I cut my wheeling teeth on the old Shaw Lake trail (pre-washout) and Highrider, many, many great times up in the Sultan basin area back in the day. We last ran Highrider in November 2003, had a great group of 13 rigs, climbed the rock and ran the lower loop, went through the upper bogs and tight trees, had lunch at the microwave tower lookout. There was a "backside" to Highrider as well, take a left just before the trail joins the tower access road near the top. Took you down some steep clay trenches and through some very steep washes, used to run all the way back down to the fenced/gated area on the left before the first bridge off of Sultan basin Road.
Unfortunately, Mother Nature and the foolishness of man led to the basin's downfall as a wheeling destination. Shaw lake washed out about 2/3 of the way to the top of what was once a spectacular lookout back in 1999, Shaw Lake trail was closed for logging in 2002. The backside of Highrider washed out in 2001 about halfway down, and vandalism of the microwave tower and cutting bypasses at the rock entrance led to the closure of highrider back in Jan. of 2004.
A very fun, close area of trails lost forever.
