1236 miles in 4 days..this is our U.P Safari!
Done in July 2005 by Bryan Much and Chad Berger.
This ride was set up by the Cycle Conservation Club of Michigan.

http://cycleconservationclub.org/

Heres Bryan. I met Bryan here in Wabeno at the Spring Big Woods Rally. We had both shown up alone and camped next to each other so we decided to ride together all weekend.

I mentioned to Bryan that there was another Dual sport motorcycle rally happening in June in central Wisconsin called Enduraid, and it sounded like it was going to be a great time. Bryan was up for that so we met there and rode together again. Back at camp,Bryan mentions that he had just joined the Michigan cycle conservation club and they had these Safari routes set up. He showed me the article and it said: Upper Penninsula Dual Sport Safari.1200 Miles of two-tracks, winding forest roads,rairoad grades. ORV routes and a little bit of pavement.
You will ride through every county in the U.P. The history and splendor of the U.P. at the twist of your wrist.
This is a true adventure. Your own adventure.

No markers, No ribbon, no paper arrows and no route sheets. Only your map,compass,GPS,motorcycle and that trail savvy and gut instinct you first found on your first trail ride.

Sound interesting says Bryan.

Yep, Lets do it!

As luck would have it, I was going to be laid off for a week around the 4th of July so I had a great chance to do this. This timeframe worked out well for Bryan because he is retired and awfully busy, but could fit it into his schedule ;)

We met back in Wabeno on the 5th of July at Bryans uncles nice lakeside cabin. This gave us a great place to base our ride from sice it was only about 50 miles from the safari route in Iron River Michigan.

I got to Wabeno after 9p.m. and found the cabin. Tragedy had already stuck..Bryan dropped his bike while taking it out of his truck and busted the taillight, mirror, and blinker. Duct tape to the rescue!!

Not a good sign!

We got Bryans bike fixed up and took our gear inside and sorted things out and did a bit of planning then got to bed. In the morning we quickly loaded up the bikes and got ready to hit the dusty trail.

Heres Bryans 2003 Suzuki DRZ400S all loaded up and ready to go.

Heres my 2002 Honda XR650L Pig ready to go. I had an aftermarket larger gas tank on my bike capable of nearly 200 miles and Bryan had a spare 1 gallon tank with since his stock tank is only good for about 90 miles. I also carried a siphon tube just in case. We never had a problem with fuel though, mainly because we rarely passed up any opprotunity for gas.

Heres me at the official start of the trail for us in Iron River.

When you sign up for the ride they send you a packet with the maps and GPS files and a passbook that you need to get stamped at various towns along the route to prove you actually did the route.

The trail started out quite whooped out and we had to stop a few times to tighten our loads back down.

Those bungie nets sure stretch alot when you have 30 lbs strapped down and you hit a big bump! I swear Bryans load must have jumped 6 inches a few times!

One of our first stops in Watersmeet. A quick gas up, something to drink and a snack, get the passbook stamped and get back on the trail.

This was a fun, fast,wet section of trail. lots of fun puddles to splash through.

Don't ask me why this double is in here, I guess got a little mouse happy clicking pics!