With only one more week to go, the rush is on with the challenge of the weather, and time to find a window to finish in. This last week we had "8" more riders finish and "5" of those were on the very same day, but in totally opposite directions. Mike McClure, and Dwight Gladden of Walla Walla finished at Swan Falls, Jim McQuown and Jack Henderson of Tri-cities area finished at Tahkenitch, and Crystal Chase of Tacoma, finished at WAC Bennett, all on September 19th. The three other finishers, Brian Jack of Tukwila went to Tahkenitch, Ken Hattan of Vancouver went to Buffalo Bill, and Brian Diver of Everett went to WAC Bennett, finishing their season on the 10th, 15th, and 18th, respectively.

We have added 4 more WA pin and 6 more OR pin earners to give us a total of "74" OR pins, and "80" WA pin earned to date. At this week we have a total of 37 riders and 1 pillion that have finished, and two riders have given me their intent to finish. Boy do I wish one of them was going to be me...LOL

Rider Report News:

Well rider, Doug Huse has returned home from his two week ride, and has added another "10" dams to earn his OR and Wa pins, but time constraints kept him from 3 dams to make it to hate finish. A very good showing for our California rider. Congrats Doug ... and hope to see you next year.

Ken Olsson finished his season earning the WA pin on September 22nd. And here is his trip report.... " .... Goal met! I had no illusion of getting the bonus dams this year but I managed to wrap up the season with enough dams to earn both OR and WA pins. I had lunch at Backstage Bistro. There was a sign on the door that they were closed for a private function but as I ambled down the street Bob came out and hauled me back in for a seat at the bar and a most enjoyable meal." . For those of you who have not met Bob Parrish, owner of Backstage Bistro, and one of our riders... you have truly missed out. Great food, and a great host.

Brian Diver and Crystal Chase , finished off the season, and earned the trophy with WAC Bennett Dam. When Crystal arrived at the dam the guard reported they had just had a DamTour rider there the day before. Both riders reported a bit of cold (well maybe more than a bit) and some rain and Crystal enjoyed a bit of hail as well.

Again the trio of riders, Jack Henderson, Jim McQuown, and Rod Worthington, of the Tri-cities area, headed out on a road trip, this time to the finish for two of them. According to the emails... it was the worst rain ride ever and I hear one of the group had forgotten their rain gear...Oops.... and... I hear was wringing out riding gear at end of day, only to put it back on in the morning... still wet and cold. I had offered to overnight some rain gear, after I saw the weather reports of torrential downpours...LOL Are we having fun yet???

That is it for this week. On a serious note here... if you plan to finish... tell me now. Do not wait until after the fact or....you may be greatly disappointed. And keep in mind the "End-of-Season Party" is coming up on October 9th, from 11:00 am to 4:00pm, at Pro Caliber, Longview. Great food, lots of fun drawings, and we will award trophies and pins. Hope to see all of you there. Remember to RSVP so we have enough food and drink for all.

In the flurry of riders scrambling to get the last dams for a finish, or to achieve a personal goal, we had "1" finish, "11" earn the WA pin, and "3" earn the OR pin during this last week. Finishing this week was rider Larry Campbell, of Kennewick, WA. He picked up 7 dams to earn his OR pin, and round out the twenty for the trophy. Earning the latest WA pins were: Brian Sitton, Brentwood Wiest, Don Rodrigues, Mike McClure, Terry & Jerry Grieder, Jim McQuown, Bill Barker, Tony Pavlakis, and a late to getting his dam photos in , Dwight Gladden. Our OR pin earners were: Ritch Davis, Steven Vogt, and finisher Larry Campbell. A great scramble ...congrats to all.

With only two weeks to go... be sure you get your dams in early, or let us know if you are planning more rides. This is not the time to find out at the last minute you don't qualify for the trophy, or to arrive at a dam only to find out... you can't get to it. And, Boundary is one of those dams. Due to some intense construction, the base of the dam and the road to it, is closed and will be until after our season ends. But, not to worry, you can still take your photo on the "west side" at the Boundary Hydroelectric sign... so not to worry.

Rider Report News:

Lakeside,California rider, Doug Huse is finally back on the road, after a delayed start due to health issues earlier this season. So far, Doug has garnered 7 dams in three days and says he will get as many as he can during his two week ride. Good Luck Doug, and glad you are doing better.

Steven Vogt picked up 8 dams for his last push of the season, bringing him up to "19" total, with WAC Bennett being the only one not snagged. His swoop picked up 6 Oregon dams, and two bonus dams. He remarked, " .... This makes All but Bennett for me this year :-\  down to the cord; but, a smile on my face :-D" . The smile ... that is a good thing. Be sure to check out the great sponsor deals for some new rubber.

Mike McClure and Dwight Gladden, of Walla Walla, are near the finish and hope to make a quick loop to pick up Swan Falls and Buffalo Bill dams yet. And ... speaking of flying for a finish... rider Crystal Chase, of Tacoma, made a fast dash back down to WL Jess, when she had planned to be heading north to get her last dam, WAC Bennett, after finding out she got the fish hatchery dam. With her real "WL Jess" submittal, she said "... Look what I did!!! Lots of pictures to confirm it's the right dam this  time! ... Am changing the oil in the bike, just in case I head to Canada next week. I will definitely have a different dam tour plan next year." Good luck to all of you, and I really hope the weather holds out.

Riders, Jack Henderson, Jim McQuown, and Rod Worthington, of the Tri-cities area, snagged Salmon Lake, Boundary, and WAC Bennett last week. I commented to Jack that it looked a bit wet and gloomy at Boundary to which he replied on their way to WAC Bennett .... "Its a lot wet. In Cranbrook,BC and its pouring".

Other news of note... is on the forum. If you haven't already, check out the new deal our Pro Caliber sponsors have added in the forum. Wow... Like a rider said... great end of the season. They are announcing their new superstore online. And if you use the special code found in the forum when you order, Damtour riders get 30% off. Way cool... thank you Pro Caliber. Don't wait too long though to take advantage of this special deal, as it runs only until September 30th.

Lastly... a quick note . The "End-of-Season Party" is right around the corner. October 9th, from 11:00 am to 4:00pm, at Pro Caliber, Longview. Great food, lots of fun drawings, and we will award trophies and pins. Hope to see all of you there. Invite coming by email soon, please RSVP so we have enough food and drink for all.

The Dalles Dam is the only dam that was not visited in this last week, while 24 riders and pillions hustled to finish all 20 or earn their WA or OR pins. This week added, "5" more finishers, "10" more WA pin earners, and "5" more OR pin earners.

Salmon Lake Dam received the most visits again during this week at 10. Our finishers this week include: Bill Lynes , Rich Hensler,Tod Coxen, and Denise and Mike Harchuck. Our 10 WA pin earners were: Jim Coxen, Crystal Chase, Pete Schriner, Bart Romple, Jim and Sarah Guyton, Angela and Steve Ferguson, and Denise and Mike Harchuck . Our 5 OR pin earners were : Rich Hensler, Dennie Ward, Crystal Chase, Fred Dykins, and Bart Romple. A big congratulations to all our new finishers and pin earners.

Rider Report News:

Denise and Mike Harchuck of Eugene had a trip we can all relate to at one time or the other. ...."it was one of our coldest, wettest trips ever! We even cancelled our Jasper/Banff/lake Louise portion because of snow! Good thing we had our electrics. We sat behind and ran behind and passed a lot of these.....(these were photos of muddy tanker truck she sent along) .... There are 5 semi's to every 1 auto up north. The muddy spray coming off of them is tremendous. You should see the bikes and our leathers." They have recovered now, and are back in a happy place in spite of a flat tire and being towed, and getting home on the holiday weekend only to find the well pump had gone out.. What a story for the finish.

Remember the Shelton, WA riders Debbie and Rollin Binion? They turned in16 photos which included, you guessed it, the fish hatchery dam. Well, they headed back out and got the real WL Jess dam on September 5th, qualifying them both for the trophy. Way to go.

You just gotta check out the photo and the excitement of rider and pillion, Angela and Steve Ferguson's at Salmon Lake dam. They were so excited to be earning their WA pin. These new to DamTour riders are loving it and all their photos show their enthusiasm. " .... we were very excited so we took the picture of how we felt. Man I can't wait until next year. "

Jim and Sarah Guyton have been having fun doing DamTour and sent this note on earning their WA pins. " "....We visited the east side first before we realized the picture had to be on the west side. As we were leaving it started to rain heavily. By the time we arrived in Metaline Falls the rain slowed. The rain stopped completely by the time we arrived at the visitor center. Of course it started to rain when we left. We have been close or crossing the border four times this year. Every time it has rained. We fell that Canada does not like us." They had a three dam two day ride and were running from storms the whole time. This seems to be the theme this September.

