First quad ride of 2021

A sunny Sunday afternoon? Sounds like a good day to fire up the quads and go for an adventure!

Jeff and I headed out Bonanza Road and left the road here and there for a bit of exploring.

It’s spring. The road is muddy. Still covered in some softening glaciers in places, water in others, and dry silty dust in others that meant I hung way back wiping the sand out of my eyes from Jeff’s tires.

It was supposed to be 14C this afternoon. It was much colder up at the peak where we turned around. But gorgeous everywhere!

See the old dozer hiding in the woods in the next picture?

We found an old cabin and peaked inside. This one was split in the middle with a wall and door. This side must have been the living side, and the other was a workshop.

This cabin isn’t that old. You can tell the windows were cut out with a chainsaw.

At one point the cabin was wired up for power, since there was a light socket on the outside, wire, and a ground wire wrapped around a metal stake in the ground.

Although I said it wasn’t old, it is old enough to have this spruce tree growing out of the roof!

Here’s the peak, where the Ridge Road trail comes out, near King Solomon’s dome.

Just past here there is just a short patch of snow that wasn’t plowed, making the nice road loop, not a loop at all! We turned around here to head back.

Back on lower Bonanza we headed up in the hills overlooking the road and explored a set of 3 cabins.

These weren’t that old either. Old, but not Gold Rush old.

It was easy to picture a family or two spending their summers here while mining for gold.

This one had interior walls covered with old cardboard.

There was an advertisement insert from the Anchorage newspaper from 1985.

It was an excellent day! We put about 75 km on the quads. I had wet feet from bush whacking into one of the cabins, but it was warm enough to not care!