September 2020

I didn’t die on Jolly Mountain, but I was nervous enough to text my mom from a satellite phone.

My friend John and I started the day on Yellow Hill Trail in the Teanaway Forest north of Cle Elum. The trail follows a series of ridges past Elbow Peak for ten miles to the 6400’ summit of Jolly Mountain. Between sections of heavy exposure and steep, technical climbs the trail runs through stands of white ghost trees and barren red dirt. Mt. Stuart is visible to the north and Mt. Rainer to the south. It’s beautiful, dangerous, and exhausting terrain.

When I rounded a bend near the top of Yellow Hill and found three more peaks to go, I was already at the end of my strength. I stopped and waited for John to catch up. I wasn’t looking forward to sharing the bad news. We’d just spent forty-five minutes pushing up a section of loose rock and roots. We were physically and mentally shot. Dread hit me when I didn’t hear his engine behind me.

I walked back and saw what I feared most: John’s CRF was thirty feet down the hillside dripping oil. He was beside it pouring sweat. He’d only just gotten it upright again after the bike tumbled from the trail with him cartwheeling behind it.

His headlight was smashed, the clutch was spotty, and the starter motor sounded weak. I couldn’t bring myself to tell him what was still ahead of us. Golden hour light meant we were close to dusk and we’d be finishing in the dark with one working headlight between two bikes.

We took inventory of our situation. The bikes still ran and neither of us were seriously hurt. Our worst case scenario was an uncomfortable night in the elements. John had his In Reach satellite phone with him and we could call for help if we needed it. We ate snacks and watched our daylight tick by as we rested.

After catching our breath, we dipped into survival reserves. I gripped the bike with my knees to take the load off my spent arms. Then we made a sloppy, shameless charge at the peak. I couldn’t hold onto my bike and sent it flying multiple times. I don’t know how I kept it on the trail without damaging anything important.

We’d been disappointed by false summits so often on this ride, I didn’t believe it when we finally made the top. We high-fived then hugged, lingering longer and squeezing harder than normal. Our prize was reaching a drainage that would take us home in a gradual downward grade instead of the gauntlet of peaks behind us.

Past the summit, the shortest route back the car was ten miles down the West Fork Teanaway Trail. The trail makes a series of switchbacks into a basin, then follows a narrow canyon along a river. Downhill sections are generally boring on dirt bikes but I was ecstatic about the rest my arms were getting. After a few miles I noticed again that I hadn’t heard John’s bike for a while. I groaned when he came around the corner coasting with his engine off. His electric starter died completely and his idle was inconsistent. Even though we were moving downhill, he had to kickstart it where he got bogged down at the stream crossings.

The trees got thicker and twilight dwindled until we were riding in total darkness. We couldn’t stay close enough together for my light to be any help. The second time John rode his bike off the trail because of poor visibility, he made the hard decision to abandon it and walk the last six miles.

The trail was dangerous in the daylight and stupid in the dark. When we reached the ledge above the river, it was barely wide enough to walk, let alone maneuver a pair of handlebars. The high exposure rides I’ve ridden like Devil’s Gulch didn’t compare. It made me feel a little better to know John was on foot. He would have been risking death without a headlight.

Doubling up on my bike was out of the question so I rode slow to help John see his feet. Riding the narrow shelf was worse at walking speed. I couldn’t count on my momentum to keep me upright. The short sections of high exposure were manageable, but when the stretches of rock ledge grew long and continuous the mental strain of balancing to avoid a fatal fall drove me insane. On top of that, we’d run out of water hours ago and were getting delirious. At the next river crossing we got over our fear of Giardia and drank face down like horses.

At the last mile the trail widened and moved further from the bank. We started riding two up in relative safety. Third gear felt like heaven when we exited the canyon onto a forest road. When we finally reached the trailhead at midnight, the good news was that we only had to load one bike on the trailer.