And lastly, but not the least.... I have been living vicariously through our riders reports, and especially the notes I ahve bben getting from Crystal Chase. As you see in last weeks news she is on a quest adn rounding up the last dams. She returned home with jsut enough time to uplaod and send in her photos before heading for WAC Bennett and her final dam. Plans changed as today instead of heading north, she is on her way to get the real WL Jess dam... yes it was another Oops... moment. One of about five or six this year. I want to share at least one of Crystals notes here... this came with three photos from her Pit 3 excursion.
"Pit # 3 Picture 1. Thoughts when I saw the road closed sign. ‘I didn't ride all this way for a road closed sign. Besides, the road isn't barricaded. The campground sign doesn't say closed and the sign below road closed says dicalite traffic ok. Don't know what that is, but I'm part of it. As I go down the road, it says residential area? GREAT! I have 3 options now. I'm a camper, visiting someone or a new dicalite employee.’ Picture 2. ‘ Now the road IS barricaded. But that little brown sign on the post says Pit 4, Pit 7, Big Bend all with mileage. The road closed sign only said #3 and #4. No barricade on that upper road, so I'm going to check it out. ’ ‘"WOW! What a view just up the hill and around the first corner. The road to the dam wouldn't have had near the view.’ Met the garbage truck on the way back to the main road, but never needed an excuse to be back there. Could have stayed on the road for 20 miles and might have if I'd had the time."

Maybe one more note from Crystal to share....
".....Mainline # 1 Picture # 2 is where you finally pull over and say to yourself ‘WHERE THE HELL AM I!’ Then you figure out that you're headed east and went past Paulina 15 miles ago so the dam is 30 miles behind you and the gas gauge is getting mighty close to E! The gate was open so I walked over to see if I could ride in. The huge chuck hole was the deciding 'no' factor. (and the thought I might get shot)" Thank you you Crystal.

The end of the DamTour season is getting closer. Not much time left. I will get the invite out to riders for the end of season soon and hopefully have more details to post. If you have any special photos you want to submit as potential calendar shots, get them in now, and make sure they are full resolution for print.

If you are planning on finishing all "20" this season, please give us a head's up. No last minute photos on Oct 1st without telling me your plans. They must be in and submitted correctly and of the correct dams to qualify for the all "20" trophy.

See ya next week..... tick ...........tick .......... tick .......

Here we are at the beginning of our last month of the season... where did summer go? Hmm.... did we have summer, or was it just a very long spring? In any case, in spite of the wet and a bit cool year, we have "1607" dam visits to date that have been reported, and "109" of those were reported this last week. While we are winding down a bit, we are still seeing a lot of ride activity from our riders.

This last weeks ride reports saw another "16" riders and "1" pillion out snagging dams. All twenty dams got visited in these reports of August 15th to August 31st. But only 11 were since last news of August 25th. Salmon Lake Dam received the most visits during this week at 6, and WAC Bennett the least with one visit. The 16 riders reporting dam visits included 5 more to finish, although two of them have not yet qualified for the trophy as they sent in photos of the fish hatchery weir dam below WL Jess. The 109 dam visits reported (Aug. 15th to Aug. 31st) gave us five more finishers: Dennis York, Cameron Brister, Matt Cook, and Debbie and Rollin Binion; 7 riders earning their WA pin: Joe Thomas, Ed Recknagle, Chuck Ingham, Cameron Brister, Matt Cook, and Debbie and Rollin Binion : and 8 riders earning their OR pin: Dennis York, Ed Recknagle, Chuck Ingham, Cameron Brister, Steve Swenning, Deb Clarke, and Debbie and Rollin Binion. A big congratulations to all our new finishers and pin earners. This brings us to "24" finishers, "60" Oregon pin earners, and "55" Washington pin earners, with about one month to go for this DamTour season.

Rider Report News:

Steve Swenning and Deb Clarke of Richland made a trip down to pick up their last two Oregon dams and took advantage of some of our rider perks, staying at the Edgewater Inn at Shady cove, and had a great dinner across the river at Miguel's. They really enjoyed the area and said ...."it was "dam" cold when riding at Crater Lake on Sunday morning .... with frost everywhere...but it was well worth the cold!" Glad they enjoyed the ride.

Shelton, WA riders Debbie and Rollin Binion took a two week ride to swoop up the 16 dams to the finish, but took their photo at the fish hatchery weir dam instead of WL Jess, giving them a modified finish. Oops....

New out of the nest this week were Chuck Ingham and Ed Recknagle (along with his wife Maryls). They made a 6 day sweep to pick up the 16 dams in Oregon and Washington. Way to go guys. From all the smiles in these photos I think they had a great time.

Rider Joe Thomas of Seattle, had a quick 2 day trip, with his riding buddy "Jerry Damcia of the Grateful Dams" (gotta see his photos), picking up a whooping 9 dams. He commented ...."The area around the Boundary dam was unbelievable and I will definitely will revisit the area next summer." He also had a fun experience ... "On the bright sides of things I learned that a Honda ST1300 does alright on dirt and/or gravel roads. There was several miles of gravel roads after leaving the Mainline #1 dam heading towards Mason Dam and I ended up riding a few miles on a dirt road near the Wolf Creek Dam. After those experiences gravel parking lots are a piece of cake." Glad we could provide both experiences for ya Joe. :-)

Another of our riders had a personal goal... Cameron Brister of Astoria, decided to head out on a ride and not come home until he finished the DamTour. Well, he did just that. You can read more in his post on the forum. His week long ride included three of the bonus dams, Bennett, Swan Falls, and Buffalo. Wow...

Our new sign-ups from last week, Brentwood Wiest and Don Rodriques, are in the news again, by picking up another 6 dams each on their 1450 mile three day ride, and Steve Folkestad and Dan Stombaugh (already finished) made a fast and long two day ride to pick up Buffalo Bill dam for Steve last weekend. I heard Steve and Dan had a 775 mile day on one of the days. Baker City to Red Lodge, MT for an overnight with past rider Les Hedquist (some of you met him last year at Philipsburg, MT), then on to Buffalo Bill Dam then through Yellowstone and back to Baker City for a BBQ on Sunday. Whoa...does that make it a "Tired Butt" or a "Saddle Blister"?

Rider Crystal Chase is on an adventure to get all needed dams except for WAC Bennett this trip (about 4000 miles she expects), and still out riding as of this news. She came across a great little motel in Kettle Falls, WA. called the Kettle Falls Inn and says... "the manager, gave me a super room for a super price because I'm a biker! He even warned me it was indeed the right room, even though it has 2 queen beds and a twin bed. Parking is reserved right outside the door for each room. The inn appears to be older, but is exceptionally clean, has internet access, a hot tub, sauna, laundry, is next door to a resturant, and a couple doors from a gas station/mini market one way and a tavern the other way. Appears to be an eatery across the street, too." Might be worth checking out... thank you Crystal.

With only four weeks left... make sure you plan your rides well, make sure you get the right dams, be prepared, get your photos in quickly, named correctly, let me know if you are going to be down to the wire for a finish in advance, and don't piss me off. Okay... kidding on the last part..... well, then again..... maybe I'm not. :-)

More on that later. See ya next week.

We had three more finishers to add to the rankings table since last weeks news. Bryan Townsend (7), Dean Scheel (7) , and Tim Bowman (8), completed the "20", and Bryan and Dean earned both OR and WA pins, with Tim earning his OR pin. Of course we had more pin earners as well. In fact a whopping "17" in total (counting our three finishers). Eight for WA and nine for OR. Mike Harman, Dennis York, Chad Holtquist, Mike Butt, David Morgan, and Jan Cote, for the Washington pin. Brian Diver, Bill Mallory, Mike McClure, Bob Parrish, Dwight Gladden, and Ken Olsson earned the Oregon pin. Well done and congrats on all the adventures of DamTour.

I received so many great stories this last week from riders out enjoying the experience of DamTour, so I decided to share a few....

Dennis York managed to pick up three dams(and scouted a couple of other for us) on his trip to Denver where he gave a talk/presentation at the IBA National Meet. "Dealing with Digital Data". Sounds interesting, maybe he should do it again for us. :-)

The Walla Walla Group aka:Team Advil ( Bob Parrish, Dwight & Alice Gladden, Mike McClure, and not really a WW guy, Greg McClure of Renton) went on a 11 day, 6 dam snag adventure to California. The interesting question here is.. "How many dams would you think each rider got?" Six??? Well they may need to post the saga... all five of them, did indeed, get WL Jess, Tahkenitch and Haystack, four of them got Mainline and Crescent Lake (and they signed the poster), but only three managed to find Pit 3. I heard that "Miss Garmin" had some to do with some of it, and I was told..." it was a weird and wild ride" that was toasted to at their post-ride party. From the photos you can tell they were having fun.

