Funny story from last O/R trip

Hodaka Rider · August 18, 2003

My dad and uncle and I went on a little off-road adventure on the 4th, back up to the Silver King mine I posted about last month. Anyways, we got to the mine site and started to go down the back road when we saw a guy on an ATV coming up. I backed up a little to let him get by, and he stopped beside us to talk. I asked him where the road went, as there's supposed to be a traverse route up there that I want to find. He said that there's no traverse and further, "that car won't make it down there". I pointed to the first water ditch and said "Is it worse that that?".

"Way worse. (glace to signify he felt we wouldn't make it through that first one)".

We chatted a bit longer, I asked him if the road went to the lake, ("No" accompanied by a look that made me wonder if he knew there was a lake up there), and then he continued on. So did we. Right down the road he said we wouldn't make it down. Of course, we didn't go all the way, because it wasn't the road I was looking for.

Then we went up the mountain to the half-way area of the mine workings, and saw another, de-activated road. 'Must be the one that goes to the lake' I thought, so up we went. It was fairly gnarly, but not too bad compared to some I've been on, even with three of us full-grown guys and our gear. Then we got to the worst part of it (pretty steep, rutted kinda bad from water running down it) and there's the ATV guy coming down! He pulled off the the side a little with a stupified look on his face, and as we drove by I said "It's not that bad!"

"It's not that bad?" he repeated, still stupified. We all laughed out loud as we continued up the hill, and he just sat there and stared at us all the way up!!!!

Later, he came back up to the lake (that was the right road), and talked with my dad and uncle a bit, but didn't say anything more about us making it up there!