Another Year on the 690.

At the start of each riding season especially if you live in a mountain town where the roads are snow, salt grit and ice bound for 4-6 months getting back on the Iron Horse can be a foreign thing. It also comes with questions about the bike. Another year another set of bike launches, the new Africa Twin, the SWM Adventure, another megalithic GS, and the credible CCM450 Adventure and a plethora Triumph Tigers and XC and serve to push you to re-evaluate your machine of choice.

For me I am on my 2014 KTM 690 Enduro R for the 2nd full season.  The only thing that comes close to the mix I wanted is the Husqvarna 701 but hey its 690 in Blue White and Yellow and without the large supply chain making aftermarket bits (this may come). The CCM of course would be ideal but for the 450cc engine.

I suppose you need to be honest about what sort of riding you will do and how and where you want to ride it. 15,000 British GS riders in the last 8 years bought into the rufty tufty round the world dream, complete with matching suits and plenty add-ons to add weight to your monster. Most will never see dirt, let alone a sand storm or a single track. So if you like the image, and your idea of an adventure is a French motorway to a GS meet near Nice, knock yourself out. However if you want rocks, rubble, dust and skinny trails, then The GS or any weighty machine is not for you.

Also be honest, do you need a 300mile range tank, are you really going to travel from Khartoum to Dar-es-Salaam and never pass a fuel station and if you ever do, then a couple Rotopax bolt fuel canisters or a fuel bladder will get you there. Fuel is heavy and unless mounted low seriously affects the handling of the bike.

Most “adventure bikes” are 200kg plus, add some luggage (even you manage to travel light) you will be close to 230kg, some may top 260kg.

Having been pinned under a GS800 with 2x15kg panniers made me rethink what the GS I was doing.

There are not many sub 180kg bikes and none off the peg that really fit the bill of what I wanted.

My criteria are

I need to drive to the trailhead and unlike the USA these distances can be long, often a day or two on the flat top. A small 250-450cc engine would seem just to be under a lot of pressure doing this day in, day out.

I stick to the A and B roads generally but it needs to sit at 110kmph/70mph and still be relatively comfortable and handle. Some wind protection would be nice and it should be able to carry some luggage.

14+ litres offering up to a 350k range means we can ride for two trail days and not panic about finding fuel.

It strikes me as odd that no-one makes a 600cc sub 180kg machine with a reasonable range and good suspension for the trails. But having just ridden 6 days on the best trails in Europe in Sardinia and meet no other riders, whilst on the nearby roads hundreds of BMW’s and Multi Stradas it maybe should be no surprise.

These ubiquitous hard panniers machines piloted by multi pocketed Cyberman, suggests to me what we are doing, whilst is a strong aspirational marketing image that is selling the machines to the masses, is actually pursued by only a few.

So if you want adjustable good suspension, the ability to ride road, some single track and trails, and feel as though you are riding not just surviving then few machines are as capable as the KTM 690 Enduro with its added bits.

x

Monkey Butt 2 - Creams potions and lotions

.
 As an ass-side, monkey butt or chafing either riding a road bike or a  motorcycle can literally be a pain in the ass. Chamois cream which can work well for bike riding, does involve spreading lubricant over the offending area. Great for a day but really unpleasant if you have to squeeze into the same lycra for more than a day. Enter Crotch Guard!

I read about Crotch Guard on a long distance cyclists blog, the poor guy had a real issue as he rode across the USA, things were getting painful in the hinterland, that was until he tried Crotch Guard.

It is a simple mix of essential oils and antibacterial liquid  which is sprayed onto the offending area at the start of each day. I used Crotch Guard for a 6 day period riding an Endruo Bike in Sardinia. We rode on and off road, standing, sitting and on long 7 - 10 hour road rides to and from the trails.

Crotch Guard is brilliant, smells good, feels good (when applying) non messy and made the days in the saddle more than bearable. Highly recommended for preventing chafing and monkey butt.

Monkey Butt

At the end of the last long ride back from the South of France to our French base near Chamonix, I honestly could say I was broken. I could barely press my cheeks on the saddle for one minute more. So before starting our latest 3000km epic, I thought I had better sort out the "ar.." problem.