Cindy (Sam) Foster made a trip over for the Bronze Bike Rally in Joseph and added four dams to her total. She stayed at this great little place in Enterprise. They cater to motorcycle riders, and the owner is a Team Oregon instructor... you really ought to check them out.  Log House RV Park   I looked them up after Cindy told me about them, and the place looks and sounds terrific, and now I'm thinking we may need to make a ride(or a haul) over and check this place out. Thanks for sharing "Sam".

Rider Brian Diver reported a very tired behind from a very long day of getting his last three dam submits. He went from Baker City for a hop over to Swan Falls, then back over to pick up Mason, then over for Wolf Creek, and on to home in Everett, WA. I told him he shoulda kept riding and make a few extra circles and make it a Saddle Sore...LOL

On that note of aching parts... Ken Olsson picked up Tahkenitch from Hood River on his 1975 Moto Guzzi... he says, he will say it was worth it, once his throttle blisters heal.

Chad Holtquist and Mike Butt had a great and very moving adventure this last weekend when they finished up their Washington dams to earn their pins. I know I can't relay their message well enough to do the experience justice.. as they had a goal to catch up with the Kitsap 9/11 Memorial Ride the Patriot Guard riders were escorting. So ... I am just going to copy part of the email here ...

..... email from Chad ... We had wanted to meet up with them in Moses Lake in the morning Sunday so getting Salmon Lake needed to happed first thing in the AM. We got Conconulley lake dam and I remembered when we were there that you all had mentioned not to confuse that with Salmon Lake. Double checked my Garmin and realized we went left instead of right at the state park. (I wouldn't bitch about "having" to go back to Conconulley next year if Conconulley lake is on the list! Beautiful place and really wished we'd gotten there a couple hours earlier and had been able to stay at the state park. From there we knew we would need to haul azz to get to Moses Lake by 10 if we were going to catch the caravan. South on highway 17 with a stop at Chief Joseph and then tripped up by the beauty that is Blue lake, Lake Lenore and Soap lake and we missed the group by about a half hour. No worries though as they were going to be stopped for lunch in Ellensburg. After racing from Moses lake and catch wind and traffic in Vantage we caught up with the very last bike right at the 106 exit in Ellensburg. We took that scene all in and got signed up with the group and found our other friends and fell in for what was a very moving 150 to Silverdale. We left Ellensburg about 800 bikes strong trailing the processing that was a flatbed truck carrying some of the twisted wreckage from the twin tower attacks headed for Silverdale that eventually will become a memorial to the 9 11 attacks here in Kitsap county. The next stop was in North Bend. Here is where it really got moving. The group left North Bend with a full police escort through town and out onto I-90. The state patrol had gone ahead of us and shut down I-90 ahead of us. There were about 10 motorcycle cops that leap frogged the group and stopped traffic ahead of us at every on ramp the whole way to Silverdale including highway 18 and I-5 and on to HWY 16. At every over pass bar none, there were people waving flags and fire truck and ambulances. There were people sporadically throughout the route on the side of the road waving and holding flags. Were continued over the Narrows bridge and rolled through Purdy where about 75 more bikes were waiting and fell in with to finish the trip. It was just amazing to have partook in this. The rolling caravan eventually made it to the parking lot at the Kitsap mall were there was a full military (all branched) gauntlet formed up at attention that we rode through to finish where the truck with the precious cargo came to rest. Quite a moving end to an awesome weekend of riding. Sorry it got a bit long but as I started writing I was enjoying going over it all again in my head.

David Morgan and pillion Jan Cote went out for a few dam snags. Upon getting ready to leave their first dam, two bikes and riders pull in... a chance encounter, as they see placards coming out of the bikes. After a brief visit.. they part. Up is the next dam for the day, and again after they were there, those two riders show up. Now that is quite the chance encounter. :-) Isn't it great when we get a chance to meet up with other DamTour riders like that. Great way to make some new friends. After that, David and Jan went on to get some dinner and try out one of our greatest rider perks... The Backstage Bistro. Cool day don't ya think? ... Now the rest of the story... as they were ordering dinner.. who walked in? Is this stalking? LOL You'll have to read David's forum post to get the rest of the details. :-)

And lastly for the rider news.. two of our finishers this week, Bryan Townsend and Dean Scheel had an extra bit of excitement. Fortunately for their goal of finishing all twenty dams... this excitement happened after the last dam on the last leg of the trip, 560 miles from the accident scene to home. It appears, Bry (aka... "Buck" after this), has been hunting out of season... so watch the forum for the posting for a great venison BBQ party at his place. Just kidding... Buck(Bryan) didn't hunt it down, nor hit it... the poor miss-guided creature, miss-judged his leap over the fence and impaled himself on Buck(Bryan) and his bike. The deer didn't fair so well (funeral details later...LOL).. but Bryan made it home with his bike. The nasty part is the surgery still to come due to the tears of soft tissue in his left ankle. Ouch!!! Sounds as bad as Keith Hackett's story last year... he rode home 680 miles with a broken leg after his "deer" encounter. Watch out riders... you never know whats on the other side of that fence. Be careful out there, those critters have a mind set of their own.

Now to wrap this up... I was looking through all the emails and the ride stories... and noticed so many National Park visits mentioned that our riders were enjoying. Now isn't that a great added perk to doing DamTour? How many of you have ridden through a NP this year as part of DamTour. And ... how many and which ones, and ... which was your favorite???

See ya next week.

This last week we had yet another Finisher, bringing our total to "16" to have finished so far. Dave Hebert's last dam snag of the season to finish out the tour was a ride to Buffalo Bill Dam on August 14th. Congratulations Dave. On the other end of things we also added two more riders. Brentwood Wiest, and Donald Rodriques, picked up their placards Wednesday on their way to their first dam snags of the season. Brentwood and Donald, got their placards, and their first two dams, Timothy Lake, and The Dalles, in a single day... way to go.

We had "23" riders out this past week, making "52" dam visits. This bit of riding earned 6 of riders the WA pin, and 4 more earned the OR pin. They were Tom Ruehle, Dan Hollingsworth, Bill Lynes, and Ken Hattan for Oregon, and Ken Hattan, Rich Hensler, Robert Alley, Steve Vogt, and Michelle and Morgan Pyzer for Washington.

In the news this week I heard from the Wall Walla gang (all five of them), they are back and have sent in their first "full group" dam snag of the 11 day trip, that they are still on, as of today. Mike McClure says they plan to snag 6 dams while riding to central and northern California this week.

Michelle and Morgan Pyzer, made the trip this last weekend to pick up Boundary and Salmon Lake dams, and were able to take advantage of the Conconully "rider perk" at Lucky D's. Michelle said she had forgotten all about it, until the waitress mentioned it and reminded her. I am still hoping to get up there and try them out as well as have a stay at Gibson's North Fork Lodge if they have an opening. :-) Great to have these riders perks and very nice to have them offered to our rides ....thank you Conconully. For those that don't' know what I am talking about... do check out the specific dam pages and our sponsor and rider perks page.

Well riders that is all the news for now... catch ya next week.

Wow... here we are, in the last two months of the season... about six weeks to go and lots of dam adventures out there to experience. Hard to believe we are closing in on end of yet another year of DamTour. Although a bit late in getting this news report done, here is the latest.

During the month of July we had "seven" riders finish up all twenty dams... and they all deserve a great congratulations on that. Gary Jarl, of Mission, BC; Terry Morris, of Walla Walla; Wayne Horner, of West Linn; Lloyd Gardner, of Everett; Patti Bolstad, of Bayview, ID; Jamie Tennant, of Marysville; and Dean Durham, of Kennewick. From the reports and photos, it looks like they had a great time chasing all those dams around the northwest. That brings our total of riders/pillions that have finished to "14" to the date of August 1st. As a comparison, last year as of August 1st we had "11" riders that had finished and our total finishers for that entire season was 50 riders out of 183 signed-up. This year, we have 202 on the rankings table. How many finishers will we have this year?

Total rides reported last year were 1,719 (1,417 of them as of August 10th) Total reported so far this year... 1,356 as of Aug. 10th. Perhaps the lack of spring, and slow appearance of summer has something to do with the lower number of rides.

