Elephant Ride, from Grant, Colorado, to the top of Guenella Pass.  Second weekend in February, 2008.

This report was originated on KLR650.net, and is imported here with minor editing for structure (due to the import process).  Typos, etc., have mostly been left as they are, fixed only for clarity in some cases.  Martin is the report writer.

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Well, another Elephant Ride is over, and Guenella Pass was again the victor. Lots of folks showed up, many of us camping Saturday night before the ride on Sunday. Steve allowed us to use his property for camping and cooking and gathering in Grant, so that worked out well.








As usual, there was some comedy overnight. The small motor bikes were enjoyed by many, the bicycle by only one.

Enjoyed a tad less by some.




Some were just plain overwhelmed.




Some found weaponry to joust with.




The sword got tempered in the fire a bit later.  (It's not motion blur that shows the flames like that--the camera was stable.  Somehow the camera's image sensor picks up on the flames that are not visible to the human eye.  Several fire photos came out like that.  Weird.)




Lots more riders showed up Sunday morning, at about 10am the riding began.






The lower road was well traveled, with deceptive icy patches. The right shoulder here looks like dry pavement. It's not. It's ice.




And it leads to shots like this. I'm glad I brought the DRZ400e this year rather than the KLR. My thanks to those who helped me get back on the road. *sigh*




The Harley only made it to the first snow drifts, and with his street tires he needed lots of help to get this far. He had no delusions; he knew the bike's limitations but was determined to get as far as he could.




The central road by the meadow wasn't too bad but had less traffic, so we were breaking a lot of new trails. Some snowmobiles had been up earlier.






It's typical that I didn't take as many pics as I had intended. Bummer. In the end, the deep snow over icy lower layers made it too hard to make progress once it started getting steeper. We made a decision to declare that our collective turn-around point was the "summit" and we had achieved it. Some smaller bikes managed another mile or so, but that was it. Maybe the Rokons did better later in morning.


At the end, it was good to see that some had come properly equipped to manhandle their mighty steeds back home.




Many of the regulars (from the previous few years) didn't show up. There were some organizational challenges this year. Stray Dog was the only KLR rider I saw there this year.

I'll see everyone there again next year (if I'm back from riding South America by then).