 

I have up until now been using a cheap pair of £30 cycle shorts with pad, but after the last trip these have been relegated to turbo training sessions. Motorcycle blogs are full of useful and increasingly in my experience, useless advice. So firstly this is not advice but observations from an unhappy bottom.

Knowing the KTM 690R seat was a little sharp I bought a Touratech high enduro seat. This should have worked but no amount of shuffling, baby powder, talc and creams sorted  the butt pain. After 2 hours in the saddle it was just as uncomfortable.

So a comfy butt quest was started and I have to say it has been successful, after all I would prefer to ride rather than be distracted but a painful butt.

So to the underwear I turned. I bought 4 pairs of pants, (underwear)

Nike Men's 9'' Pro Cool Compression Shorts

Craft Greatness 9'' Boxers

Moto Skiveez  Adventure Pants

and 

Hummel HERO BASELAYER MEN SHORTS Style no.: 095582055

They have all been tested over quite a few hours and I have to say the Hummel Hero pants are by far the best. 

10 is good 1 is bad

The Nike shorts don't have such a flat seam and although good enough, smell awful after a day in the saddle. 

Comfort 4 - Smell - 1

Craft. The Craft short is much better than the Nike, but it did not seem to wick so well and on the hot days felt as though they were quite sweaty.
Comfort 6 - Smell 3

Moto Skiveez Adventure. I had high hopes for these as they we supposed to be designed specifically for off-road adventure biker types. They have a bigger pad than a cycle short and are the only padded short in the test. So they were a bit disappointing. They were hot and after a full saddle day, began to feel like a wet nappy. Heavy and not so wonderful as expected 

Comfort 6 - Smell 7

Hummel were the long shot but from the off were the most comfortable off the bike and by far the best on the bike. Unlike the others, which only lasted a day before they were either discarded or relegated to gym wear, I wore the Hero Pants for 4 days in a row without washing them and on full hard hot enduro days. Brilliant !

Comfort 9 - Smell 9

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED 

HTTP://WWW.HUMMEL.NET/GB/MEN/SPORT/BASELAYER/HERO-BASELAYER-MEN-SHORTS-BLACK-DARK-GREY

Fish

FISH
Duncan McCallum // Photography by Arian Stevens

THIS IS THE LONG GAME OF LIFE, A MOUNTAIN CRUMBLING TO THE SEA, A CYCLE PLAYED VISIBLY AND OPENLY IN OREGON’S HIGH DESERT. FOUR HUGE GLACIATED VOLCANOES DOMINATE THE SKYLINE OF THE HIGH DESERT PLAINS. BARE BLACK LAVA FLOWS, SOLIDIFIED YESTERDAY IF USING THE GEOLOGICAL CLOCK, PENETRATE THE DEEP LODGE-POLE AND SEQUOIA FOREST.


Ripples of silver brown water flow west, and even in the shallows the force of it grips my legs, pulling me with it. A small stone, dislodged, bounces onto my foot with a gentle tap. It settles momentarily before it continues its journey through the aeons to the coast. This is the long game of life, a mountain crumbling to the sea, a cycle played visibly and openly in Oregon’s High Desert. Four huge glaciated volcanoes dominate the skyline of the High Desert Plains. Bare black lava flows, solidified yesterday if using the geological clock, penetrate the deep lodge-pole and sequoia forest.

As I wade deeper, trying to imagine what is underneath the moving silver sheen, basalt boulders the size of dustbins trip and trap my legs. My wading stick vibrates to the rhythm of the river as I try to position myself in a safe place to start the hunt.

Until now, I had associated fishing with the pressure of trying to please an impatient and critical father. Brown trout and salmon days in Scotland filled with the anxiety of doing something wrong. An imperfect cast, a lost fly, a snagged line or fumbled knot. Whilst my brother – maybe more accommodating, certainly more patient – persevered in that critical environment, I soon broke the family tradition and swapped rod for rope, the cliff over the bank and the air around my feet for the dark aggravated water.