Since the last real news I posted, which was on June 29th, we have had 303 dam visits reported(as of Ausust 10th), and there are riders out on the roads as I type. :-) Twenty-seven of those 303 visits were to 2 of our more remote dams, where their location made most visits later in the year, and these are WAC Bennett Dam with 10 visits, with the other 17 of those going to Buffalo Bill Dam. While these had more activity than in the past months, they weren't even in the top 8 of most visited during this period. The most visited dam this last month (June 29th to date) was Crescent Lake Dam with 26 total dam visits. That is a lot of traffic for the month of July. How many riders took the time to go into the lodge and sign the DamTour poster? Did you? We haven't yet, but will go back for a repeat to do so. :-) While Crescent Lake had the most visits during this time frame, Cowlitz Falls Dam, which has been volleying for top position with Aberdeen Lake Dam lately, is currently in the lead with "105" dam visits.... wow. Bennett Dam, our most remote dam for most of our riders is the least visited with a total of "26" visits.

And lastly before I post a few tables of current stats for comparison, we had quite a few riders earn WA and OR pins, as well as some "new" out of the nest dam snaggers. :-) Wayne Horner, Larry Campbell, Mark Shiner, Mike Collins, Fred Dykins, and new out of the nest on July 28th, Brain Jack (with a whooping 18 dams in five day ride) have earned their WA pins. Those to earn the OR pins during this period are Dave Hebert, Morgan & Michelle Pyzer, Bill Sawyer, Matthew Cook, Lloyd Gardner, Jamie, Tennant, and Dave Menicosy. Three of these were also finishers as stated above, Wayne, Lloyd, and Jamie. Congrats to all.

Our latest to the ranked division to get their first dams of the season during this time frame are... Cary Solberg, who signed up at the picnic (1), Dean Roberts, who just got his brand new bike (3), Karl Kelso of Illinois (6), Dan Curry (1) , Will Irvin (1), Tom Ruhle (6), Dennie Ward (5), and as mentioned above Brian Jack (18), which leaves him with only Tahkenitch and Buffalo Bill to complete.

We are growing ... here is a break down of our sign-ups for the last two years.

So there you have it... a small bit of comparsions of our last two years. I'll try and do better and get news up sooner next time.

Well I have not gotten to writing any news since before the picnic. I am really sorry. It certainly is not because there wasn't anything to write about... but... to make a long story short...ha...ha... I just haven't gotten to it for a varity of reasons.

The picnic was great... thank you to all the riders that could make it to the picnic.. and to all the people that helped make it a success. Keith and Robyn Hackett (food), Lori Magers (games and prizes), Jim Carroll, Doug Glidden, and Dan Hollingsworth (set-up and more), Tony Pavlakis(take down), and as always Randy Stearns and Tacoma power for the great "dam" tour and all of the other ways they help make our picnic great. This year we had some really nice prizes to use for our picnic games, from two of our great sponsors... Pro Caliber of Longview, thank you Travis; and Desert Valley Powersports, thank you Dan and Chris Denchel.

And... wow... we signed up three new riders at the picnic. Cary Solberg, guest of Bryan Townsend, and Julie and Dale Peters of Chehalis, who just happened to be visiting the park, saw all the bikes and wandered over to see what it was all about. Welcome to all three of our new riders. And I hope to hear from all of them soon. Remember there is still plenty of time to ride and enjoy the adventure of DamTour. Two whole months left. :-)

As some of you know... some things didn't get updated for a bt i(like the news and albums), as I left right after the picnic to ride to Colorado to meet my husband that was going to fly down to pick up a new bike... well, it turned out to be a great 10 day ride(yep, extra riding here) as we headed over to Cody, and to Yellowstone where Mike Harchuck met up with us(Denise Harchuck rode down with me). It was hot... but great fun and lots of exploring through Yellowstone and other area. I so did not want to come home. I put on over 3500 miles and enjoyed every minute of it. :-) I will try and do some kind of trip report yet. (maybe??)

Now back to getting caught up with things. I will try and get the picnic album done.. and the latest dam albums soon. I have injured my left wrist so am benched for a bit with a stupid brace one it, and may need to limit my typing... so...please don't forget to name those "dam" photos right...LOL and I will do my best to at least keep the rankings updated.

That is it for now... I will update the news in a couple of days after the latest reports come in... and give you some mid-season stats.

The picnic is July 10th, and and I have been working on getting the mailings out to invite and remind all of you, and have had a few troubles with that. I sure hope everybody got their invite ... but I don't' know for sure if you did. Some got two... really sorry on that. I kept getting server denied access on several of the mailings, and it said they didn't get sent. Mostly Comcast and Yahoo... so not sure what happened there. I will try and get this figured out by the end of season party or any other mailings I need to do in bulk. *sigh*

So... please pass on the information about the picnic and the need to do the RSVP from our picnic page to all your riding friends. Make a plan to ride with them to hate picnic... get together on this and maybe even camp out at Mossyrock park together. Hope to see you at the picnic... and have a

Happy and Safe Independence Day

Here we are closing in on our annual picnic July 10th, and almost into our 5th month of the season and we got two new riders signing up this week. Welcome to our new riders, Debbie & Rollin Binion of Shelton, WA. We still three months to go... "14" more weeks to ... as Jim Carrolls says ... "ponder, plan, partake in and play out" ... your own DamTour adventure.

This last week was a total of "57" dam visits to 18 of our dams by "17" of our riders, making the season total over "1000" dam visits. Of course we got more ride reports than that, but some were from previous weeks. Three were new out of the "goose egg" nest this week. Dan Legg of Port Alberni, BC picked up 7 dam snags for his start of the season. "Bo" Doty, of Federal Way, picked up his first dam, although he forgot his placard, and Denise and Mike Harchuck of Eugene, both snagged their first four of the season. Riders earned a whooping "9" state pins this week. Seven OR pins: Bill Sawyer, Wayne Horner, Gary Jarl of Mission, BC, Dave Wensveen, Dave Brooks, and Tracy Visitica and Kevin Russell. Our WA pin earners were: Gary Jarl, and Steve Woodward. Congrats to all of them for some great rides and adventures.

Three of our riders, Mike McClure, and Dwight Gladden from Walla Walla, and Greg McClure from Renton , made a great ride ride June 24th to June 27th, getting Boundary, WAC Bennett, and Salmon, in that order. From the photos it looks like they had a fantastic ride and I hear saw lots of wildlife. They mentioned that they figured they would not get that far this year... but are sure ga ld they made the trip and want to go back for more.

Here is what Mike had to say in his email... "Last year at the awards banquet when you announced the WAC Bennett dam I knew I wouldn’t make it THAT far north.  Well we did it and we are glad about it.  Thanks to you for giving us the push to go north. ... So, 2320 miles (most of which were actually Kilometers), 3 dams, great memories, and reflection on our friend.  We are tired but satisfied. ... ."

And that's what it is all about.

Great news for our east side and central parts of the state riders. We have two new official sponsors for the 2010 DamTour.

Pro Caliber of Bend, Oregon, gave the official okay last week with special discounts and service specials as well for all riders showing their current year placards. They are also doing a special sponsorship for the three local to their area dams, Haystack, Mainline, and Crescent Lake. If you go to all three of these dams, your number will be added to a drawing at our end-of-season party for a $100 gift certificate. Check out our sponsor page for more details. WE had a nice talk at their riders meeting Thursday night getting a chance to tell people about DamTour. The sun was out and the BBQ was great. Thank you Travis and Pro Caliber.

Next to join in and team up with DamTour is Desert Valley Powersports, Prosser, WA . We are really excited to have them with us. The Tri-cities area has blossomed with new DamTour riders the last two years. I hope to have them added to our sponsor page soon. Owner Dan Denchel is excited about DamTour and had already signed-up as a DamTour rider. I really enjoyed getting to talk with an enthusiastic rider/owner when I dropped in on Desert Valley Powersports a few weeks ago on my way home from the UnTapped Blues and Brews Festival. Of course then I didn't know he was one of our riders. Go figure.

So let's support the businesses that support DamTour. Drop in and say hi, and thank you, to both our new sponsors, and check out the forum for special events and sales in their sponsor section.

Another "two weeks-in-one" for the news as we have been gone for 8 days. Now to catch up on all you riders out enjoying the roads. I got to enjoy the roads too... adding around 2000 miles to my bike. The rally was awesome and Steve and Eric did an awesome job putting it on and pulling things together. They even had life flight there giving discounts for their services, and we took them up on it. Thank you Steve for having them there.

We had some really good activity at the DamTour booth and our neighbor booth for the LDRiders, or Long Distance Riders. It was really great seeing all the interest they got and I got to learn a lot more too. And I learned that washing ones LD bike might take more than a single wash by the gals at the rally. Eric Vaillencourt got his monies worth taking his bike over for a good scrub down. I overheard one of hte gals saying... "it was the dirtiest bike she had ever seen, and was on the fourth washing"...LOL The weather during the rally was sunny and not too terribly warm... but the winds were unusually strong and made for a few exciting moments and kept Steve, Eric and others busy maknig sure things were well grounded. Got to visit with lots of DamTour riders... good to see so many dropping in. Thanks for your support. It made the experience even more enjoyable.

