Logging Roads, Waterfalls, and Snow: Honda Africa Twin Off Road Exploring Near Mary's Peak, Oregon

This is Alder Creek Falls. Man, there's not much there right now. Gate is closed. They do not want us going to the top. You know I want to ride in the snow this year. I'll shut up and let you look at this. I mean, we can do a little side road action. That's the end of the road anyway. Hello everyone and welcome back to the dork side. I am your friendly neighborhood dork in my garage. About to be outside my garage. That's right everyone, I am the dork in the road and I want to be your internet riding buddy. And I'm better than your regular riding buddies because I'm available whenever you want and I come with the mute button. So please consider subscribing and don't forget to turn on those notifications so that you know when I post awesome new dual sport and adventure content just like this. Got most of the gear on the bike already. Loaded up the Giant Loop Moto Trek Panniers. Panniers? Soft bags? My wife calls them paninis which I know is wrong. We're gonna head out to Mary's Peak which is about 45 minutes to an hour from here. Go up to the top, get a look at the sweet views and explore some of the forest roads nearby. It's a decent looking spring day. Cloudy but not raining. Not supposed to rain. So we're gonna head out and see what we can see. So thanks for coming along with me. Whoa! Pick a lane, Saul. Holy s***. That guy would have killed me if I'd been sitting here. Oh look, it's my daughter's orthodontist except for like 10 feet tall. That's uh creepy. That's creepy. I think it's creepy. It's uncannily real. It's like he's staring right at me. What would it be like to drive by a billboard of yourself like that? All right, this is the fun section of this highway. Lots of twisties. Lots of log trucks to dodge. The twisties for the highway section and then the turnoff to Mary's Peak is right up here. Here's the turnoff. Man, there are a lot of people up here. Surprise. Road not maintained for winter travel. It's a good thing it's technically spring. That's up like three days ago. This is a fun road too especially on a street bike. It's not not fun on this but it's even more fun on the street bike. It's a little wet. Shouldn't be too bad but you know. Lots of these neat little side roads that on the CRF, I would be willing to pop up and around the gates to see where they go. It's a little harder on this thing. Not impossible. I mean I would never illegally pass a gate. That's what I meant to say. At least not on camera. There are clearly paths around all these gates. People are walking and riding around them on motorcycles. You can see it. So the mission for today was just to get out on the twin for one. Looking for a spot to film my mods video up here somewhere. That could be interesting so keep an eye out for that. And to explore some of the side roads. So you may have seen old videos of Duckfan and I riding up and around Mary's Peak. So you can actually go from one highway through the woods over to another and go back to Philomath. So that's a fun ride. That's not the plan for today. I want to go to the top if I can get up there and see what's up. It's really beautiful. Show you guys that. And then hit up some of the gravel roads. It's not Forest Service I don't think. It might be Forest Service Road. And just get up and explore the side roads off of it. Because I've never done much of that. No real destination in mind. This is not an area that I've done a lot of side road scouting. But I'm getting tired of the same old places. So I want to come explore new areas. Didn't put her in the truck. I don't put the twin in the truck. You see? All you guys are always giving me crap about that. This thing's got a lot bigger gas tank though. So that helps. Oh there's a little snow on the ground. Yeah it's gonna get cold. I hadn't, I hadn't bargained with that. So here's a waterfall. This is Alder Creek Falls. And there's not much there right now. Not a lot of miltage going on. This one's normally much wider. You can see all the moss. There's a good decent view right here. A little side road. So we can stop and take a peek real quick. Yeah there is snow. Not a ton though. Doesn't look like it's gonna threaten us. At least not down this low. Oh yeah that's a real good view. Real good. You can see. I'm sure it's not coming across on the GoPro. But all the way down into the valley. You can see the farmland and stuff. So I have been eager to check out this road but I want to head up to the top first. This weather is not cooperating but it never does. All right here's my junction. So we're gonna come back down and head down this road. But first we're gonna go up to the top and just go see what it looks like. Assuming it's open. Um gate is closed. They do not want us going to the top. That's funny. People do not take it seriously and so things get closed. Huh now good. So we can't go up to the top but we can explore the side road action. So we're