But here, it is a different country; it could even be a different millennium, no stuffed tweeds, cap-doffing, tip-handed gillies. We have swapped the Land Rovers for flatbeds, the Victoriana, locked gates, and poacher patrols for the big-sky country. It’s classless and refreshing.

Fishing was an impenetrable art in the Highlands; secret knowledge only imparted in grudging dribbles, but as the days unfolded, it became clear that this was a game of the imagination, expansive open gestures and a generosity as large as the landscape.


A river must be approached like a foggy city seen from above. There are clues to the highways, restaurants and dormitory areas, but they are mostly hidden underneath a veil of ever-moving, opaque sheen. The fish can be imagined as inhabitants or commuters in this watery city. Some, the locals, stay in one area and dart in and out of the fast-food cafes, or chill in the eddies for a rest. Others with an important task to undertake flash through the suburbs, forced onwards by the ultimate Darwinian impulse of procreation. Some like gangs of teenagers hang about in the shallows or dark corners, hassling the locals whilst they grow big enough to know better – then, with the confidence of youth, leave the river for the open ocean of experience and growth, only to return to their place of birth, mature and fat, to breed and then die, belly up and wasted.

Each of these tribes will chase a different lure, a promise of an instant reward but with a barbed and potentially fatal finish. The fisherman is a drug dealer fooling the addict into taking that final fix. The secret is to understand this underwater city, to have an imaginary map of its highways, byways and hotels and to know how the locals and visitors behave. What is required is someone with the ‘knowledge’.

Demystifying the river knowledge is a revelation. No longer am I casting blindly into the dark churning tempest. But I am learning the places where the fish lie and travel, the times they feed, when they are affected by changes in cloud cover, temperature, and season.



It’s a skill that has depth, emotional value – a deep appreciation for the cycles of life, death and rebirth. To know a river is to know the landscape, where the headwaters are, the minerals and texture of above and below, the natural world. In my youth a passing merganser was a hated predator; an osprey, a thief cheating a wading rod out of an expensive prize. But to my mentor, Steve, it is an indicator of the health of the landscape and the water. The deep colour of a beautiful landscape is to be shared and appreciated, not protected and shielded from the prying masses. Steve’s father sits on his shoulder accompanying him, and the river flow brings him closer to an obviously deep connection. I stand now a man and my sense is not one of being accompanied by warmth, but a feeling of great loss and sadness. It is not one of blame or pity, we are what we become, but it is message to us all. Share with openness and joy and take the time. My fly-line indicator dips with the unmistakeable tug of interest, but I’m momentarily lost in thought; I strike too late and the empty line flies out of the river. Someone had a lucky escape.

For 30 minutes I have worked a little stretch of fast-moving water where food debris runs past a slower lie. Trout run in and out of the watery conveyor belt, snatching at passing morsels, and this is where I am running my line. The secret is to lay the line above the feeding area and ‘correct it’, so the flies race in the current, unfettered by the heavier line behind, looking natural and tasty. It seems like an utterly random and impossible set of coincidences that could unite man and fish, by line and fly.

I break from the concentration of following the indicator through the rough water and I look into the distant brown parched hills. They shimmer, my vision momentarily affected by my intense observation of an ever-moving surface. Native American mustangs from a herd of 1500 wild horses come to the bank to drink. The land is dust dry after 200 days of drought. Yet the river is cool and alive. It has a remarkable source: east of the Cascade Range, the Ring of Fire Volcanoes erupt through the older bedrock, like huge red festering boils on the skin of the land. They are white tipped by shrinking glaciers, and hot pressure boils underneath, waiting for some future day of release. It is the snowmelt from these 10,000ft-high cones that feeds the Deschutes (or Towarnehiooks) headwaters at Little Lava Lake on the slopes of Mt Bachelor. The volcanoes have remained relatively stable for some time, but the river – which unusually flows north, its western path cut off by lava flows – is a relative newcomer to its current route to the sea. A trade route and source of food for the Native Americans, it was a major barrier to westward expansion from 1800 onwards.


