Objective: Combine rides I did on 4/22 and 4/23/19 into one ride;

Ascend Best Chance Rd/N Fork Skookum Creek, cross over/descend Cook's Creek, try to find a short cut to the trail on Sandwich Creek, ascend Sandwich Creek, cross over/descend S Fork Skookum Creek, to Vane's Lake Rd.

Ride Stats: 26.15 miles, 2323 ft elevation gain.

Here's the ride: The red line I rode on 4/23, the blue line I rode on 4/22, and the yellow line is the short cut I was hoping to find. I didn't show most of the asphalt road approaches in this map.

What an awesome ride! Great roads, great views, great climbing work out. 4 ridges and 4 creek drainages. And, I bought a new, hard tail MTB this morning and used it, and it worked great! What an improvement.

I tried to find a short cut that the map shows as a forest service road, but I lost the way, and back tracked and took the longer way, which added to the climbing vertical feet. I'm going to work on finding that short cut. Looking at the Map My Ride map of my ride (that's a mouth full) today and comparing it with the topo map, shows I was very close. But, the road I took, didn't start where the map shows it starts. So, I ended up descending more to Berry Rd., and then climbing back up. The short cut would reduce some climbing, but where's the fun it that?

Here's some photos of the ride;

My new ride on N Fork Skookum Creek

Just crossed over to Cook's Creek drainage

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Almost home now, this is where I saw the elk herd two days ago

Views of the valley/home and Pend Oreille River, during the crossing from Sandwich Creek to S Fork Skookum Creek

The descent down the S Fork Skookum Creek/Vane's Lake Rd lies in the middle of this photo, behind the sloping ridge

This is one of the fields the elk ran into. The owner has a bunch of miniature horses he raises.

Looking at the ridges, and canyons/drainages I just crossed

The playground