These last 12 days, we have had a lot of riding going on... and lots of it was by way of the rally, but many others were out snagging dams left and right. Here are some of this week's (June 9th to June 21st) stats.

Thirty-seven riders were out and snagged a total of 130 dam visits ...wow. All but Bennett dam were visited during these 12 days. This gives us a total of "919" reported dam visits so far this year. Nine from Canadian riders, 30 from Idaho, 372 from Oregon, and 507 from Washington riders. Mason Dam won the most visits at 17 with Wolf Creek right behind at 16 visits.

Also in the news besides two new sponsors, were getting "7" new rider sign-ups. Welcome to Cornelious Doty, Brad Carpenter, Hans Showalter, Brian Jack, Orv Judd and Mike and Denise Harchuck. We now have "197" riders including our three sponsors. And... 7 riders earned their WA pin and 7 riders earned their OR pin. Jamie Tennant, Sue & Darrell Lott, Deb Clarke & Steve Swenning, Bill Mallory, and Patti Bolstad earned the WA pin. Jim & Cheryll Malisch , Sue & Darrell Lott, Patti Bolstad, Terry Morris, and Dean Durham earned thier OR pin. Congrats to all. Two riders made the leap out of the "goose egg" nest. Storm Shearon picked up two dams and rider Gary Jarl from Mission, BC made a three day sweep picking up 9 dams including Pit 3. A few other rides of note, were Dave Brooks who picked up 10 dams in 2250 miles and three days and even got a shot of a barge in his Dalles dams photo (he thinks it should be a requirement) and Patti Bolstad from Idaho, made a run to pick up 9 dams in 3500 miles over eleven days. Way to go riders...

.

Well it appears that winter is not over yet...LOL It has been a rainy last week and weekend. We had one more to finish this week. rider Jim Carroll made a three day, 2300+ mile run to pick up his last two dams of the season. Buffalo Bill and Swan Falls. Great pick for a finish. We also had one rider, Al Kirchner knocked off six more dams to earn both his WA and OR pins last week. Congrats to both of them.

New rider Dan Hollingsworth was the latest to leap out of the nest of "goose eggs" picking up his first two dams of the season, leaving 67 "goose eggs" behind. And, we had another new sign-up from Kennewick, WA, welcome to Dustin Findley. In spite of the rainy weekend, we still had 13 riders out snagging some dams visiting 15 of our dams.

Don't forget.. this weekend is the "Hells Canyon Motorcycle Rally" in Baker City. DamTour and LDRider (Long Distance Riders) will have a booth (or tent) together, so drop in and say hi. We are heading over tomorrow (Thursday) and have another event to attend(see below)so won't get back for updates until the following weekend. I will take the computer, so if things work out, I may get some of them done.

Next up... is our new sponsor Pro Caliber of Bend, OR. We will be there doing a presentation on Thursday, June 17th(6:30pm) for DamTour. The details and perks of sponsorship will be updated when I get back home. Travis says, they do a BBQ and give out prizes for their rider meetings... every third Thursday of the month and even have some rides, so if you are in the area... stop and say hi and meet the team at Pro Caliber of Bend, and thank them for their support.

Memorial Day Weekend arrived... and lots of ride plans had been made to take advantage of the extended weekend time frame. Many riders were going to use this time to snag that far away Bennett Dam... and 8 of our riders did just that. I was so hoping to get a group shot of our riders at Bennett, considering how many were planning and how many met in Hyder, AK and so disappointed not to get even one. Would have been a great calendar cover for next year.

The weather wasn't the best, (that seems to be a broken record this year)... but still we had 23 riders/pillions out making 72 dam visits for the period of May 27 to May 31st. This short time frame produced 5 more finishers... one being pillion Larry D Bear, dutifully riding shotgun with Angel Stombaugh through every weather condition one could not hope for...LOL Our first ever stuffed pillion to register, much less finish.

Our finishers this week are below, with the last four, being within hours of each other:

• Roger Van Santen(FJR)
• Matt Watkins (FJR)
• Angel Stombaugh (Road Star)
• Larry D Bear (P)
• Dan Stombaugh (Concurs)

We had two riders earn their WA pin; Matt Watkins picked up Salmon Lake for the finish and Tim Bowman snagging Salmon, Boundary and Lower Granite. Two close calls for the OR pin when Tracy Visitica(P) and Kevin Russell made a weekend run around Oregon getting all but Timothy. Congrats to all our finishers and pin earners.

Our total number of dam visits so far, is "728". And we added a new rider from Canada this week for a total of "187" sign ups. Welcome to Dan Legg of Port Alberni, BC. I have to wonder how he heard of us... with the timing of so many of our riders enjoying the beautiful countryside in Canada. :-) so which dam do you think had the most visits this last week? Check out some ...

WL Jess, Crescent Lake, and Bennett, each had 8 visits. Mainline 1, had 6; Haystack, Pit #3, The Dalles, and Mason each had 5 visits. Wolf Creek, Tahkenitch, Timothy, and Buffalo Bill each had 4 visits. Salmon Lake and Boundary had 2 each and Swan Falls and Lower Granite had 1 visitor. Year to date visits by state in tables below:

One last thing ... I want to remind you that next week is the famous "Hells Canyon Motorcycle Rally" in Baker City. Our sister event for the year. June 11th to the 13th. We will have a DamTour booth and LDRider (Long Distance Riders) will be there too. Great chance for riders to learn more about long distance riding, and the IBA, and to introduce your friends to DamTour. I hope you can make it over... it will be great. In fact for any riders interested... we hope to have a no-host group/get together dinner... say Friday night???

I was hoping to get the last weeks news out before it was time to get this weeks done...but that didn't happen, so you will get two in one. The weather has continued to give the riders a thrill of adventure, with many unpredictable winter/spring weather patterns scattered through out May. And still we have riders with note worthy dam snags and I am sure, very interesting ride reports to post. Check out the ride reports from Colin Prior and David Hayes and the French Canyon album. How many riders have had to push their bikes over Cayuse Pass? All arrived home safe and sound and still had smiles on their faces, so that is a good thing.

Well .... as the last dam was picked off the unvisited list, it also marked our "first to finish" this season as rider "Cary Funk" nabbed Bonus dam WAC Bennett at Hudson Hope, BC. Congratulations Cary. We also had four riders earn their WA pin; Lloyd Gardner, Robert Dally, Dave Hebert, and Brian Diver. One rider earned the OR pin, Mark Shiner, sending in a whopping 11 dam snags from May 11th to the 16th. Jim Carroll just returned today, being the second rider to snag WAC Bennett with some great shots of that very large and impressive dam. Congrats to all of our riders.

We had two more riders sign up this week. Roger Baggett from El Cajon, CA, and Dan Hollingsworth of Prineville. Steve, Jim and I met Dan for lunch at the Deschutes Brew pub in Bend last Saturday(the 15th), and he lead the way to some great rides around Bend, and a couple of dams, before we departed and went south for more dams. He signed up that night. ;-) We are now up to 186 sign-ups. Will we break 200 this year?

I am going to leak some news ahead of time. We have a new sponsor (will have soon) in Bend. Pro Caliber of Bend wants to join in the fun and offer our riders another place to get great deals. We also have a tentative date to join them in Bend on June 17th for a DamTour promotion and BBQ. I will have more on this later. I hope some of you can make it over for this.

Also adding a bit of news, was a by chance meeting with Liz Washington of Radiant Systems "Custom Ear Plugs" on a rest break in Chemult. We of course exchanged bike talk and damtour, and her business of ear plugs including with sound. She liked the idea of damtour and threw out the idea of a damtour discount, and even would be willing to come to our picnic and do the custom molding on the spot for the DamTour riders if we get enough interest. Anybody interested in this opportunity?? Please let me know.

Now time for a few quick stats up to May 23rd, 2010. We have "186" riders/pillion registered, and of those 120 have visited at least one dam. One rider ... Cary Funk has finished all twenty. Of these 120 , 2 are from Idaho, 43 are from Oregon, and 75 are from Washington. Of these, 112 of the riders have visited Washington dams with 13 having earned the WA pin, and 57 of the riders have visited Oregon dams with 7 of those earning the OR pin. Five rider/pillions have earned both. We have a total of "93" cities represented by our riders in 7 states or provinces. Oregon, Washington, Idaho, California, Illinois, B.C. and Alberta. We have 21 female riders sign-up this year, and that is a record for us. we have 11 in Washington, 8 in Oregon, and one each in Idaho and B.C. We also have 13 pillions officially sign-up which includes one Larry D Bear. One in Canada, 4 in Oregon, and 8 in Washington.