IT’S A SKILL THAT HAS DEPTH, EMOTIONAL VALUE – A DEEP APPRECIATION FOR THE CYCLES OF LIFE, DEATH AND REBIRTH. TO KNOW A RIVER IS TO KNOW THE LANDSCAPE, WHERE THE HEADWATERS ARE, THE MINERALS AND TEXTURE OF ABOVE AND BELOW, THE NATURAL WORLD.



I strike again at the tugging line. This time the hook is lodged and the struggle begins. It is a split-second response and I am just fast enough to make this one count – it’s a game of percentages. 50% of rises are missed, the hook pulled out of the mouth without it engaging. In the shallow water there is nowhere for the fish to go and it leaps out of the water, flashing silver-red in the sun. Rainbow trout fight hard but in the aerated water it’s hard for it to make away from the shallows. My rod twitches and bends alarmingly, the fish occasionally visible below the surface. After a few minutes the struggle is over and the fish is drawn into the net. Today is the animal’s lucky day – we are playing ‘catch-and-release rules’ – we are playing with our food. With wetted hands, so as not to burn the fish’s skin, the hook is carefully dislodged and the fish is released back into the flow. Over the next few hours our small party of three nets and releases 15 trout and white fish. The trout are willing victims it seems, but a bigger prize lurks in the depths.


I NEED TO MOVE BUT THE COLD SEES ME STUMBLE AS I ORDER MY LOWER LIMBS TO MOVE. THE WATER PRESSURE COMES AS A SURPRISE RESISTANCE TO FORWARD MOVEMENT. I MUST BE CAREFUL NOT TO TRIP AND FLOP INTO THE RIVER – THE CONSEQUENCES OF WADERS FILLING WITH WATER, BECOMING A DROWNING ANCHOR DON’T FILL ME WITH PLEASURE.


I am shaking uncontrollably as the cold seeps into my bones; the chest-deep water is taking its toll. Standing still, holding back the river, has meant my legs are frozen in stasis. I need to move but the cold sees me stumble as I order my lower limbs to move. The water pressure comes as a surprise resistance to forward movement. I must be careful not to trip and flop into the river – the consequences of waders filling with water, becoming a drowning anchor don’t fill me with pleasure. Back at the dory I change my rod and rig to a heavier set, with a large fat fly at the barbed end. This lure is one inch long and much heavier, so it sinks deeper and looks fat and succulent.

Steelhead is a uniquely west-coast species of sea trout. Weighing in at up to 24kg, they are the ultimate prize. Having left the river they feast on eels and small fish in the Pacific, to return to the rivers, much larger, slim and fit, ready to continue the cycle of life. We drift down the river for another half mile, passing mountain lion canyons, fringed by 300 high basalt columns of once deep, cooled lava. These cliffs are home to turkey vultures, nature’s flying recycling plants, and empty osprey nests are now raven roosts whilst the owners holiday in the warmer southern lands. Countless Canada geese drift south overhead. Winter is coming. Drifting downstream, occasionally rocking through small rapids, time passes beautifully; there is no rush to hunt, no need to, as the river will be there tomorrow. The pace is a remarkable gift, easy, fun and rare. It is not often we can share such a place so loved and appreciated with no agenda other than floating, talking and laughing. Between bouts of concentration and indicator watching on the silver velvet, it feels like home.



The anchor is now lodged on a tree and standing deep in the heavy flow. There is a hard deep tug. I strike against the current, diagonally away from the water flow and it feels as though the line is stuck on the riverbed, but then it shakes and pulls deeper. This feels different, no frantic trout waving and skipping; the line feels dense and heavy. Steelhead often sit for a moment as though trying to work out what had diverted them from their natural rhythm. The line slackens off completely as the fish darts towards me, and frantically I reel in line to keep the pressure on the hook. The fish turns and now runs downstream. I take my hand off the reel and line runs out under the inertia break. It’s a lovely familiar sound, zip!, a big fish fighting. Keeping the rod tip low, at times in the water, I try to leave the fish deep in the water for the moment. A fish dragged to the surface naturally fears the light where the predators patrol, and will panic and fight harder. Little by little I ease the fish towards me. Sometimes it will run, sometimes it moves diagonally across the stream. Its silver brown underbelly occasionally flashes when it nears the surface. Reel turn by turn, I bring the animal closer towards Steve’s waiting net. This is a critical moment and one that has to be faced, the moment that every fly fisherman dreads. As I lift my rod skywards to lay the fish head-up and draw it into the net, the fish flicks its tail, my rod pops straight and the line arcs into the blue, released and empty.