gonna do that. It is like snowing I think. I haven't seen this gate closed in a really long time. Okay well that was fun. It's snowing. It's literally snowing right now. It's wet snow but it is snow. Fun. I didn't anticipate snow today. Well I've ridden the twin in the snow so that's fun. Let's see what the side roads look like. Let's go look at Parker Creek Falls. So the campground's up there too. I was going to show it to you but obviously I'm not going to do that now. But let's check out some side road action. So you can see the sign 13 miles to Harlan or 20. You can take this loop around to highway 20 and then head back on highway 20 towards Philomath if you want to. Some friends up here. Look at that. Hey friendo. Thanks man. So here we are into the woods. Mary's Peak. Snow on the ground. Adventure in front of us. So you patrons are going to get all the pictures I take today right away. If you are not supporting me on Patreon that's cool. I know it's not for everybody but if you consider it I'd appreciate you. Thanks patrons. You're badasses. You know this. There's a little side right here I think. A little up. Yeah I don't think it goes very far though. It's just a shooting spot. But we can look. Let's look. Oh there's a muddy ass road right here. Huh muddy little up. Yeah that's more than I'm into at the moment. Yeah you're not allowed to camp up here so I don't think this is really much of a camping spot. Wow look at the trees. It's pretty up there. Pretty up there. Now that little flurry stopped so we'll see what the weather continues to do. Here she is. Here's the twin. In the woods. It is legitimately snowing. I checked and rechecked the weather. Five percent chance of precipitation. I don't mind as you know. I just I didn't even bring the waterproof cover for my GoPro because it wasn't supposed to ring. Like I only really need it in a downpour. But brought my tripod today so I took some third person photos. Strapped it down with these here pronghorn straps which seem to be working good. A lot of misadventures lately. A lot of I'm trying to do this and then halfway through the video it's like just kidding we can't do any of that. That's okay because every mistake is a step on the path to success. That's true. And literally the point is just have a good attitude. So I can't go to the top of the mountains. You guys don't get to see a badass view but I mean we're inside this cloud anyway so I don't know if you'll be able to see anything. But we could still hit up the back roads. We're still out here. We're still making it happen. Still having a good time. So you're gonna get a an Africa Twin riding video damn it. That's what we're doing. Look at the snow you guys. I mean on the plus side. You know I wanted to ride in the snow this year. Here it is. Awesome. These are big fatty flakes. Cool. That's funny because it's this it's like 40 degrees. It's not sticking. Awesome. We're gonna ride in the forest in the snow on the Twin baby. It's legit. Let's see what we can see. My guess is we're gonna see snow. This little up looks interesting but pretty muddy. That's a 250L road I feel like. Still get my feet under me on the Twin you know. Riding in the snow baby. Riding in the snow. Awesome. You wanna see this little up? I mean why the hell not. It's right here. Let's go check it out. I like that they finally had to put these signs up. It's super obvious this is not a safe target shooting area. There's no backstop but so many people do it anyway. They finally had to put up signs. Here's a little cliffside action for you. Cool huh? Neat dude. Neato. A little mud. Twinning. Here it is. It doesn't appear to be occupied. Let's see. This is a little awkward corner on it in a truck or something but it's not bad on a motorcycle. Nope nobody here. Cool. Yeah I'll walk around a little bit and show you what's here. This is a neat spot. Still snowing. It's coming down yo. So this is Parker Creek Falls. That's what it's called. You can find it on the Google Maps if you need to. Again you're not allowed to camp out here I don't think. In this the Mary's Peak Botanical Area. But people picnic. Anyway I'll shut up and let you look at this. I'll give you a look around. So there's the twin. A hillside. We're going to push on a little farther though. I am a little worried about my camera and how wet it's getting without the cover. But for now we're just going to ride a little bit more. See what we can see. It's good to be out though. Could be a hell of a lot worse. I could be at work. Anyway we press on. Onward. I need this five percent of rain to clear up. So much more comfortable riding faster standing up. It's interesting. I feel like it's interesting. How are y'all dealing with this whole shelter-in-place coronavirus shenanigans? What are you doing? Are you off work? Are you working? Are you stuck at home? This is one of the roads I wanted to explore but it looks like I won't be doing that. They've gone to extensive measures to keep people from