Twin Lakes and Walker Valley Aug 2019

Twin Lakes:

Travis, Ken and Ryan and I decided on a whim to go up to Twin Lakes in the Mount Baker national forest. Not sure if this would be an official Tamer run, But Travis and We are Tamers and Ken is a candidate.

We met up at the Shell station in Marysville at exit 88 at 8am and then traveled the two and a half hours to Twin Lakes – practically the Canadian border.

We pulled off onto Twin Lakes Road to air down. By the time we were done there were six or seven SUV type vehicles that all of a sudden came out of nowhere…it looked like a funeral procession, someone said. We knew this was the beginning of a long trek up the six and a half miles to the lake.

We finally made it to the top and man was it worth it. It was a beautiful day and we enjoyed a fire and some good conversation. We met a guy named Brian Weeda, (not sure if that is spelled correctly) that said that he was from the original Timber Tamers. We chatted with him a bit then we decided that since we had to go back on Highway 9 that we might as well try our luck at Walker Valley, and so we went on our way.

Walker Valley:

We got to Walker Valley at about 4pm and aired back down. The place was mysteriously vacant. We started up through the first gate keeper and all got through it without an issue. We decided to go do the lower Timber Tamer, and accomplished that pretty quickly, so why not try out the upper Timber Tamer? We got up to the rock garden and Travis decided to go first of course. Everyone that knows Travis knows that he will try pretty much anything, even if it is un-accomplishable, he will try it. He was doing great until a larger rock spun out from under him while he was going over it. The rock bent back the lower part of the fender and pushed in the lower corner panel of his passenger door. This caused him to be turtled on both of his differentials. Finally, we found a tow point and got him winched up and over the problem area, and up to the top. Next was candidate Ken in his built-up TJ. He made it look easy as he just climbed right up to the top. Next it was our turn, and we made it to the top as well with no issues and all finished trail.

 We decided that we would do the Easy Valley Connector next and then head up to my nemesis Humps and Bumps, the one with the dreaded rock that hates me so much. When we got there it was at the opposite end of where we are used to starting so we ran it real quickly and had no issues… take that ya rock!

By this time it was almost 7pm and we decided that since we were going to have another full day of wheeling the next day that we would just call it a day. We went back down the Easy Valley Connector and helped a couple of motorcyclists find their way back down with us. Then down to the staging area to air back up.

Ken’s first day of true wheeling was a success! I think he is hooked. So, we hurried home to get some sleep so that we could move onto the next adventure that was planned as a club run – Gallagher Head/Van Epps pass… that run report will follow eventually….