Exploring Random Roads and Making Beautiful Discoveries: A Dual Sport Adventure on my Suzuki DRZ400S

Totally virgin territory for me. I guess I'm the virgin. The territory isn't. No camping. Sometimes it goes nowhere and that's okay. That is um steep. All this like frozen tundra-y stuff. I really want to try to get out to that butte if we can find a path. That's beautiful. Hello everyone and welcome back to the Dorkside. I'm the Dork in the Road and today we are out exploring the Willamette National Forest on the DRZ400S in a very cold autumn day. That's right everyone. I'm the Dork in the Road and I want to be your internet riding buddy. So please consider subscribing and don't forget to turn on those notifications so that you know when I post awesome new content just like this. So it is October. As you can see the fall colors are starting to come in and it is cold. Also these freezing temperatures are a perfect opportunity to test a new piece of gear. I got these Klim Powercross gloves. Full leather palm. They're insulated. They've got double stitching in the palm. The goggle squeegee. Just a bunch of features and they're insulated. Gore-Tex. Full Gore-Tex and the Gore-Tex liner is bonded to the inside of the glove. So in the past I've had a lot of trouble with taking my hands in and out of gloves when they get wet because the liner will pull out and bunch up. These are supposed to not do that. They're also waterproof which hopefully I won't have to test today but I think the coolest thing about these is they're only a hundred dollars and you don't really see Gore-Tex insulated gloves for less than a hundred dollars. They're technically snowmobile gloves. That's the trick but I'm excited to test them out. So let's get some riding in. Alright we're gonna head up this interesting looking side road. You know how much I love those. It is chilly my friends. Chilly. There's a little waterfall. It's not amazing right now. So I don't know this area at all. It's not even an area that I used to roam around in when I was younger like a lot of the areas up here. Totally virgin territory for me. I guess I'm the virgin. The territory isn't. I've definitely never engaged in coitus with this area or in this area. I've never been inside this area. I don't even know. I'm probably gonna cut all that. It's filthy. We're a family-friendly channel. What are you doing? Cool tree. This road. Let's check out this road. Probably doesn't go very far. Oh branch. I set up badly for that one didn't I? Forest floors carpeted with leaves. I'm sure it's just a landing up here. Oh we got ourselves another little road. Hmm let's just go right here. Yeah that's some interesting terrain. This is just a landing. That is not. Oh it keeps going. Okay onward ho. Huh okay this might be it. But always go to the end just to be sure. Yeah this is the end. Okay well that was fun I guess. This is not a bad little camping spot. I say that a lot. Looks like there's that little stream that turns into the waterfalls over there. And there's a little trail that goes back in there. Oh some loggage. I did not mean to end up in here. Ah well I got over but killed it because I didn't commit. Let's hope I didn't just give myself a flat tire. I'm sure I didn't. Trackmaster's for the win. They'll even get you up over wet logs. All right back to the main road. There's another side road up here on the right that looked promising. This is it. No camping. Private property. Down by the river. Okay well I'm not gonna camp. But I do want to look at it. No camping. It doesn't say no riding your bike down to look at the water. So I think we're good. This is a cool camping spot. Shame you're not allowed to use it. Cascade Timber Consulting. Pretty. And there's another camping spot it looks like on the other side of this. But this road appears to be open and it winds back down the other side of the river. So let's go see what that's all about. That looks like just another little riverside campsite. Cool one. Good fishing spot I bet. Cool little log jam. Hunting access provided in cooperation with private landowners. Access regulations in effect. I don't see any posted signs so I think we're good. Okay well we're up here to explore. The shirt on the pole is terrifying. But I'm gonna guess that whoever left it here isn't here anymore. We'll find out. Side road off the side. Rev it even. No that's good. Let's explore this one really quick. I'm sure it doesn't go far. These little spurs never do. Nope. Nope. Hold on. Does that go on? Should we go look? I mean I would say that is the end right there. All right back out. I like when there's an overgrown section and it opens up on the other side. It's less fun when uh when that's just the end. When you push back through an overgrown section and that's just that's it. That's the whole road. It's less fun. Although it doesn't go anywhere so cool. Lots of this today. Yep just a campsite. Okay well that's disappointing. Sometimes it is you know. Sometimes it goes nowhere and that's okay. That's the nature of the beast. That's they call it exploring you know. Not riding to a destination that you know is for sure there. Then it would just be driving. Oh look at friends. There are people up here today. Interesting. Howdy. Okay back on the main side road. You know like you have a main chick, a side chick, a main side chick, and then side side chicks right? Is that how it works? Roads are like that? I'm just guessing. This is the main side chick road. That was the side side chick road. Okay where's this go? Oh cool. Well that's cool. This side is less cool. That's still cool. It's just not like a maze of cool. Let's take a look. Yeah that is um steep. There's another road over there. You can see that line in the trees. Well that's pretty right? Totally pretty. Neat. There we go. There's a shot. Nice. I want to see some mountains though. Oh yeah look at all this. Look at all this. I mean that's not awful. That's not awful. We are in the Cascades friends. The Cascades. Not as big as the Rockies but same mountain range sort of. It's all connected. It's like they're you know third cousins related but the Rockies don't really like to talk about them. Cool. Okay well there's some views right here so that's a thing. You guys seeing this? Cool. That bluff up there is cool. Looks like there's a road up to the top. Just navigating by sight. That's a little landing cliff out there it looks like. This is like a little dead end so that's worth investigating because it goes up you see. I mean nine times out of ten I find nothing but every once in a while something amazing at the end of one of these roads. A walk. It's all this frozen sort of you see this? All this like frozen tundra-y stuff. Cold man. I'm gonna make a cool picture if I can get it. It's neat stuff. Can you see this? It's all ice crystals. See that slowly kind of melts away so like this was mud and ice sort of formed in the mud. This ice crystal stuff is super neat. You see that? How it forms. This side's cleaner and then it's just a bunch of like little pillars of this stuff out here. Kind of fun. Back on the main. I really want to try to get out to that butte if we can find a path so let's explore. I don't know where that butte I was looking for is. Oh cool. Rock quarry. Neat. Super neat. That's gonna be a pretty day. Not warm but sunny. Visually pretty. Water source. Does that mean water? I don't know. Let's go look. That looks an awful lot like a marsh or a lake. Oh yeah it is. Cool. Yeah I'm glad I took that left turn. I was just thinking to myself there's gotta be something cool down some of these. And we are high up. Like this is a mountain lake. That's beautiful. Pretty cool. Get you a better view. There's a thin layer of ice all over the top of this pond. Glad that water source sign was there. Unexpected surprise. Got this cool icy waterfall. Flame dude. Oh that might be the butte I was trying to get to. You see there's a road that goes all the way to the top. Should we take a look around? Excellent!