I went to Cle Elum yesterday to look at a building lot at “Suncadia”, a huge high-end planned community and resort east of Snoqualmie Pass . We took the Salmon la Sac exit and crossed back over I-90. The road to Suncadia looked really familiar. I had told my wife and her daughter that we were really close to where we used to ride the old coal slag piles just outside of Roslyn, the town where they filmed the TV series “Northern Exposure”. The road looked familiar because it passed what I recognized as the place on the Cle Elum river where my brothers and I used to camp. There were a number of rumors as to why the area was shut down, “the health department did it because of the potential for black lung“,” horse people won a fight for the area for their exclusive use“, and the most believable- someone broke their arm and sued the property owner, Plumb Creek Timber Company. For those old enough to remember, and lucky enough to have ridden "Number 9", “Widowmaker“, and “Bullfrog flats“, the true demise of this “Disneyland for dirt bikers” should be a sad revelation if you didn't know about it already. Oh well, it was private property and they had right to make a profit. Number 9 now sits majestically in the middle of a golf course. A rather surreal sight for those who squirt the dirt up her flanks. Never again….. [video=youtube;uTau_ZG0qbU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTau_ZG0qbU[/video]
Were those old dirtbike hillclimb pics of you back in the day? Looks like a CR500 was in the mix. Fun times.....nice to reminisce.
The Shell station at Cle Elum saved my butt two years ago by patching my rear tire for about $10. Never heard of the place before that day, and never went back. But boy, do I love it there!