On a less global note for stats... I wanted to share with you that on Saturday May 15th, we had "42" dam visits to 12 different dams, by 20 of our riders(yes I was one of htem), and it broke down with 9 at Timothy Lake, 9 at Haystack and 6 at Mainline 1... all on the same day. Did you see any DamTour riders? I looked all day for the yellow stickers or anything close to a possible damtour rider, other than who I was riding with...LOL

What's the odds?

We finally got a small break in the weather this week and "five" riders got out and left the "zero's" behind. Brad, Brian and Shirlee Sitton, picked up three dams this weekend making it to the ranked league. Jeff Yarnall got a chance to squeeze in two dams to start, and new to DamTour rider Tim Bowman got his first dam of the season as well. In total we had 17 riders/pillions out snagging 38 dam visits.

Rider Jim Carroll, earned his OR pin this weekend making a sweeping run down to get four Oregon dams, and Pit #3 before getting caught in the current local I-205 construction. Rider Bill Lynes made Washington sweep getting his last four WA dams to earn his WA pin. Congrats to both. And a big welcome to new rider Karl Kelso, who signed-up this weekend, from Illinois. Yep... that is what I said. It appears he read about the Dam Tour on the FJR Forum, and it seemed like an interesting way to tour the PNW.  I am sure we will be hearing form him with dam notches on his belt soon. His sign-up brings up to our total sign-ups from last year. How many do you think we will get this year?

On another note, wanted to share that Steve Schnitzer, General Manager of Pro Caliber, Longview is working closer to home now, as he was transferred to the Vancouver store. Steve says he can assure our riders that they will get the same top notch service in Vancouver that they were used to in Longview. Travis Richards is the new General Manager for Longview now, and he is born and bread in Kelso, and has been running the Bend store. He is now running both. Stop in on a Monday, Friday or Saturday to meet him. I met him quickly on my way out of town Friday and found him great to talk with and eager to learn more about DamTour.

First off happy "cinco de mayo" everybody. It is May, isn't it? Hard to tell lately. This season has been very interesting. The Portland area hit the record high/low this week, with a high of 51° since they started recording temperatures. While that may not sound that cold, it was 37 at our house that same morning. And boy has it been cold, and wet, and cold, and yuck. With lots of wind, and hail, and snow, and rain.It has been beating my dear tuplis to death. Read the ride reports and see how much fun our riders had during this special weather pattern.

In spite of the blustery weather, we had 16 riders out braving the unpredictable weather to make a total of 24 dam visits, by riders and pillions this past week. The Dalles and Cowlitz Falls dams each received five visits, making them the most visited. Rider Kevin Russell and pillion Tracy Visitica went to Tahkenitch Dam to leap out of the nest of "goose eggs". We had two OR pins earned this week, by Tim Watkins and Cary Funk. We also had one WA pin earner, Dean Durham. Congrats to all three.

It will be off to the UnTapped Blues and Brews Festival, this Friday. :-) We are heading over to the Tri-Cities area, to enjoy the great music and brews .And I finally will get out to ride... Yippee. But... also, next weeks news and updates will be a bit later. See ya after the 11th or 12th.

Twenty-four riders turned in ride reports this week. Making a total of 54 dam visits and our total dam visit for the season at a whopping "476". Three riders and one pillion earned their second state pin to now have both WA and OR pins. Roger Van Santen picked up his OR pin by sweeping up four Oregon dams, just ahead of the Stombaugh trio of Angel, Larry D and Dan getting their WA pins finishing up with Boundary and Salmon Lake Dams.

Rider Dave Brooks made his debut out of the list of "goose eggs", snagging his first dam, Swan Falls. I am sure we will hear more from him soon. We also added a new rider and pillion to our list and that puts us one number away from last years total of "184". Wow... and we have always had new sign-ups as late as Aug./Sept in the past. Welcome to Tom Johnston, and Mary Ann McKinley.

Some new in the news, I heard from Jim Carroll (who has diligently watched this) that the repeal of the Oregon tax exempt in Washington, did not go through. Yeah !!! That is great news to many border businesses including our sponsor Pro Caliber of Longview, and even better to those of us who shop in Washington. Me being one of them. :-)

Next week things may be a little bit late, as I may actually get a chance to ride. We are heading over to the Tri-Cities area, to enjoy the great UnTapped Blues and Brews Festival, May 7th and 8th, and I believe Bryan Townsend and wife will be there as well. Great music and lots of different beers and wines to sample . How many Tri-City riders will be there??? Hmm mm... I wonder. May even get a chance to drop in at our sponsor Backstage Bistro in Walla Walla again.... yummy. And who knows.... some dams may be in our way. See ya later .

Wow, here we are in April with two new riders, Dean Roberts (who is waiting for ne new bike to arrive), and Dave Brooks from Idaho. And a total of 12 have registered since this time last month. That brings us up to "181" total riders and pillions. Two more riders have launched themselves out of our "goose egg" nest to pick up their first dams of the season. Keith Spicer started with The Dalles, and Steve Woodward picked up Mill Creek and Lower Granite. Jim Carroll earned his WA pin this week, and I forgot to mention that Roger Van Santen had earned his WA pin last week, when he made the daring run for Buffalo Bill Dam. So far to date, we have 3 each for earning our state pins.

For some quick stats before I close we have "418" rides turned in so far, and Aberdeen is in the lead with most visits at a total of "60" dam visits, and next comes Oregon dam The Dalles, with "54" visits. I may add a table next month of number of dam visits. We have had "30" rides reported since last week's end at April 13th. But I know for a fact, we have two riders (at least) that have been to a dam, and not reported it yet. Hint...hint. they live in WA, and are a husband and wife, and should I say what they ride too? Cary Funk turned in the most rides for the week at 4. And there are a total of 111 riders have visited at least one dam this season. This week fourteen different dams were visited, with Mill Creek being the most visited.

And.... that's all folks.

Well, in spite of the fairly ice weather this weekend, only 16 riders sent in their photos and made a total of 37 dam visits. Unless of course some are holding back. In the news this week, is Buffalo Bill Dam being snagged by "Wild Bill", no I mean Wild Roger Cody or Hickok?? Well they did tour together. In any case if you followed the forum, you know Roger Van Santen picked off one of the two remaining dams that had not been visited. But not without some bike issues and a very dramatic ride home. Congrats Roger, and glad you made it back safe and sound. Thanks to all for their encouragement and help for Roger.

Five "goose eggs" made it out of the nest this week, so congrats to Fred Dykins, Jeff Goodson, Sarah Guyton(pillion) and her friend Priscilla :-), and Susan and Darrell Lott. This brings us to a whopping 109 of our 179 total riders that have at least one dam. And they may be some that are trying to mess with my stats, by turning in late reports...LOL

There has been some discussion on where to take your photos and on other dam finding related things... and I want to mention here, that it certainly pays to do a bit of research before you head out (although I do realize we sometimes just happen to be in the area). The information on the placard is brief, very brief... we can't fit it all on there, but, each dam has a page with at least some information and it does get updated, when we discover new things or errors. There are also links to things in the area as well and information about the dam and visitor centers, if I find any. Also included are a few tips and warnings on getting the right dam when the potential of confusion might exist. Then there is the forum, that has the potential of saving you many hours of grief.

Now as I said last week ... plan (and research) your next ride and I'll see ya then.

Well this was a very light and quiet week. Only heard from 7 riders, and 3 of those were from weeks ago. No new dams were visited, but one of our newest to sign-up riders, Jamie Tennant, jumped out of the goose egg division getting two dams on the 4th. Three other riders finally turned in their dam submissions from the March 14th wedding, moving them out of the nest as well. Rider Tod Coxen moved up from a single dam snag to near the top after picking up ten dams in five days.

While I could go on and try and come up with some other interesting stats or see if I can start another discussion... I think I will jut call this short, and enjoy the temporary peace and quiet. :-)

Until next week... plan your next ride and I'll see ya then.

As we hit the end of our first month of the season we see we have "177" registered total of riders/pillions and one sponsor. We received our t-shirt order and got Steve diligently got them mailed. We received our DamTour decals and have already sold 15. Before long you will be spotting the yellow ovals everywhere.

