North Cascades Ride and Crash
June 19, 2004

Doreen getting her ass kicked

Patrick and Doreen at the Diablo Lake overlook

Diablo Lake

Doreen and Adam

East of Washington Pass, looking west. The hairpin turn in question is visible in
the lower left corner

One of the contributing factors that makes highway 20 the best ride in Washington

Patrick and Adam a few minutes before the crash

The ST came to rest on its left side, a few feet behind the spot shown here. You
can see the gas stain where it came to rest right at the edge of the asphalt. For
those of you familiar with Washington Pass we were headed west, up the pass, and
were riding through the 180 degree, right hand sweeper. Just as we were exiting
the last bit of the turn, the rear wheel slid on some transmission fluid that had been
deposited in the lane. I was already looking up the following straight away as the
rear wheel began to slide out to the left. The last thing Doreen remembers hearing
was me saying some like, "what the heck", as I realized the rear wheel was washing
out. I <thought> we were going to just low side, but judging from the damage to the
bike and the tumble I took, I'm assuming I hung on until the high-sided while Doreen
came of during the low side. Doreen slide feet first, face down up the road. Her jacket
slid up pretty high resulting in road rash on her stomach and chest. I don't remember
much after thinking I was going to low side. I do remember my head hitting several
times and my limbs flailing as I rolled. I was seeing road-sky-road-sky and was just
thinking to myself, "don't reach out and try and stop this" and "when am I going to
stop?". The left side is pretty much crunched from the mirror to the left luggage
box and the GIVI.

We put Doreen in the shade of this boat that was parked by the side of the road
near the crash site. It was quite hot in the sun. We covered her with jackets as she
was showing minor signs of shock. Since we had no cell phone reception in this area
we had to rely on a passing motorist to drive down the road and call 911. Once I was
sure Doreen was relatively OK I took these pictures. Notice something in these
pictures? That line in the sand is transmission fluid from the truck that left the
boat there. The guy that owned the boat showed up after the crash. At first he
thought we were looting his boat. After I told him what happened, he felt pretty guilty.

I walked down the road and found that the transmission fluid continues well beyond
where our slide started. I was riding the inside half of the inside lane. It would
appear my rear wheel drifted into the oil line and transmission fluid in the center
of the lane, or the transmission fluid may have been right of the oil line. I didn't
walk that far back down the road to check.

Here you can see the skid marks from both the front and rear tires. Front is near
the rail, rear to the right. I assume the 'high side' occurred where the skids end.

This picture is taken from the end of the guard rail looking back down the road.
If Doreen and I left the bike at the end of the skid marks it looks like we slid
quite a ways! See the picture below.

Here's the view from a spot near the end of the guard rail looking up the road.
Doreen came to rest next to the bike, I ended up a few feet to the right of them.

Front end of the bike. Looks like much of the left side fairing is damaged!

Rear damage. More detailed damage photos here.

More rear damage! After waiting about an hour for an ambulance to arrive, Doreen
and I were taken for a 1 hour ride to the closest hospital in Brewster, WA. X-rays
confirmed neither one of us have any broken bones and for the <most> part our safety
equipment performed well. Doreen got the worst of it as she appears to have slid feet
first, face down, for a while. Her jacket slid up her waist and she has road rash from
her belly button to her lower chest. Along with that she has a bruised right elbow and
left shoulder. I have about a 6" round road rash/bump on my left hip and a smaller
version on my left elbow. All in all, we were pretty lucky.


Adam's helmet

Looks like it bounced a few times!

Doreen's helmet. A couple of impacts

Check out the chin guard on Doreen's helmet. It scooped gravel as she slid backwards.

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