getting around it. Look at that. It's a double gate. If you're not at home are you able to get out and ride? Unnecessary travel in Oregon is discouraged. But it's not technically against the law right now. It's not illegal. It's not banned. Just discouraged. So long as you can maintain social distancing. Which I think it's clear that from the fact that I ride by myself that's not a problem. So I'm not breaking the rules per se. And I'm less concerned about the letter of the rule than I am about the intention or the spirit. And the whole point is to keep people from rubbing elbows with each other and spreading the virus. I don't think there's much chance of me doing that out here. This is a road I haven't been down before so we're going to explore it. My only qualm personally is less about whether I'm allowed to. But one, I don't want to be making the situation worse. And I don't think I am. Because the only person I interacted with was the gas station attendant and he let me pump my own gas. So we're not spreading anything and I keep my gloves and helmet on most of the time. But my only real qualm is if I were to get into an accident and I would not, one, want to be diverting resources from the medical field right now. Because obviously they need everything they can get. And two, I don't really want to end up in a hospital full of coronavirus patients. Which is a thing. So that's kind of my take on it. We don't want to make the situation worse. We want to do what the experts say we need to do. That's my opinion. And I'll keep riding until it's explicitly forbidden or they close the gas stations. Because I feel like, not to make light of the situation, but you guys, a lot of you are stuck at home. We need something to do. So if I can keep producing content and give you a moment of escape and maybe a vicarious ride for those of you that can't ride, then I want to keep doing that. So that's my plan. Looks like the sun is coming out though it's still raining. So I've never been down here before. So let's try out this side road. I have no idea where any of these things go. So we're just exploring on the twin. I'm not going to get anything too heinous on the twin. Not by myself. Not after everything I just said. So if the roads get too bad, you'll find me turning around on the twin a lot sooner than I would have on the 250L. So call me what you will. Yeah, see like this. That's a neat little spot though. Neat little spot. This would be super fun in a truck on the 250L. But this is a cool little campsite, which again, I don't think you're allowed to disperse camp up here. So I wonder what people are using it for. This is actually a really great place to film that video though. If I want to film it. Huh, not too bad once you get around all that it looks like. I have to wonder where this goes. A little break in the rain. We've got some cover right here. Seems like a real good spot to film a video to me. I do feel like I could get through this or around it anyway. That I don't know so much about. It's pretty heinous. I could come down this left side. Doesn't look like it goes much farther anyway. Some 250Lage up here for sure. Look at this. Ooh, pretty bike over there. Yeah, see the weather's turning nice now. What the hell? Okay, I'm gonna shut off this camera for a bit. I'll get back with you in a little bit. This has been a great spot to film the Africa Twin Mods video. So check that out if you haven't. I'll put a link here or here. I think it's here. We're gonna head back to the main side road. Get a little bit more exploring in today before we head home. So let's see what we can see. Slippery. Pretty slippery. All right, back out to the main road. Big mud hole right here. Not huge. Let's ride through it. Why not? What the hell else we got to do today? Besides, you know, not fall down. Here's the main road. We're gonna head down a little ways and see what we can see. The main side road, not the main main road. I know this doesn't go all the way through. It actually loops around to something else. So let's go see. So I've never been up here. Never been on this road. It's a new experience for everybody. Beautiful though. Beautiful forest. There's a little marshy area. I don't have any witty commentary for you today. We'll just talk about what we see and hope for the best. We're out of the snow. So that was only up on the very top. It's just wet and soggy now. As I suspected. Oh, what have we here? It's like just a little aside. A little gravel pile. Yeah. Well, we can look at it. Why not? We're here. Nothing crazy here. Nothing super impressive. This is a decent spot to target shoot. Although people have been shooting looks like spray foam canisters. Which is fun, but that's nasty crap all over the ground. It's not probably great for the forest. There you go. A target shooting spot. Fire pit. Muddy fun times off to the side. You're into that kind of thing. Have I mentioned I love this motorcycle? Oh, what have we here? This looks like just