We had 24 riders report a total of 56 rides this past week. Six of those riders were reporting the previous week or earlier rides. You love to mess with my stats... don't you? LOL

Moving up in the list with 16 dams this week and earning the first Oregon Pins, were Angel and Dan Stombaugh, and Larry D Bear, making a white knuckle ride for Angel, getting Timothy Lake Dam for the OR pin after work one night (read the ride report in the forum). This ride was followed over this last weekend with a more fun filled for them ride in Washington picking up three more dams putting them at the top of the heap (at least this week). We had eight new sign ups since March 23rd. A big DamTour Welcome to our new riders; Jamie Tennant, Dennie Ward, William Leonard, Jeff Goodson, Susan & Darrell Lott, Tom Ruehle, and a Sponsor, Pro Caliber Team of Longview. Some of the Pro Caliber employees will be signing up as individuals as well. How great is this... a sponsor that will ride and partake of DamTour. :-)

We now have 41 Yamahas, 36 Hondas, 29 BMW's, 21 Harley Davidson's, 15 Kawasaki's, 13 Suzuki's, 3 Moto Guzzi, 2 Triumph's, 1 Victory, 1 Ducati, and 1 Buell. We have "115" riders from Washington, "51" from Oregon, 5 from Canada, 4 from California, and 2 from Idaho. So my question for the week is...

Drum roll please!!! What is it about Washington that they always more than double our Oregon registrations??? And what can we do about this Oregon? Put these two questions into your discussion.

DamTour can be FREE! How's that? Well here's how I figured it out. DamTour is $30, right? . . . Right! With the new Pro Caliber, Longview (a DamTour sponsor) deals for DamTour riders it can be!

Pro Caliber Longview, already has the lowest prices on tires around. Now with your DamTour Placard - mounting is FREE! That's a $30 value just about anywhere. On top of this you can get 20% off anything in the accessory department and this includes catalog orders. So get your tires and other gear at Pro Caliber and DamTour is FREE.......

Check out our sponsor page for more details...

Are we making this too easy? This was a question for us this month as we continue to sky rocket out of sight, with the stats only three weeks in. For the first time in our seven years, we only have two dams that have not been visited, and we are still in our first month of seven. The most distant dams, WAC Bennett, and Buffalo Bill are the only ones not visited now that Crescent Lake and Timothy Lake (both Oregon dams) have been snagged. Roger Van Santen was the first (not by much) to Crescent Lake, on the 19th, and Ron Blood and Candy Hunter, were the first to Timothy Lake on the 20th with Roger not far behind them. In spite of reports that the road to Timothy was not passable, there was another direction to attack this dam from. The south. The road was clear out of Estacada but had about 7 miles of gravel, I am told.

Below are the newest dams taken off the un snagged list. Only two left.

1. Crescent Lake(1st visited):  Roger Van Santen, Angel & Dan Stombaugh & Larry D. (3/19)
2. Timothy Lake (2nd visited):  Ron Blood and Candy Hunter(3/20)

Three more riders have signed up this last week, two of them new to DamTour. Chuck Ingham, Mike Portemont, and Lisa Alder. Welcome to Lisa and Mike. For the other stats of the week, sixteen of the twenty dams were visited, two of those for the first time, with "60" reported visits total, from 35 riders (3 were pillion). Aberdeen Dam leads the pack with 13 new visits this week, and a total for the season of 47. Boundary is at the bottom of the visited list at 3 along with Timothy. Crescent Dam, however, newly snagged this week, has 6 visits and only one was pillion(Larry D Bear).

So ........... riders, are we making this too easy? Or is it the Hoover vacuum syndrome?

We are moving right along and the numbers are growing.Two more new riders since last news report. Jeff Yarnall, and Ed Recknagle have signed up making our total at "166". This is about 90% of our total riders at end of season last year and we are barely three weeks into this year... WOW!!!

We had some extra excitement this last week with a sort of impromptu wedding(of sorts) of two of our DamTour Riders. Angel and Dan Stombaugh are now officially married and in a unique and beautiful way. You can read all about it on the forum for more details, but they tied the knot after riding across the Mossyrock Dam to the Mossyrock Park (where they first met ) with a group of DamTour riders and friends. The ceremony was done with the beautiful backdrop of the park trees, reservoir, and their motorcycles. Sealing with a kiss, many loud cheers, and the blowing of bubbles lead us into the surprise reception of a wedding cake complete with motorcycle topped cake and sparkling cider at the covered kitchen. I think we all enjoyed the gathering and the bride and groom were beaming.

The rides of the last week showed that thirteen of the dams were visited by 43 riders of which 3 were pillion. No unvisited dams were snagged. One rider, Matt Watkins, hit five dams on Sunday the 14th, making a real round with The Dalles, Haystack, Mainline, Mason and Wolf. Sounds like a great ride. There were 47 rides reported this week with only six of them being late reports from the previous week. Can you guess which dam saw the most riders??? Read the forum on the wedding to know that answer...LOL Okay Cowlitz Falls Dam was the hot spot of the week. I have 12 reported rides to that dam, and I know for a fact of some wedding attendees that were there that I have not received anything from... so it was more than 12. Of the 12 reported, at least 4 were not wedding attendees and I hear there were at least 15 bikes at once at the dam. As I am running late... this week... this is it... Enjoy the great looking upcoming weather.

My oh my.... This has to be the first ever that we have had this many dams off the not-visited list this early in the year, ever!!! . And for sure the first time we have had someone earn a state pin in the first 8 days of a DamTour season . Rider Cary Funk made his second run of the season and picked up five more dams and earned himself the WA pin by snagging Salmon Lake and Boundary Dams. He was also first at this two dams but not by much. New rider this year, Patti Bolstad, who didn't even have her placard yet, made it to Boundary Dam the very next day. And Steve Folkestad was hot on his tail at Salmon Lake. Steve stayed the night in the welcoming town and got to meet some of the locals residents.

The other major run that snapped the dams off the unvisited list was the Dynamic Trio of Angel & Dan Stombaugh, and Larry D Bear. This soaring group picked up 8 dams over their four day ride. This included two bonus dams. I am sure you will read all about their ride in their ride report. And Larry D is supposed to be posting too. Matt Cook and Steve Folkestad both picked up five dams this weekend as well, moving up the rankings table in a hurry. We added 7 dams to the now visited list as you can see below, and all 16 dams so far visited were visited during the last four days. That makes this week with some really high numbers... but believe me... it is some high numbers. Since closing out last week on March 3rd... I received 90 dam visit reports from 41 riders(a couple are pillion visits) .Only six of these were from the prior week. That is a lot of riding and it is still winter guys... not that you can't and don't ride in winter... but wow. That is a lot of "Dam" riding.

Dams visited the last four days in order, and who visited that dam the first day visited (the visits were very close again on some of them). This only lists first day visits of just visited dams this report. Leaving only two Bonus dams and two Oregon dams that have not been visited so far this season and from the way things are going ... it may not be long.

1. Wolf Creek (1st visited):  Matt Cook, Angel & Dan Stombaugh & Larry D. (3/04)
2. Mason (2nd visited):  Angel & Dan Stombaugh & Larry D, Matt Cook (3/04)
3. Swan Falls (3rd visited):   Angel & Dan Stombaugh & Larry D (3/05).
4. Pit 3 (4th visited):  Angel & Dan Stombaugh & Larry D (3/06)
5. Boundary (5th visited):  Cary Funk (3/06)
6. Salmon Lake (6th visited):  Cary Funk, Steve Folkestad (3/06)
7. WL Jess (7th visited):  Angel & Dan Stombaugh & Larry D (3/06)

And.... with that... guys and gals, I need to get back to the photo album and get those done too.

Conconully rolls out the red carpet for DamTour. Riders need to check out these gracious rider perks from the community of Conconully, WA. It is outlined on the Salmon Lake Dam page, as well as on our new sponsors page.

Tom & Debbie are offering discount for lodging at the Gibson's North Fork Lodge, and two local cafe/restaurants are offering food discounts as well. Lucky D's and Sit 'n Bull Saloon.

As to the "Red Carpet" this is the banner you will see that they are making to welcome us. Please take the extra time to drop in and say hi and a great thank you welcoming the DamTour riders this season.

All of this is thanks to rider Jim Carroll # 0016 that has visited this town and been a great Dambassador for DamTour. Thank you Jim :D

Wow... what an exciting launch we had. This was probably the most active first weekend of the life of DamTour. Steve, Eric, Jim and I spent launch day at Love Leather's doing day long presentations of Hells Canyon Rally and DamTour. We had a phenomenal turn out, and thank you to all of you DamTour riders that showed up to give their support. It was great getting to see you. We even signed up several new DamTour riders Saturday and received lots of good feedback.