I feel no real disappointment as the fish runs free, only a fabulous shared moment of excitement. After all, time on the river is a game of odds, where there is no real win or lose, if your prize is the total experience. To know this, however, is the trick. As I grow older the goal is now not the prize or trophy or awards, plaudits and accolades. No longer are early alpine starts to be endured because they get you to the end task. I now enjoy the blurry-eyed discomfort, the break in the routine. It’s a lesson hard won and it took far too long to appreciate this circle. Sitting in the deep dusk, beer in hand, drifting along accompanied by the distant goose calls, sitting with friends talking, listening and loving, sometimes it takes someone else’s son to show you the value of where you have come from.


Duncan writes for many publications on adventure sports and travel with a very personal perspective, “the journey its self is not so important, what is though, is the life the journey brings to you the individual”. Currently Duncan is leading the development of a National Climbing Hub in the Highlands of Scotland.


Photographer: Arian Stevens
Website: www.arianstevens.com
Facebook: Arian-Stevens-Photography
Instagram: @arianstevens

Seasons End or Start

Today sitting in a Cafe in Megeve we watched a huge avalanche ripout to the ground and fall 400m down the mountain. The snow succumbed to a mixture of heat and its own weight being too much for the hill to support.  It was a fantastic sight, the sound also rumbles deep into the belly, a hair tingling visceral crashing and tumbling. Today however it filled me with sadness, it is the end of winter, the first day of spring, soon the ski tours will require a lot of elevation to be found, the powder days are gone and we have had a good winter. Ahead the touring will be sweaty and hot, the snow line receding fast. Thoughts of climbing, biking and motorcycling are front and centre. Another winter gone. So fast the time has gone. As we herald in the colours again it's the transition that seems so abrupt. White to brown and quickly green. Now we welcome in the season of ropes, roads and flowers. I am not sure I am ready.

THE TAO OF POW

Duncan McCallum

It is a picture totally synonymous with Japan in winter: the snow monkey sheltering in a thermal hot pool from the snow that settles tens of metres deep in the Hakuba Alps near Nagano. There the all-seeing Zen monkey sits with a little cap of snow on his wise old head. On this day, however, the reality was somewhat different. It was raining lightly, and the hot pool – far from being the secret pristine gem imagined by those who seek it – was in a shit-covered grubby gorge, full of squabbling monkeys surrounded by what looked like a meeting of National Geographic’s amateur photographers’ bus tour.

Thirty Canon lenses the size of bazookas were poised just a few centimetres away from their furry targets, who looked like they just hung out at the pools every day for a free lunch. With careful shot selection and editing, there is no doubt that every one of the 64mb files in each camera would echo that famous image. They would ignore the jostling, the monkey crap, the shrieks from the young monkeys being bullied by their elders.

The image of the snow monkey, although clichéd, is one of those internationally recognisable pictures that sits in our unconscious, drawing us to the exotic, the new and unknown. For me, the snow monkey was just as important as the tales of waist-deep powder, empty forest ski runs and steaming volcanic peaks when I decided leave the fresh snow of Chamonix for the +4C drizzle in Japan.

This was a lesson in travelling without expectations, preconceptions or prejudice. At that moment I stepped away from being a ski tourist to being really there – aware but without judgement, an observer of all; aside, above or apart from the image makers and it was good.

The next morning we arrive at the ski lift at the same time as the horde of Japanese snowboarders, descending upon the resort for their lessons. At bib 505 I give up caring how many there are, astounded by the numbers of people all crammed into a 50m-wide piste. I know what lies beyond the carefully manufactured and prescribed world of the ski resort.

