5 Wheel Drive: Land Rover & KTM tackle the Gaspé Peninsula

ini88

Adventurer
Day 1 – Saturday morning cont...

I picked my bike up and we headed off into the deep canyon. It started getting darker and wetter. I noticed the trails looked to be saturated a lot more as we carried on. Moss was on everything and the trees started to change.


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The trail split up ahead. Motorcycles and ATVs on the left and it looked Trucks had to dip into the river and drive upstream. Jarek told me to go ahead and we would meet where the trails connected. I head up to the left to find out this was not even meant for motorcycles let alone people with two legs! I was pushing and rocking my bike back and forth to get through the mud and trenches. Sadly no photos of this as I couldn’t even get off the bike to get a photo. I could hear Jarek’s truck down to the right gurgling through the water. I didn’t want him to think I was stuck and I also didn’t want him to need help and I wouldn’t be there so I think we both pushed through as quick as we could to meet back up.

We came together about 100 yards down the trail. What a relief! It was a nice area that reminded me of something out of FernGully and Avatar. Moss everywhere. Trees holding onto that last big of soil as the waters tried to wash them away.


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I had to stop and take a cool Instagram moss photo!
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This trail lead us to a bridge that was out. This bridge looked to be out for some time and there seemed to be a water cross to the right. It was a steep right hand turn down a hill into a shallow creek bed with a large uphill out. I learned my lesson from the last time and cranked the steering damper back as this looked like an easy crossing.


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Jarek drove through it not problem. I could sense he was really digging this trip right about now and was looking for a good challenge…




…Well he got just that! After a light water crossing and broken bridge we happen to come across another similar situation but this made the previous obstacles look like a walk in the park. Trust me, photos & videos do not do it justice at all. There was a “rickety homemade, drunken Canadian, half put together something-you-call-it to get over a creek/waterfall bridge” that was washed out in front of us.


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I looked at Ryan, Ryan looked at Jarek and Jarek looked at me with a very perplexed look in his eyes. You see, many of you know Jarek, many of you don’t. But in all my years out in the bush with him I have yet to see him nervous about an obstacle that is in his way of going further down the trail. He honestly looked very nervous which in turn made me nervous which sent Ryan running into the woods to relieve himself. There was really no way to turn around. The trail was so tight and there was a 50 foot drop on the right with an old car from the 1950s rolled onto its roof. Was this the last person to see this trail? Was this the person that made the “rickety homemade, drunken Canadian, half put together something-you-call-it to get over a creek/waterfall bridge?”


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I think this was the first time Ryan said to me “I think we need to turn back” and I said “You should have brought walking shoes because its about 30 miles out.”

The 3 of us pushed the bike over the logs and up the embankment. We looked at the bridge for about 30 minutes before Jarek disappeared behind his truck. Is he walking back? Is he hiding and crying..?

All the sudden 2-stroke smoke filled the air and the smell brought smiles to our faces. Looks like my KTM wasn’t the only 1 cylinder we brought along! Jarek got his lumberjack on and wasn’t about to drive 14 hours from NJ to Gaspé to lay up and go home. He started chain sawing down old trees and Ryan and I started collecting all the wood we could get to make this bridge that would have to support 8000lbs. We even got out the sand ladders!


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The first attempt wasn’t good. Ryan was pointing him to the left but Jarek was looking to get his driver’s side tire on the sand ladder. This was setting him crooked and he had to back up and reposition the passenger side sand ladder for the second attempt. He slowly crawled the front of the Discovery over and we knew once the front was up we were good, because if the rear slipped in then we could at least winch the truck up and out. As the front came up Jarek punched it up the hill and all our worries disappeared. It felt good. Felt like we were making some serious progress now. Nothing was holding us back.... Nothing yet.
 
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ini88

Adventurer
We continued on and noticed we started to climb up a lot of muddy hills. It was narrow and we followed a trail that hugged the cliff on the right. Climbing out of the ravine mile by mile, the trees started to thin out and we could see the sun break through the pines. We started to see other hills spike up from below. At last we came out. We were on another logging trail and it was mid-day. We were all well beaten and lunch was past due.


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We pulled over to scarf down some lunch. Jarek bought some canned calamari earlier in the day and while we stared at it in wonder & hunger we thought it best to try it once we got out to a nearby town. None of us needed to come down with instant food poising for the rest of the night.


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After lunch we mostly drove through an enormous network of logging roads and secondary trails. We would cruise some at 70+ mph, while others would lead to dead ends and we would have to head back the way we just came down for miles. It was becoming a little bit discouraging. We felt like we are making good progress towards the halfway point but time after time we were being denied by trails fading into the woods to never be seen again. The GPS devices we were using would sometimes show a path and other times would show nothing.


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The sun lingered over the hills and we could see our shadows growing longer and longer as we tried to cover more ground. Fuel was getting low and we knew we had to break camp soon before the bears and moose ate us! Plus we had 2 bottles of French Canadian wine that was begging to be had.
 
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Viggen

Just here...
The response so far from everyone has been great! I think we need to organize a 5 man group next time of trucks and motorcycles and finish the trail! Anyone interested in early spring time next year? :) "The Great Gaspé Crossing Part II"

Im rigless (and out of the country for a year) but would love to do this sometime. The rig situation will be rectified when I get back to the States but it wont be next Spring unfortunately.

I know, I know! im slow! I will finish it.

Love reading this kind of stuff. The breaking of trails and pushing through is awesome. Not to downgrade any stuff that is usually posted up but this is so much better than the two track that everyone has driven down for the past 20 years trip report. A real "expedition" where work is required to get through. Awesome.
 

rydz

Member
wow,all this right in my backyard! Guys if you go back and I can swing the time off,please let me know,I would love to join you.
 

ini88

Adventurer
Im rigless (and out of the country for a year) but would love to do this sometime. The rig situation will be rectified when I get back to the States but it wont be next Spring unfortunately.

Love reading this kind of stuff. The breaking of trails and pushing through is awesome. Not to downgrade any stuff that is usually posted up but this is so much better than the two track that everyone has driven down for the past 20 years trip report. A real "expedition" where work is required to get through. Awesome.

Thanks Viggen! When you come back to the states, get a nice diesel powered truck and come up with us on PART II!

We like doing some tough driving, puzzle solving and bridge building. Its like a game of Chutes and Ladders. Makes the trip that much more challenging.
 

ini88

Adventurer
wow,all this right in my backyard! Guys if you go back and I can swing the time off,please let me know,I would love to join you.

You have a very fun backyard! I wish I lived up there. Will let you know about PART II. So far the Discovery has had a Merc Diesel conversion. And I am going to put a 300tdi into my Defender soon.
 

Danny Lee

New member
I am a new member, just joined today! THIS IS THE MOST AWESOME TRIP I HAVE SEEN. PHENOMONAL DISCOVERY AND AWESOME BIKE. LOVED THE PART ABOUT THE BRIDGE OUT AND THE OOLD CAR AT THE BOTTOM. Made me wonder if there was a skelton still in the car!
 

ini88

Adventurer
I am a new member, just joined today! THIS IS THE MOST AWESOME TRIP I HAVE SEEN. PHENOMONAL DISCOVERY AND AWESOME BIKE. LOVED THE PART ABOUT THE BRIDGE OUT AND THE OOLD CAR AT THE BOTTOM. Made me wonder if there was a skelton still in the car!

Thanks Danny! You inspired me to pick up where I left off and finish the report this week. I swear there will be an ending to this story soon. :)
 

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