"You don't have to be crazy...but it helps"

The lyrics go something like this from C.W. McCall's "Black Bear Road".
"We went about a mile-and-a-half in about four hours, busted off the right front fender, tore a hole in the oil pan on a rock as big as a hall closet. Went over a bump and spilt the Kool-Aid and Roy Gene stuck his bolo knife right through the convertible top and the dog threw up all over the back seat. Peanut butter don't agree with him, you see.

So we had to stop and take off the top and air everything out and clean it up. The dog run off and RJ says she felt her asthma comin' on. I was sittin' there wonderin' what to do when the en-tire scenic San Joo-wan U-Drive-'Em Army Jeep car sank in the mud. At thirteen thousand feet above sea level.

Well, we shoveled it out and ate our lunch, the dog made a yellow hole in the snow and Roy Gene got out his Instamatic and took a snapshot of it."

It all started out as a trip to visit Wildbound and maybe my sister, Horsewoman in Preston, Idaho. Trailblazer wanted to check out Franklin Basin up Logan Canyon as a possible place to horse camp and ride. We only had a Utah Atlas. We hadn't brought any food, first aid kit, GPS or matches. We did not have peanut butter or Kool Aid. We did have a laptop computer, digital camera, a couple of jackets, two bulletin boards and cell phones that got no reception.
We drove about 5 miles past the turn off to Tony Grove and began driving up the Franklin Basin dirt road, and I mean dirt and rocks. 5-7 MPH tops. We decided we had seen enough that we didn't think we would ever come here again. The ridge looked like it topped out, the road MIGHT have gone through to Idaho and somewhere connected (we were thinking) to Franklin, Idaho. Oh well, give it a try. It's got to be better than the road we came up. Then, the road opened out in a great dirt road, 30 MPH. Wow, let's keep on going, this is much better than the road coming up. Hmmm. Getting on the north side of the mountain. Snow, ice, MUD. A sign that says "Rocky Road, Low clearance". Couldn't be any worse than we've been on. What followed was about 6 miles of snow, ice, mud, but going downhill. We had no choice, we could not have gone back uphill. The Pilot was a trooper, we only scraped bottom a few times.
Then, we came upon 2 bikers, who had gotten their wheels stuck in the 18 inch deep mud. They saw us coming and scrambled to help each other extricate their bikes from the mud so we wouldn't plow into them. They got to the side of the road (see video below). We stopped, rolled down the window and asked if we could help them. The expression on their faces was priceless as they looked at what we had just come down that they couldn't get up. "No, thanks, we're ok" Then, we asked "Where does this road go?" They said it hooks into Cub River. We asked how the road was and they said this was the worst spot.
Finally, we got out, connected into the gorgeous Cub River Canyon and then into Preston to visit Horsewoman and crew. On the way out, I commented that I probably would have rather stayed home and gotten a few things done. I do not like all that adrenaline rush. Just give me a nice COMFORTABLE adventure. I guess I should write this all into C.W. McCall type lyrics. Give me a while.

The Really Good part of the road--
Road still lookin' good, a little slippery mud, snow, but not bad at all.
Hmmm. Somehow the photos don't do it justice how BAD the road was. Snow, Ice, Deep Mud, Rocks......
Almost to Cub River. Road lookin' pretty good.