At the lift top, instead of turning downhill into the battalion of crashing masked boarders, we drop our packs onto the parallel lines of corduroy piste and pull out the skins that had been carefully dried out the night before. Tearing apart the cold skins heralds the transition between the normal and the abnormal. They have a slow glue-ripping sound, like sizzling burgers but staccato. The first sinking steps off the piste break that surface tension, the barrier between the controlled atmosphere of the resort and the deep dark unknown forest.

For the first ten metres, until we turn into the woods, I can feel a thousand burning eyes questioning our steps. We are not following ‘the rules’ and in fact we may be breaking one or two – it’s a difficult cultural tension. It’s remarkable how little effort it takes to cross from managed resort into the wild backcountry. If this were Chamonix there would have been a huge line of adventurers seeking the wilderness experience, but here, just 100m from the lift station, we are alone. It’s a frozen landscape with trees that look like they have been dipped in sugar frosting, frozen ridged and hard, filling the forest. It is Narnia in the harsh grip of the White Queen: inert, dormant and waiting for the lion hero to release them with his roar of spring.




Backlit by the low morning sun, the trees glow as if powered by millions of fibre optic filaments. It’s indescribably beautiful – one of those fleeting moments in nature which will have been repeated countless times through the millennia, rarely seen and seldom appreciated. We skin up though the enchanted forest, ducking under the twigs which reach down to stroke our heads. The ice-encrusted branches are surprisingly robust; if brushed, they sway heavily under their beautiful yet transient burden. Occasionally they release a tinkling shower down my neck, making me shrug sharply, alive to the icy trickle against the heat of my skin.

The air is filled with airborne ice crystals. They appear and disappear as they twist and turn in the morning light. So fragile, they would not exist without the combination of light breeze and moist sea air snap-frozen at the perfect temperature. These vampire crystals drift from the shadows into the light only to be instantly evaporated, their vapour returned to the snow cycle to reform in another place at another time.

WITH EACH STEP I FEEL THE EFFECTS OF THE WIND, THE NIGHT, THE DAYS, THE WEEKS AND MONTHS THAT HAVE COME BEFORE, SCULPTING THE SNOW PACK.


The snow-laden mountains stretch ahead of us until they plunge into the sea. At the higher elevations where we are headed, ghostly pine tree hoodoos sit on the lee of the ridges wearing their shrouds of ice. As we thread our way softly onwards into the deeper, higher backcountry, the beauty amazes me – but the appreciation of a scene often drifts away under physical effort, as the mind prioritises the monitoring of pace, temperature and energy levels. Today is different. The visual and sensual stimulation is so great that I seem hyper aware.

With each step I feel the effects of the wind, the night, the days, the weeks and months that have come before, sculpting the snow pack. The layers in the snow give at different rates and with different sounds. Some squeak, some flump softly; others scrape, challenging the sharpened metal edges of my splitboard to bite. 15,384 sliding steps later and once again the skins are off and I’m rummaging in my backpack for layers of down and wind protection.

The ritual of transition, with its familiar actions and sounds, is like an old friend. The shovel handle knocking against the blade, the careful ordering of layers, the tear of the Velcro as the ABS handle is armed. It triggers a magical change of state. The anticipation of the descent brings a flush of adrenaline, signalling to the muscles to prepare for compression instead of slow extension. It’s a change of pace marked by the extreme: from 400m of ascent in an hour to 400m of descent in five minutes, from 4kph to 40kph, from the heat of climbing to the wind chill and cold of face-shot descents. It’s a wonderful contrast.

To be comfortable and engaged in this movement is the subtle difference between being here on the hill and being of the hill. It’s the difference between buying into an image of touring and it being part of you. Maybe it’s the culmination of seasons of touring and being in the mountains, or perhaps some of the forest spirit has been absorbed. Either way, flow has come.

A wide and deep channel leads out below us, a natural halfpipe snaking down through the forest. In summer it’s the start of a watercourse which turns into a series of rubble-lined gorges oozing sulphurous slime farther down the mountain, but for now it’s our playground.

Through the forest we float, riding just under the surface of crystals. Curling plumes of powder rise and fall, displaced from nature’s freshly laid blanket, temporarily disturbed until the night’s breeze flattens the sheet of white once more. We stop on a small rise below our next skinning target, a small col 400m above us. We skirt the contours in an effort not to lose any more elevation and make our transition.