Now for some stats just to show you where we are already this year. Five days in to season, with 153 riders and pillions signed up. Seven different dams were visited on Saturday, our first day. The weekend total showed 9 of our twenty dams had been visited, and those first three days has "68" rider visits to these nine dams. Thirteen riders/pillions were out hitting dams launch day, twenty-two on day two, and seven more on day three. Of course as always, this is from what has been reported so far. And... as usual I happen to know of a few more riders that did not turn their dams in yet.

Below I have listed the dams in visit order, and who visited that dam the first day visited. But ... these rides and visits were so close, DT riders were running into each other or barely missing one another at the dams. In some cases by mere minutes. This only lists first day visits of any particular dam.

1. French Canyon (1st visited):   Bill Mallory (2/27)
2. Haystack (2nd visited):  Lori Magers, Cary Funk (2/27)
3. The Dalles (3rd visited):   Cary Funk, Angel & Dan Stombaugh, Bill Mallory, Lori Magers, Dave Menicosy (2/27).
4. Aberdeen Lake (4th visited):  Bill Lynes, Matt Henry, Jim Guyton, Scott Smith (2/27)
5. Cowlitz Falls (5th visited):  Marty Larsen, Bill Lynes, Matt Henry (2/27)
6. Mill Creek(6th visited):  Deb Clarke & Steve Swenning(2/27)
7. Mainline #1 (7th visited):  Cary Funk (2/27)
8. Lower Granite (8th visited):   Deb Clarke & Steve Swenning, Daniel Dyer, Alice & Dwight Gladden, Mike McClure, Bob Parrish (2/28)
9. Tahkenitch (9th visited):   Dave Menicosy (3/01)

Just a few more stats before I close ... as of today, March 3rd, we have 99 registered rider/pillions from Washington, 43 from Oregon, 5 from Canada, 4 from California, and 2 from Idaho. Of these 153 registered, their are 38 Yamaha's, 30 Honda's, 24 BMW's, 17 Harley-Davidson's, 14 Kawasaki's, 11 Suzuki's, 3 Moto Guzzi's, 2 Triumph's, 1 Victory, 1 Ducati, and 1 Buell. And eleven pillions.

That's it for this week... enjoy the ride.

OK so here it is. Hells Canyon Motorcycle Rally and DamTour are, and will forever be, connected. This is because both of these great events were dreamed up by the same guy. Me.(Steve) Because of this fact and the fact that I'm always promoting both events to motorcycle riders, you are invited to yet another combined event.

HCMR and DamTour will be doing a season kickoff seminar at Love Leathers Outpost on February 27th at Noon, 2pm and 4pm. This is the everything you wanted to know about Hells Canyon or DamTour but were afraid to ask kind of deal. We will have Steve (me), Eric (co-founder,HCMR) and Cheryll (the brains behind DamTour) giving the presentations. We will have some give-a-ways, free posters, slide shows, and take questions till we can't stand it anymore.

Love Leathers Outpost will have refreshments and some special deals as well. So if you have questions about Hells Canyon or DamTour feel free to drop in. If you think you already know everything there is to know, bring a friend, there is no real good reason to keep something this much fun to yourself!

Love Leathers Outpost
1912 NE 179th Street
Ridgefield WA 98642

Take exit 9 off I-5 go east for a half mile and you're there!

Steve Folkestad
Eric Folkestad
Cheryll Malisch

Well riders, we are only in to the first ten days since registration has opened, and we have "75" riders signed-up. Lots of new riders as well as some great veterans are anxious to get signed up for DamTour.

While we still have a few weeks left before the official season opens, we are busy in the back scenes finalizing the "dam" picks for 2010. Steve, Jim and I, are running a few dam quests(previews), making sure we can use (and get some photos of) the dams we have tentatively selected. We are almost done... so hold on. The dam list is getting closer. Last weekend, Jim and I scouted out 7 dams. Some will work, some where a sad disappointment, and some will work in the future. We were only blocked by snow (about a six foot pile) on one dam, and had we just gone a bit further on the semi plowed road we had started on, could have gotten pictures of that dam... oh "dam"...LOL . More dam questing is scheduled this weekend as well.

In the news this week... good news. Rider Bob Parrish has once again, offered the great riders perk of a discount at his great restaurant in Walla Walla. He says, he finally got the discount code to work as he heard it wasn't always working last year. The food is great, Bob, is a fantastic host... so drop in to the Backstage Bistro and show your placard for a fabulous meal with a great DamTour discount. Do call ahead when you are planning to be in the area, or make reservations. See below... Thank you Bob.

Only a few 2010 Calendars are left... get your order in now , and if you want a long-sleeved t-shirt it needs to be before March 1st. If you have any interest in sweat shirts... contact me DT Rider before season starts and we may be able to add those too.

So, make sure that bike is ready to roll , DamTour 2010 is almost here....

We are gearing up for an exciting season of DamTour 2010, and Registration is officially open for Pre-Registration Now. The official start this year is February 27, 2010. While the season isn't open yet, not all the fun is waiting for the season to start, we have been enjoying bits and pieces of Damtour Entertainment by rider Jim Carroll, who has generously filled our idle days with puzzles. These fun to do puzzles are made from past dam photos, and the four new bonus dams for this year, as well a a great vintage photo for all to figure out how to piece. A great big thank you Jim Carroll for all his hard work, and the fun we all got from doing them. For those of you that are new to Damtour or have missed out on this... check out the forum for Jim's posts. They are great fun.

Packets will start heading out the door February 22nd. Your packet will include your placard with the list of dams on the back, a welcome note from Steve, a note about submitting your photos and how they must be name, as well as a information on what will count and what won't for your dam visits. On another note about placards, hang on to them. We had several people loose them last year and we sent out new ones (sometimes more than once). This year, you loose your placard and you will pay for a replacement. So hang on tight, or put a string on it like some have, but don't loose them.

And .... lastly. Sign up now, put on your DamTour t-shirt, pack you bike, gas it up, and be ready to roll...

Get that throttle hand in shape, DamTour 2010 is almost here....

The season ended with a great "End of Season Party". If you missed it you missed a great opportunity to meet other riders, eat some great food, and do some fun discounted shopping. This year we owe a big thanks to Pro-Caliber, Longview, that offered up a great location for us to have our party out of the weather, and in a central location for most of us. They were also gracious enough to provide our riders with some special gift certificates for our Dam drawings, and going above and beyond, offered us some fun "pop-n-shop" opportunities, with dozens of balloons enclosing shopping discounts from 20 to 40% off part and accessories. Wow... and "Thank You, Pro-Caliber". Hope all you riders got a good chance to browse around the store and meet the great and friendly staff, and do a little shopping.

With the help of KR Family Catering (Robyn & Keith Hackett - they will have website up soon, if you need a great caterer ) and Dave & Kathi Haney and my dear husband, Jim Malisch the party went really smooth and was a great success. All this help gave Steve and myself the time to visit and take care of the business of handing out the trophies and pins. This was our biggest gathering yet. We had over "80" riders there and again were blessed with great weather.

We announced next years Bonus Dams and it seems that it has inspired many riders to start planning now. Our Bonus Dams for next year are: Pit # 3 Dam, in California; Swan Falls Dam, in Idaho; W.A.C. Bennett Dam, in B.C., Canada; and Buffalo Bill Dam, in Wyoming, that is featured on our 2010 shirt. Some great life experiences lie ahead.

Also announced was the upcoming increase for DamTour 2010 registration from $20 to $30. This had to be done to keep providing this great adventure for you. As Steve put it, you will still have the same great annual picnic, and the same fantastic end of season party, and the fun website and forum to share your adventures, and you will still be able to earn the states pins, and the trophy. So it will just get better. :-)

We had pre-ordering available for the 2010 t-shirt at the party. For those of you that missed out, we have now added a DamTour Store page to the site as well. There you can pre-order your t-shirt to be sure you get the size you need and as a temporary offer, we have added the choice of ordering long or short-sleeves. If there is enough interest we can add a sweatshirt as well. But this offer is only good as a pre-order before we send in our first order in February. The store also offers a chance to get the first ever DamTour Calendar for 2010. These will make great Christmas presents so get yours ordered soon, before they are all sold out. When they are gone, they are gone. We hope to be adding other things later. So keep watch.... here.

Well riders... you have made this another wonderful DamTour season and we look forward to seeing you all back here for next year. We will be busy in the background planning for next year, and making the final dam selections. The new season web site and the 2010 dams should be up and ready by mid-February. So while you are chomping at the bit and waiting around for us.... get those bikes ready to roll.... it's gonna be a great year.

Now the time has come to get off my lazy behind and finish this season wrap up and get some of our past albums and stats caught up, so today is my day. Some of the new albums are already up and new pages are coming soon. Till next year..... Just ride!!!