Kettlefest 2010 RR

[Art T]

A huge thank you to Tim for coordinating another outstanding event!

The workparty day was well attended with several projects to choose from. A roving crew did blowdown clearing and rock carin building on the south side of Sherman Pass. Others built a culvert and did micro-blasting of protruding rocks with the horse folks.

The end of the day was capped off with Tim handing out cool schwag from the sponsors, unveiling the awesome Kettlefest 2010 t-shirt, and burgers, hot dogs and mushroom stakes on the bbq. Fat Tire ale cool from the creek was in abundance.

The next day it seemed most everyone was out on the Jungle Hill loop. The viewpoint rock was nicely crowded for lunch with riders from both sides of the state and Canada. It was fun to see how groups of riders morphed into different groups as we rode north along the crest. I started out with Scott, Jen, and Walt then got to do some descending with the Jantz brothers. After that Anthony worked me hard on the climb to where we took are final break in a mountain top 'sound of music' meadow with Mire and Gonz. The final descent to camp on Jungle Hill was just like old times, flying down the trail and stopping to relax at the open views with Gonz.

Did Hoodoo for the last day which is a nice but short ride on a well built trail east of the pass. Trout Lake is the trail head but we couldn't figure out how to get a good swim in it. Instead we continued on down the highway and happened across the most cool rope swing over the Kettle River. Standing on the edge of a sheer cliff holding the swing we would jump off, skim the water, get swept high into the air, release, and plunge deep into the cold channel. Scott and Peter would run along the cliff before jumping and swing out in a wide arc. This will be a must do after rides at next years event.

Again many thanks to Tim for recognizing the value of this area and the threat to it, and organizing a fun event around the central theme of advocacy.

[Anthony C]

This was my 3rd trip to KC, and the best one yet. Some new faces, and lots of old ones. Having so many from Spokane/CdA, Boise, and Vancouver, just a week after Helens fest with pdx people was fun. Interesting comparing notes on advocacy issues, transition of boards/volunteers and organizations maturing too.

The new to me route on Thursday of Old Stage rd from the east side to KC, South to Sherman pass and down to camp is a new classic. Jungle Hill on Saturday was fun with various different groups mixing up through the day as people chose different options through the ride. Adding the out and back from up the KC from the Jungle Hill turnoff to Wapaloosie turned out to be a worthy option.

Hopefully this area will remain open to bikes for years to come. Big thanks to Tim for organizing this, and Tim, Al, and everyone else involved in working to keep it open.