Here's a ride report from Labor Day Weekend to Copper Basin, Idaho, in the upper reaches of the Big Lost River between Ketchum and Mackay.

It's a bit cloudy Saturday and we're likely to get wet so I pack a little extra gear. We head up this way.



We take a little break on the trail to let the bike cool down. The temp light flickered on and the fan wasn't kicking on. EmptyPockets is riding back down to see what's up. Told him we seized my motor . Had him going for a while .




We take a break at the summit on Corral-Stewart trail, about 10,100 ft. The bike was chuffing a little but not as bad as the WR which was really rich.











Check out those dark clouds. Time to blast down the hill towards the Mackay Mining District.



The rain catches us so we wait it out for about half hour.



It even hailed for a bit



Wet cockpit

 

We get down to the Mackay Mining District. There's a ton of old mining history here. Something to check out if you're into this kind of stuff.



We ride to Empire Mine, one of the 2012 Challenge points for our local dual sport club.



Another storm is just about to roll in. Check this out...we have a shop to park in and wait out the storm.



That's Mackay down there in the valley.









It rained HARD for at least an hour. Trails back are going to be fun.





As soon as the rain stopped, we ride hard back to the summit to see what's coming in.

 

Scott, that's interesting terrain. It looks like high altitude desert mixed with some pine trees...neat. Hey...is that guy in the last pic drinking a PBR?

 

They skies look pretty clear for the ride back so we can take our time. Got back to camp around 10 pm.



Sunday morning. Here's our camp site.



We hit the road for some motorcycling







And then the trails for some dirt biking. This is where we came from. I dumped it right here and my bro has it on video. May post up later just to laugh at myself.





And where we're going. Yeah, it's steep. And rocky. And loose.



The lookout is on the top of the peak on left.



To get to Wildhorse Lookout at the top. This one is open for public use. Doors are unlocked, a couple beds folded up, bench, a little fire wood. Windows are boarded up. Could stay there if you needed to. But I wouldn't want to ride up there on the KLR! The shale trail was steep and loose!!!

 

So we've been on roads and four-track so far this trip, saving a great single-track for the way back to camp. Low and behold. WTF!?!?

The one-mile of four-track from this point up to the single track over the hill is CLOSED . Would have been very easy to ride past this point and not have seen the sign . But we saw it, so three PO'd hombres just took the road back.





Picked up a little firewood for the evening. The KLX is very multi-functional .



Took an evening ride. Here's Empty Pockets.








If we followed the trail above, it wraps around to a mine way up here:

 

Monday morning ride up Phi Kappa Creek to the mines





Gotta stop for the flowers







We were trying to find the starting fluid.





Thinking about riding over the edge.









We pack up camp and head down the hill to Ketchum (Sun Valley).





Good Times!!

 

Ya, you know that guy, and know what he's got in his hand .

And you're right on the terrain. It's high desert with a few pines. We were running from around 7K to 10K feet most of the trip. We were also very lucky because right now Idaho is on fire. There's big ones to the west and to the northwest of Copper Basin and we expected the area to be smoke-filled. But we lucked out an had great skies, considering, with just a little smoke rolling in Sunday night.

On another note, I'd recently bumped down the jetting from 38 to 35 on the pilot, and 128 to 124 DJ main. Much less soot on the fender and pipe now. She was acting a little rich on the open throttle so I pulled off the lid (with KDX snorkel) in camp and noticed an immediate gain in top speed on a nice stretch of climbing open road near camp, from 68 to 72 mph, and what seems to be better low and mid range response. She seems to like it better with her lid off. Running 13/45 gears on this trip and trying to wear out that little 3.5 x 18 trials tire. Rational is packing up a Q4 to send my way and looking forward to trying a quieter pipe.

 

Nice ride Scott. Love that kind of riding here in ID. How many nights were you out there?

 

I cannot figure out how to embed a Youtube clip so check this out...


LOL tada. Copy and paste the web address and it appears to have embedded itself LOL

 

Looks like a great place to ride Scott. How in the hell did you get all that wood on your bike?