Recent earthquakes have ripped apart the earth, releasing sulphur and heat. I am sharply reminded of the devil. The deep and fiery depths ooze yellow poison to the surface. Superheated water, normally buried deep within the earth’s crust, now runs between the ground and the snow. We pass the rotten stench of sink holes, boiling with foul liquid. These volcanic spectacles remind us of the unique dangers that lie throughout the snow pack




A steady rising traverse away from the streambed hooks us quickly to the col. A gentle pink tinges the sky; night is coming and time is pressing. Opting to skin a further 100m out from the col lands us on a rounded summit with a multitude of wind lips to slash. On a board or fat skis this ribbed landscape offers more of an oceanic descent than the old-school fall-line ski experience. It’s startling, expansive and complex.

Fixed white breaker waves provide tubes, lips and drops, deep and forgiving, fun and light, spreading out below us. In this ocean of snow we float downstream, crossing a multitude of watercourses, wind scours and tree-topped ridges. A Japanese black bear nest hangs above us as we stop to check our bearings; GPS blipping guidance safely sees us to a small bridge hidden in the vast forest. A forest road, buried deep by the winter freeze, is a shallow groove in the snow: a strangely geometric line within an otherwise totally natural picture. Pink turns to grey as the night begins to encroach over the expansive vista. Under its protective shield, the night creatures, start go about their claustrophobic foraging. We the creatures of the day have some way to go, however.

The last transition of the day, this time less careful, sees us skinning along the road line, which is threatened by steep avalanche chutes here and there. We skin 50m apart – this separation preserves the safety of our progress but also reinforces the feeling of this being an individual journey, uniquely framed by our own influences. It’s vital to stay open, embrace each blind turn, each false summit as part of a process to be absorbed and not fought against. This is especially necessary when tiredness begins to settle in.


As with many long tours, combat skiing finished the day. The buried hairpin turns force an artificial rhythm to the descent. Instead of flow, the mantra is fluid. As the light leaves us, the visual feedback from the snow surface disappears and we have to feel our way with soft compliant legs. Soon the sodium glow of streets and houses paints the dark grey sky with pools of orange focus. Hot sulphurous water used to keep the streets free from snow and ice steams beneath our boots as we remove our skis. Sliding gives way to steps. Those who care less about their skis, or are just better at verge skiing, engage in the often one-legged snow-strip hopping so common at the end of a tour.

As the day unfolded, the layers of beauty were punctuated by the essential skills required to make progress in the mountains. The confidence to enjoy such a day is anchored on many things: the ability to travel without stress, to remain open to an ever-changing landscape and set of challenges, to have the fitness and skills so you can move without having to micro-manage each step.

But ultimately the goal is to create the space to embrace a shift of image if required. To fight against that change in perspective, and narrow your focus to a point where you fail to see the whole picture in pursuit of that one narrow preconceived frame, will ultimately lead to a struggle. This is Zen and the Art of Ski Travel Management.

Herald Scotland - Harley Davidson

http://www.heraldscotland.com/life_style/14209113.Easy_riding__touring_the_US_by_Harley_Davidson/?ref=fbshr

AT the side of the road, a coyote stands and stares as the chrome beast burbles past. It is on the junction between wilderness and human intervention where much of Oregon sits. It is part liberal and progressive, part conservative and frontier, with huge forested national and state parks, high desert wilderness and towering glacier-capped volcanoes.

To tour the state the tool of choice has to be something that keeps you in contact to with the air, smells and textures of the place. I have chosen a 1600cc lump with the acceleration of a Morris Minor, a Harley-Davidson Heritage Softail Deluxe: the pinnacle of American V-twin excess. Weighting in at 315kg, around twice the weight of a normal motorcycle, and with a seat as big as an American family-sized pizza, the two-cylinder bike is the epitome of the American Easy Rider dream. It is no longer the renegade mode of transport but more often than not a great conversational centrepiece, a vehicle of connection with people and the landscape.

