Winom-Frazier OHV Complex
Location: East of Ukiah, Oregon (+45.158149° -118.639550°)
Dates: Fathers Day Weekend June 19-21, 2009
Riding Area: Winom-Frazier OHV Complex
Campground: Boondocking USFS land near Fra
Us and two other families headed up to the Winom-Frazier OHV Complex in Eastern Oregon on Friday June 19th we opted not to camp in the USFS campground and instead headed up the FS road to an area we could boondock . The forecast wasn’t looking too great, with possible thunder storms Friday & Saturday night. However the weather held pretty good most of the time except for early Sunday morning. Saturday started off a bit rough, 4 miles into our first ride my wife’s ATV had complete brake failure. We’d had an issue on our last ride but after bleeding the breaks everything seemed fine. This time I tossed in the towel and gave her my ATV and took hers slowly back to camp They had a great 64 mile ride, I played fetch with the dogs and got in some great afternoon naps. Tried to check the brake reservoir but the star screw heads were striped out, nice cheap screws Polaris! Oh well. I got in a nice 35 mile ride in after they came back.
Sunday we headed up, this time leaving my wife behind-- hey it was Father’s Day! This time about 6 miles into the trip one of the guys Polaris twin 600 sounded like it was running on 1 cylinder so he headed back. The rest of us got in some great time through the various trails in the OHV complex. The area is heavily wooded, and you can see in the photos that much of that wood lays near the trails, other parts is covered with young green trees after one of the many forest fires in the area. Some of the trails here are a serious challenge, but the kids that were with us either on bike or ATVs made it through. I swear we spent 25 of the 35 miles heading up mountains. By the time we reached Tower Mountain I was pretty much exhausted. We started our decent down the Forest Service trail, which even though it was near July had a sprinkling of snow around us.
The worst part of the trip came a few moments after we started heading down, one of the boys in our crew ended up in a head on collision with a man on his dirt bike who had crossed over to the wrong side of the FS road and nailed the ATV. Thankfully everyone walked away from, the ATV was pretty much destroyed while the dirt bike came out nearly unscathed. While we were waiting for the boys father to show up the dirt biker tore out of the area. I drug the ATV back behind my rid, which at 10 MPH takes a long time.
All in all it was a good weekend. Pulled in home about 8:30 PM and had everything put away by 9:30 PM.
