Picked up a new 2012 Honda Rancher 420 4x4. Push button shift fun little toy.
My brother gets the old 1990 Honda Fourtrax 4x4 that we have all beat the crap outta, still runs amazing haha. I just wanted something newer for trail riding and out of all the ones i test drove i loved the way this one rode and felt when sitting on it. Got and different brush guard for the front.
Took it out to the hills near the border of Oregon/Idaho and the views were incredible. It’s a mix up of a trail … creek crossings, technical turns over some pretty harsh rocky areas, some decent moguls to get the weightless feeling and get a few inches of air, and plenty of flat spaces where I could just open it up.
I do have to admit, 70 MPH in this thing feels funny on gravel roads but on hard pack its just fine.
Yesterday we did an all day, 60+ mile trip north of Idaho City, Idaho.
I tried to use Every Trail to map the path we took, but it did something funky so I ended up with only like 12 miles of the trip mapped. Time to re-think that.
We went north to Pilot Peak, still had snow on the ground in some places since it’s 8200 feet above sea level. No performance issues at that altitude, which was sweet. We had a few Razors that couldn’t go over (or through) some of the drifts, and the Commander simply attacked them with ease. The views were amazing at the peak, I’ll post some up later (pics are on wife’s phone since I was using the Every Trail app on mine).
From there we drove down to Miner’s Grave. It’s a grave for an unknown miner that died at that spot back in 1888.
We also hit Wilson’s Peak, drove down to Pioneerville (one of the last standing areas of Idaho silver and gold mining communities that was built without nails, it’s all wooden pegs).
We had some nice flat open areas, lots of 45 degree or more hill climbs/downhill paths, lots of switchbacks and gravel/rocky areas, but the views were just amazing.
And today I’m just beat. Was a really long day but still smiling.
Look into getting a garmin oregon GPS and getting the topo maps installed, the tracks feature has saved my oven a few times especially when I end up going 150 miles 1 way LOL
this was a 240 mile journey I did alone, what a day
plus you can export the tracks into google maps
I have a Samsung S5 so I have a built in GPS receiver (WaaS, IIRC). I was hoping to use the Every Trail app, but I think I’m going to have to mess with it a bit since we were out of cell reception and once we hit the tops of some of the peaks it tried to sync up, and I believe this was the issue.
I could get a GPS for my rig, I just didn’t want to spend $650 bucks for it.