If there is any state that suites a big cruiser motorcycle it is this one. Forget the mid-western flat expanses, the crowded coast roads in California and the blistering heat of Texas, Oregon has the roads and the beauty to make it a must on every motorcyclist’s bucket list.

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I picked the bike up from Moto Fantasy bike tours in La Pine, 20 minutes south of Bend, which sits at the eastern edge of the Cascade Mountain’s Ring of Fire. This is a chain of massive volcanic peaks that stretches from California to the border with Canada. Starting the machine is the first surprise of the day: the sound is like a ripping thundercloud, and the whole bike shakes with that unmistakable sound of draining oil wells.

Heading south on Highway 97, a long straight route that divides the state in half, gives me a chance to get used to the huge cruiser. After 30 minutes on the highway my first real turn of the day leads towards Crater Lake National Park. Established in 1902, the park is one of the oldest in the United States and the only one in Oregon.

The park surrounds Crater Lake caldera, a remnant of a huge destroyed volcano, Mount Mazama, and the surrounding hills and forests. The lake itself is the third deepest in the western hemisphere at more than 580m deep. To put that in context, Loch Ness is around 230m deep. It is one of those sights which, although young in geological terms (the mountain collapsed 11,000 years ago), astounds the observer with its sheer scale.

Dropping off the southern slopes of the caldera the road eases its way though beautiful farming country towards the Kalamath Native American village of Chiloquin.

One thing any visitor will notice is that rural America is filled with dying communities. Bypassed by visitors and large farming concerns, many a small town is rotting in its foundations. Abandoned buildings and businesses still filled with their owner’s tools rust and collapse by the highways. It is a stark reminder that this is still frontier territory and a young country struggling with its scale.

The loop road west towards Mackenzie Highway 242 and then back east towards Bend’s ski resort Mt Bachelor is beautiful and empty. Curving, rising and falling between lava flows, some only a few thousand years old, the road is dotted with trail heads (walking paths) and for those willing to take a hike, give access to backcountry trails and hikes worthy of exploration. A 13-mile all-day climb of South Sister Volcano at 3,157m (10,358ft) is a must for those with strong legs and a need to explore deeper into this amazing country.

East of Chiloquin and Highway 97, things are different. The Cascade Range drops dramatically east to the “badlands”, and the thick sequoia forest thins. The high desert land, much of which was a huge lake 11,000 years ago, is astounding. Oregon’s mini Ngorongoro crater, named the Hole by an unimaginative settler, sits next to the Fort Rock “tuff ring” which was home to native people for 11,000 years. This giant semi-circle of cliff, which was once an island in the now dry sea, continues the extraordinary geological and social journey that is the American north-west.

While we share a common language, the veneer of a common understanding and culture, the more time I spend in the US the more I realise that its youth and sheer size seem to create its biggest contrasts and challenges.

Oregon’s main high desert town was only properly settled in 1850, almost within the stretch of family folk memories. While in Britain we were building museums and starting organised football leagues, the first dusty wagon trains were being harried and attacked by Native American tribes who were being pushed out of their traditional hunting grounds. They had been there for 400 generations; European settlement is only really a few generations old.

In a way, it still feels like a frontier and the prevalent attitude is still one of self-reliance, personal survival and independence from distant government interference.

Due to its low seat height the huge Harley-Davidson is remarkably easy to manoeuvre at slow speed and more comfortable than it looks. Get the thing up past 65mph and the big beast leaves its sweet spot and starts to shake and wander; it is no sports bike.

However, the big cruiser, which by legend has Harley’s worst-handling frame, is the perfect mobile sofa on which to admire the passing scenery. There is something emotive, visceral and quintessentially American about sitting astride the huge V-twin moving through ancient towering forests into the desert lands.

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It’s an image celebrated in many films. It paints a picture of something that reflects the best and some of the most challenging things about the US: freedom, excess, brash confidence. A bike takes you closer to all of this, the air the land and its people, rendering it an experience worth savouring.

Duncan McCallum hired his Harley-Davidson Heritage Softail Deluxe from MotoFantasy Vacations in La Pine, Oregon. Visit motofantasy.net. Priced from $150 (£105) per day plus insurance with discounts for multiple-day hires.