POWERFEST 2009
Getting Together and Giving Back.
Editor: Eric Bewley Photo: B. Bagwell, Donkeyworx
TILLAMOOK STATE FOREST, OR – We celebrated our 11th year of fun and frolic in the Tillamook State Forest off-highway vehicle park by wheeling with good friends on familiar trails made fun by an ample dose of rain. Typical of the Pacific Northwest this time of year, the clouds let loose and really gave us a lot of what we like to call “liquid sunshine” making the trails very slick and the simplest obstacle difficult. This year we took the opportunity to give back a little bit to the forests by adding a trail cleanup to each of the groups.
On the advise of the Oregon Department of Forestry we staged in a new location commonly referred to as “little Brown’s camp”. This is a gravel staging area just to the west of Brown’s camp proper. This area expands and contracts regularly depending on how much gravel is piled in the area. Unfortunately for us, it was full of gravel which made staging difficult but all managed. We had a driver’s meeting and handed out some SOLV litter bags donated by SOLV and distributed by the ODF to each of the participants to use on their litter patrols. We broke up into three groups based on vehicle size and driver’s desires. Keith Willison led the advanced group, Dave Capell, led the easier group, and We led the medium group. The plan was to ride several different trails and pick up trash as the opportunity presented itself.
While the rain made everything including picture taking difficult, it did serve to spice up the trails a bit and we think it may have contributed to a couple of broken parts that may have been spared on a drier day. All of the groups were able to run the trails that they wanted to and a several bags of garbage was collected. Jahmaal Rebb from the Oregon Department of Forestry was our contact. Randy Peterson, also from the ODF and Jahmaal helped us put together the service project and we would like to take a moment to thank them.
The PowerFest has always been a bit like herding cats as we all meet in the morning, break off into our groups for the day, and then re-assemble for a dinner in the afternoon. It’s always difficult to see everyone and even know how many are involved. This year was no exception but having the dinner with a giveaway for people that filled their SOLV bags helped bring together people at least for a brief bit and that was good.
We were able to give quite a few gift from vendor’s like Low Range Offroad, Trail Tough, American Suzuki Motor Corporation, Cabela’s, Petroworks and others. Special thanks to those that supported this activity is in order. Thank you!
Trails that were traveled were Archer’s, Cedar Tree, The Crushers, Firebreak 5, Hog’s Back, and the other usual suspects. Our group got a chance to run University Firepower before the seasonal closure and that was cool. This is a trail that we use to have a lot of fun on back in the day before it became a seasonal trail that is boring in the summer and closed in the winter. Well, we were lucky enough to catch it just right and it was cool to be able to enjoy it thoroughly.
There was a good variety of vehicles this year all the way from bone stock to some of the extremely well built trail only rigs that come to play hard. One good thing about the OHV area is that it can reasonably accommodate all of these different requirements.
We had a great time but think that after eleven years in one location it’s time to change venues for next year. We welcome your comments and suggestions. Please take a moment and put your two cents in on our sub-forum dealing with the PowerFest.
PowerFest sub-forum Discussion HERE!
Picture and Wrap-Up thread HERE!
