Long Way To Idyllwild

Normally you go camping to get away from it all. But you dont feel like you are away from it all until you get there. You load up your car or truck, sit on the freeway, usually in traffic on the weekend and you cant wait to get there. Your trapped in your car not looking at the scenery, whats there to see on the freeway anyways. Finally you pull off the freeway and get to where your going, and then finally you can start to unwind.

But when you take your motorcycle to go camping, you are away from it all as soon as you throw your leg over it and sit down. This weekend Mike and I rode our bikes to Idyllwild. And we took the longest route we could, and enjoyed every second of it. According to Yahoo maps, if you take the freeway its 96 miles to Idyllwild. The way we took was over 160 miles and we didnt get on one freeway. Mike rode over to my house early Saturday morning and we headed south on PCH to San Juan, stopping for coffee before taking the Ortega Hwy over to Lake Elsinore. Mike fit almost everything into his storage box, I tied down my sleeping bag, tent and mat to the back of my Duc and fit everything else into my backpack.

After another good ride thru Oretga we stopped at the Lookout for a Rat Bastard Root Beer and to stretch our legs. Enjoying the fact that we were taking our time and taking in everything that we could.

Once coming down the mountain and hanging a right on Grand until got to Clinton Keith rd, the ride got even better. Picking roads I found just by looking around on Google Earth, we pieced together a route to get us up and around to Idyllwild. It was full of twisties, hills and just about everything. Roads running thru fields of avocado trees, orange trees and wine vineyards.

There were plenty of signs like this along the way, and every time we saw one we couldn’t help but smile.

We stopped for lunch in Anza at the Cahuilla Mtn Market along the 371. It’s a cool little family run place that serves some awesome bbq. We checked the map to see how far we have gone and even started planning our next trip.

Once we started to go up the mountain it was cool to see the scenery change, and feel the temperature change and the smells change. Just simple things you never experience in a car.

We finally got to camp around 3pm. Idyllwild sits at about 6000 feet so it was definitely cooler up there. Mike made us reservations at a cool campground called Dark Canyon. And in the morning you realize why they call it that. Its tucked in a little canyon and surrounded by tall trees, so not a whole lot of sunlight will actually hit your camp site. Once we got there we set up camp right away and just rested a bit. I brought along my tent, Mike brought his camping hammock which was pretty cool. It comes with a screen to keep out the bugs and a tarp to cover you as well.

After resting a bit we rode down the road a little bit and loaded Mikes storage box full of firewood. We actually got enough firewood for the whole night on one trip. You cant beat a good Enduro with lots of storage room.

For dinner we went to town and ate at the Greek Place. Really good greek food, a bit pricy though. The ride back at night was really cold, at least for me and my summer jacket. But going thru the blind corners and twisties in the mountains at night was something you just have to do atleast once. In the morning we pretty much just packed up, got breakfast in town and rode the same way back. By far it was once of the best trips either of us have ever been on.