a little aside. I mean, we can do a little side road action. I can't imagine this goes very far. I gotta get better at turning around. That's probably my biggest hurdle. It's the thing that slows me down the most. This bike is too heavy. I feel like for that pivot turn. Huh, there's some decent little explorers up here. See how I'm like, I'm gonna stay on the main road, take it easy. And then like, it's like a tractor being pulls me to these side roads. I just can't help it. I just have to see. It's just that explorer's instinct that like, yeah, but what's around the corner? What's around that corner? You know what I mean? Neat little spot. Continuing on. It's fun. So see that? That's a 250L road. I'm not taking the twin up there. But mental note, I need to come back out here. Plenty of riding it looks like. Hopefully this goes up to something cool. Oh, decent little view over there. A little drop. That's fun. This thing I feel like would be ridiculously easy to jump a little bit. Almost scary how easy it would be. How easy it seems it would be. Getting a little muddier. Mitas tires doing well so far. That was some legit mud. Man, there's a ton of cool side roads up here. Neat. These are just little ups, I think. They just go up to little landings. All right, we're going down a little now. See where this goes. There are a ton of side roads up here. This would be a real good 250L spot. This road is actually in really good shape. I'm surprised. I say that and come around the corner and there's a bunch of mud. There's a decent little dip. Oh yeah, we got it. A lot of trucks have been up here. You can tell by the way the branches are all smashed. They've been ridden over, driven over. This must go somewhere, right? It just looked like a crappy little side road. It's definitely already longer than I was expecting. So we press on. It's still raining some. 5% my ass. Try to remember to wipe the camera off for you from time to time. I didn't get one of those hydrophobic lenses because, again, I didn't think I'd need it. The rainy season is mostly over. But every time I go out, I get rained on. So I probably need to be... I need to get one and just keep my waterproof case in my bag just in case. That would have been easy to do today. Man, this thing does so good. She's just raring to go. She's like, give it to me. I want to hit it. Pretty awesome out here on the twin. Africa twinning. This is the end. No, it isn't. Oh, that big branch because it wasn't looking. It's not the end. It's just a muddy aside. Okay, well, although this doesn't look as well maintained. We'll push on a little bit until we start to feel sketchy. Whoa, okay. Yeah, it's a little slick over this branch. Yeah, it's getting kind of sketchy. It's getting... It's getting kind of sketchy. This is no longer the maintained road I was just on. I'm gonna get off and look around this corner. But this may be where we turn around. It's a decent spot for it. Sorry, guys. I know. We're on the 250L. We'd hit it harder but up here by myself with this thing. Still not super great at riding it off-road. Tires are good but they're not as good as the 250L tires. And I'm way off the main road so it'd be hard to find. Yeah, it doesn't go anywhere anyway. It's pretty much it. So we found the end of this one. There it is. But look how good she looks. We gotta take a picture of that. It sure looks like there's exhaust leaking out. Oh, it's just mud cooking off the exhaust pipe. Okay. So this has a high fender kit which is good because it keeps... Not the super high but a fender raise kit. Which I didn't talk about in my mods video. But it keeps the mud from building up underneath and locking up the front wheel. But it also makes it so more splashes up on the exhaust as you can see. That's fine though. We're good. See, it's muddy. It's real muddy. See this? Okay, we're gonna turn around. That's the end of the road anyway. Right up here. So this is as good a spot as any. Okay, we're turned around. Back down the road. Back to the main road. And I think... Well, we'll see how we feel. All right, and we're off. Look at this mud we've come through. Thick mud. Yeah, you can see our tracks. See the twin tracks? Quite a bit of mud up on the exhaust. I can smell it cooking. It's like a kiln. Like we're making pottery. All right, back up the muddy hill. Wish me luck. TC's down on one. I probably should shut it all the way off on this. There we go. More hillside. I could see getting a lot of confidence on this thing off-road real quick. It's very confidence inspiring. The rain's coming back. 5% my ass. It's not rained 5% of the time. It has actually rained 95% of the time I've been up here. Just goes to show you can't trust the forecast. Well, this has been a fun exploration adventure. Got out. Got on some side roads. Got a feel for how these tires do in more muddy conditions. So far I'm impressed. I don't want to speak too soon as I'll probably drop it the second I do. But it's been real good. Real