The Crater

Up on the hill near Bonney Lake, Washington, there used to be a jagged, muddy hole in the ground, laced with gullies and washouts.

Everyone called it The Crater. (I capitalize it out of reverence and respect.)

 

No matter where you seemed to go in the Seattle-Tacoma area, if you were among guys who rode knobby-tired motorcycles in dirt and mud, you knew about The Crater. Motorcycle shops knew, riders knew—it had a certain status to it. If a fellow rider overheard that you had never heard of The Crater you would likely be met with, “You been living under a rock?”

 

I couldn’t begin to tell you exactly where it was because that was decades ago. I just know that if you drove south on highway 162 (the Sumner-Orting highway), and turned left at the Alderton general store and wound your way up the hill out of the Puyallup River valley, you’d be headed the right direction. There were no markings to guide you to The Crater. You’d have to know your way. The only way to find it if you’d never been there was by following another dirt bike rider.

There was nothing magical about it. It was just unusual. Nobody seemed to know its origin. Was it dug? Was it some weird quirk of natural erosion? I never found an answer. (Of course, I never really pursued it either.) You almost had a view of the valley (sorta seen in the background) from the parking area up there.

 

The conditions of The Crater depended largely on what time of year it was. The water could cover the whole bottom fairly deeply, or maybe just half of it had shallow water or mud. In summer months it could be completely dry.

No matter what time of year it was, the grooves up and down the sides never went away. There was no one to groom the sides of it with their tractor to keep it in optimum condition. It was “what you see is what you get.” The constant tire-churning of motorcycles was all that kept it clear. (If you can call some of those mini-ravines clear.) Here’s my brother, Denis, bombing up one of them on his Suzuki 250RM, followed closely by my best friend, Dan, on his Yamaha:

 

The Crater was a good place to go for those that weren’t trail riders—folks that liked to go park and ride but still stay close by their car or truck. There weren’t any trails leading away from the The Crater to get lost on. It was just a big area with space all around it to park your rig, with all the riding being done there within the circle. We didn’t go there often because we were avid trail riders. (I classify ‘trail riders’ as folks that point themselves away from their base camp and go, not turning around until they were down to half a tank of gas.) It was fun and it wasn’t too far away.

There is nothing but houses up there now, and it’s been that way for years. No surprise there though—view properties = $$$.

The Crater: Gone but not forgotten.