone dry so we're going to give it a shot. It seals on there really tight because it's really hard to put on. Interesting addition if you're rocking the QuadLock. You want to see this up too? There's another one. This is not a good target shooting area everyone. Alright. Moving on. See I'm trying to scratch the side road itch by taking the ones that I know don't go anywhere. That's my strategy. It's a good story and I'm sticking to it. There's Parker Creek Falls. I don't think you can camp here but it's definitely a neat sort of day trip picnic spot. We'll pop off and look at it. You've seen it before but not in this video. It's beautiful. Beautiful. Pretty cool right here. I mean, can't not stop here. It's gorgeous. Back at it. I'm taking this left. Alright. Well this is where we went in the Africa Twin video and filmed the mods video so interesting that this is the left I'm supposed to take. This is the side road where we filmed that mods video. I'm sure it's super muddy right now. Now focus. Focus. I really want to go down there but no. We're going to get to our destination and then explore. This is that side road we went down on the Twin with all those other side roads. The little offs and ups that I wanted to explore. This is as far as I've been down this road before. Taking a right. Right here. It looks like. I don't know where that goes. I don't know where any of this goes. I'm going to rely on navigation to get me out. If need be. There's a little intriguing private property. Still intriguing. Shall we splash through this puddle? I think we shall. We're going to get wet. Oh! Did you see that? It hit me in the stomach. Look at my phone and everything is soaked. That was a bad decision. My seat is wet. Oops. That's what we do for contents. For YouTubes. I'm so glad I have that waterproof cover on this phone. I may not do that again at that speed. That might have been foolish. Although here's another one. Oh yeah. That was fun. Guy says he doesn't want to get wet and then purposefully splashes through deep puddles. Guy doesn't know what he wants. Yeah. This is a little bit more back roady than where I've been before. So I've definitely never been down here. This is good explorers. This is pretty. There's a little creek right there. It's very lush in the springtime. Very lush. I'm not on the map right now according to the map. That's the problem with using Google Maps only. I've been meaning to download OnX and use it. Just haven't yet. That's intriguing. I think we're close enough that that's the road it thinks we're on. Just loops around. Fun. Well, actually, that might be my road. It's hard to tell. This is why Google Maps on these logging roads is garbage. You have to just hope you're headed in the right direction. This looks really main roady. I don't know. Let's see. If we don't end up back on the right road, then I'll just turn around. Now it wants me to go that way. I think this is... Well, there's a gate. We're definitely not going that way. Let's go up and see. I'm not sure if this is it or not. This doesn't look like it. I'm not 100% sure you can even get through from where I'm trying to get through from. But we're going up, so I want to see what's up here before I decide whether or not to turn around. I like going up. Alright, I'm calling it. I'm going to turn around and go back to that other road. The problem with trying to go through and using Google Maps is I bet that gated road is the one I actually need. I've got to practice my full lock turns. Either way, we're getting a day of exploring. Here's where we turned. It definitely wants us to go back here and turn onto another road, so it might very well be this one. This doesn't look like a very good road, but none of these do, so what the hell do I know? Let's see. Yeah, this looks better. Map-wise, this looks better. Ah, s***. Okay. Well, welcome to my life. It's not even locked. I'm not going through, though, because it's a pretty clear indicator that they don't want people in there, but it isn't locked. The lens is very dirty because I... I don't know if you noticed, but I went through a big puddle. Very not good. Well, let's go take the other road. See where it goes. Why not? All is not lost. All is far from lost when you're in the woods, riding around. That's the point. Alright, bye gate. Let's see where it leads us going this way. Maybe there's another way through. Maybe Google Maps is smart enough to adjust for us. Hey, we're past where we turned around. Yeah. Okay. Here's a little junction. This is not on the map. Okay, which way, though? Which way? This way? Okay, I think it's this way. No, we're off the f***ing map again. We're just improvising at this point. We need to get on BLM 10, which it looks like if I go in that direction, I might be able to get on. Well, this isn't on the map, so let's see where it goes. This is the general direction it wants me to head in. This is why you always leave home with a full tank of gas because plans change, routes don't work out, you're never going to do the exact mileage you thought you were going to do, gates are closed, things like that, so you always want to have just a little room to improvise if need be. The important thing is just to enjoy the ride. Ooh, fun. Okay. We got a little clearing. That's good. We're going to have a little bit of a view here. Look at this. See this? This is my boomstick. There's a logging operation right over there. Oh, and they're moving too, so I probably need to be looking out for log trucks today because it is middle of the week. 1.3 miles away, it says, so we're going in the right direction. Somehow. Whoa, whoa. It's a coyote. It's a coyote. Two of them. I have never seen a coyote in the woods before. The other one took off down here. They heard me coming. I didn't even know we had coyote out here. It's definitely a coyote. We don't have wolves in this part of Oregon, and it was pretty small. That, I bet, goes up. There he is. There's a coyote. You probably can't see him. He's running up that road. Huh. Cool. Wildlife encounters. Looks like a big, cute dog. Hey, we're back on the right road, sort of. It says, maybe. 1.6 miles. Cool. Saw a coyote. Ended up back on the right road. Navigating out of here is going to be interesting. That's okay. Worst case, we just cut over to the highway, because we're on dual sport, and we can do that. Here it is. BLM 10. We're back on. Okay. We're back in business. Oh, it is right up here, it says. It's on this road. There's a clear cut. The lake should be right over there. I see it. There's a lake. There it is. We found it. That's good. We also found that they're working on this road, clearly. Maybe a little hike to get down there. This is obviously where people pull over and park to get down there, I'm guessing. That is a tiny lake. Private property. See, they put these signs right where I don't want them to be. That might be the entrance right there. Yeah, it looks like it. You can get right down. Okay. Well. Hmm. I mean, let's just go look. I think I can ride back up this with no head start. We're about to find out. Worst case, I can walk it. Oh, we are sliding. Yeah, our rear is sliding. I'm going to go right here, I think. I'm going to park it right here and then walk down it. We'll see what it looks like. Yeah, you see that? My knobbies aren't doing me any good. Climbing out might be interesting. I'm going to have to spin it to win it. Well, we found it. And I just realized I left my key in my bike. How about that, huh? How about that? I've failed so often to find my destination recently that it's nice to actually succeed, even though we had to take a couple detours. We found it. We're here. This lake is beautiful. Gorgeous, pristine. You can't hear anything but birds. The old stumps are really cool. It's just a neat spot. This is Klickitat Lake out by Mary's Peak. There's an unbelievable amount of human waste around here. Dig a hole, bury it, if you're going to poop out here. That's the rules. Cat hole, look it up. Okay, well, I would like to hang out here for a while. One, it looks like the trail that leads around the lake is flooded. It's pretty high right now, so I can't really get to any spots. Two, it's very clearly marked to no trespassing. There's a sign right there. Normally, that would concern me less, except there's also a piece of equipment parked right there, so somebody could come back at any time. I'm going to hop back on the bike, try to get back up this steep, slippery hill. That could be an adventure. We're going to go check out our second destination, which is on the map as the Watchtower. I have no idea what it is. It looks like a hilltop. Not sure if we can get there, but the turnoff is right back down here. Let's go check it out. This is going to work. First try. Excellent! Look at this. We found it. This is the Watchtower. There's no Watchtower. We are deep in the backcountry right now. That's the hill we were on. I just want to see what's down this road just a smidge.