good. Suspension's real nice. It handles these bumps, these little drops and ups really well. I definitely want to bring the 250L back up here and putt around. I could ride it from home but I'd have so little gas by the time I got up here. I'd almost rather truck it and take it out on one of these little side outs. Take it out of the truck there or park it. Now I haven't lost my 250L. Just trying to get the bras videos made and get out on the twin. I just have too many bikes to ride now. So some are going to get ridden less. But don't worry, I'm not done with the 250L by any stretch. It's still my favorite or second favorite. Tied for my favorite bike of all time. And like I said, all I can think about while I'm up here is all these side roads. I want to hit up on it. Oh man, I picked the branchy side. We're all good. Just eats it up. It's not even really sliding much. This isn't super soupy mud. It's definitely slippery conditions. So it's E07. It does really well. It's a great tire. Nice work, Metos. It seems to hook up pretty well. And I'm not going super fast but it doesn't feel like it's getting squirrely. So it must be clearing out pretty well too. No awesome views today. That's disappointing. You know I'm all about those awesome views. All right, back through my puddle. My good friend the puddle. That's exciting, right? Try to get a view of it as we splash through. You'll see that. So this is the main side road coming up and I think we're gonna head back down. I've got probably an hour and a half before I can get home. It's a little later. I'd like to get home before dinner. So I think I'm gonna head back but we'll get you a little... We'll get you some shots of the way out, obviously. So what are you doing moto-wise while you're stuck at home? Are you planning rides and adventures for when you're not stuck at home? Are you doing maintenance on your bikes? I ordered a bunch of oil. I'm gonna do all the oil changes and everything since, you know, we're kind of not going to be out doing big major events for a little while. Got a little time. So what are you guys working on? I cleaned out my old garage and rearranged it. So if you're watching the live streams on Friday nights, I mean I'd like to invite you if you're not. You should definitely come check those out. We have a good time. Just hang out, talk about bikes, talk about whatever's going on in the week. I usually drink some good whiskey. Lots of fun people hang out. So we'd love to have you. So please, Friday night 7 PST is when we do the live stream pretty much every week. So if you're interested, come check out the live stream Friday night. Talk to me. Talk to me live. Get my answers live. It's been a lot of fun. Thank you to all of you who have hung out. Had a really good time getting some regulars. That's really fun. Good to see the same people over and over and really build up those relationships. So I'd encourage you to come out and be part of the community if you can. It's really fun. There's a bird. Oh, okay. I don't know why I wanted to go off the edge of the road right there. Too busy looking at birds. I guess it's not really smart. Oh, here's a friend. Here's a friend. Oh, he's getting over for me. That's nice. A lot easier for them. Thank you. See a little traffic. Right when I start to get a little aggressive, I see a car. So that is the universe telling me to just take it easy. Take it easy, bro. Take it easy. There's another one. All Subarus. Welcome to Oregon. Hi, Subaru. It is literally the third Subaru I've seen today. Here's the falls again. So we want to get a drive-by shot. There it is. Pretty, right? Pretty, pretty gorgeous. We're back up in the snow a little bit. Holy, that's significant. Whoa, didn't see that on the way up. Is it new? Can't be, right? That didn't happen today. All right, well, we are literally almost out of the woods here. Well, that's not true, but we're almost off the gravel road. I think I'm going to head home. Just want to say thank you for coming along with me. I'm sorry we didn't get to the top, but I still had a fun little side adventure with you today. Make sure you check out that mods video if you haven't yet. I have to ask you for a very small favor. If you wouldn't mind, please hit that like button. The more likes the video gets, the more visible it becomes, and the better the channel does overall. It really does make a big difference, and I appreciate each and every one of you who hits that like button. So if you enjoyed the video at all, please consider hitting it. Just if your thumb slipped, you know, it's no big deal. We're back here at the junction. We're six miles from the highway. So we're going to head down the mountain. I just want to say thank you very much. I appreciate you. And as always, please do not forget to be excellent to each other. Thank you. Excellent! What is up? What is up, friend? Pulled over to turn off my TC. We got a dual sporter up here. I'm DRZ, it looks like. What a guy. See, that guy's crushing it.