As absurd as this whole "government shutdown" thing is, there's a silver lining. Our nation's national parks are, for the most part, now vacant. If you have the means, the determination, and the willingness to risk a brush with law enforcement, you can enjoy our protected lands as they're rarely viewed: without flocks of tourists spoiling the experience.

I'm not typically one for politics. My life soldiers on, regardless of the state of our government, so I saw no need to burden myself with concern over the latest antics on Capitol Hill.

Then someone told me Cades Cove was closed.

The thought of the loop completely abandoned, devoid of traffic and the suburban flatlanders responsible for it, was too much to ignore. Rumor had it that rangers would slap anyone caught in the park with a $125 fine. If they charged that much to run the loop by your lonesome, there'd be a line clear to Maryville. Totally worth it.

During the summer months, getting in or out of the 11-mile motor loop just outside of Townsend, TN can't be done with anything approximating grace or speed. It's a shame. The drive is one of the prettiest in the park, with beautiful views, lots of wildlife, and several historic structures dotting the route.

Growing up, this place was the venue for the rare family picnic and all the great memories that accompany KFC in the tall grass. The intervening decades saw the Smoky Mountains National Park become one of the most popular tourist destinations in the country. The park's 522,000 acres welcome more than nine million visitors annually, two million of which cram themselves through Cades Cove.

Technically, there's only one way into Cades Cove, and that main entrance promised an easy bottleneck for rangers to turn would-be sightseers around. But there are two lesser-known one-way dirt roads that leave the valley from the backside. With the park closed, there was a good chance I could enter the loop by going the wrong way on one of them, Rich Mountain Road. Doing so would drop me in near one of the old Baptist churches and give me easy access to the back half of the loop. That is, so long as I didn't get stopped.

My daily rider, a 1982 Kawasaki GPz 750, isn't exactly suited for trail duty. I'd need a better tool for the job. Fortunately, my friend Kevan commutes on a 2013 Honda CRF250L, and has offered me the handlebars on more than one occasion. I made the call.

I should take a moment to make something clear: I'd never been on a dirt bike.

Before this little adventure, the sum total of my experience off-road on two wheels was the time I swung wide entering my driveway, touched grass, and nearly laid the Kawasaki on its side. My neighbors found this very amusing. Kevan not only knew this, but still encouraged me take his bike. I believe the term is "enabler."

But if you're going to cut your teeth on some gravel, there may be no better bike than the CRF250L. For starters, it's light, tipping the scales at just 320 pounds, which means even an atrophied writer like myself can fling the bike around with abandon. That it gets down the road with 17 horsepower, less than my lawnmower, means it's difficult to get yourself into too much trouble. There's a surprising amount of mid-range torque, but keeping up with traffic is

absolutely a matter of being in the right gear at the right time.

I arrived at the end of Rich Mountain Road to find the gate predictably closed and locked, but bereft of rangers or other law enforcement. I found a small footpath off to one side, pointed the CRF250L's plastic fender toward the track and set off, easily skirting the feds' best attempt to keep people out of the park.

Judas Priest's "Breaking the Law" set itself on repeat inside my helmet as I mulled exactly what might really happen if I got busted trespassing on the people's land. Would they impound Kevan's bike? Phantom sirens suddenly joined Halford's wail, so I kept both the speed and the engine RPM down. I half expected to find a roadblock after every bend. Instead, I saw only a handful of hikers, who, like me, felt they could take their chances.

Eventually, my paranoia gave way to the realization that the park was made for days like this. Early October in the mountains of Tennessee teeters delicately on the cusp of autumn. Some trees are already starting to show a blush of color, near unnatural against the spotless blue sky. Others have begun dropping their leaves, dusting the path with crisp litter that crunches under your tires. The air's a solid 10 degrees cooler up here than in the valley, and the wind at your neck is a reminder that your remaining comfortable riding days are numbered. Best get it in while you can.

The 6.5-mile ride into the park passed without event, and I eventually caught the white clapboard shape of the Cades Cove Missionary Baptist Church peeking through the trees. Again, I expected to find, at the very least, a bored-looking ranger in a cruiser waiting for idiots like me. There was no one. I wound the bike around the next gate to find the park beautifully and perfectly abandoned, quiet with the exception of the putter and pop from the CRF's exhaust.

I could have wound out the bike and drug pegs through turns usually clogged with interloping tourists, but I just wanted to enjoy the park in this rarest of circumstances. Aside from one tom turkey the size of a Velociraptor, Cades Cove was mine. It was like seeing the person you've loved all your life in the same perfect light as the night you fell for them.

Of course, this dream state was checked by the knowledge that I was still very much in violation of federal law. As I approached the Cable Grist Mill, the unofficial halfway point on the paved loop and the location of a visitor's center, I again braced for an unpleasant conversation with a ranger. Except, there were no rangers there, either. I plodded down the gravel lane towards Parson's Branch Road, a rough, one-way, four-wheel-drive trail that links Cades Cove with the Tail of the Dragon. It was here that I found my first real obstacle.

You see, Parson's Branch begins at a wooden bridge over a decent-sized creek, and there's a serious gate at the entrance. There was no way for me get the CRF onto that bridge. I had three options: go back the way I came, exit through the loop's main entrance (where I would undoubtedly meet a curious ranger), or ford the creek on my friend's brand-new, $5000 motorcycle. Naturally, I chose the latter.

I won't lie to you: It took a solid 10 minutes of pacing back and forth, muttering, to convince myself this was the correct course of action. Even as I nervously worked the bike down the embankment to the water, I was certain this was the worst idea I'd had in a month. In addition to the likelihood of damaging my friend's machine, this also ran against every tread-lightly fiber of my being. But I simply didn't see another option. I'll let the video explain how it went.

The bike was in its element on Parson's Branch. The road is passable in any vehicle with a little bit of ground clearance, as deep ruts, large rocks, and a few less eventful water crossings are all part of the deal. The CRF soaked it all up, building my meager confidence. In the woods, 30 mph might as well be 130 mph.

The eight miles to route 129 passed quickly, and getting the little Honda around the last gate was a breeze compared to the creek fiasco. I was out of the park.

I'm well aware that doing what I did wasn't without risk, and I don't condone trespassing on private land or breaking the law. The reality is that the national park's closed not because there needs to be a ranger at every trailhead, but because if you injure yourself, get lost, or otherwise need assistance out here, there's no one to come get you. You're on your own. Had I slipped up on the bike and wound up in the trees, I would have laid there until Washington got its act together, which means someone would have found my bones with a 250cc smile welded to my skull.

As for the bike, the little deviant ate up route 129 with gusto. The complex and technical turns that make up the Tail of the Dragon were no problem for the featherweight Honda's ready powerband. I wound up reeling in considerably more powerful and expensive hardware, and I wondered how great this motorcycle might be with a set of legitimate wheels and street tires.

As it sits, the Honda CRF250L will serve up 75 mpg and more giggles per pound than anything else I've had my hands on.

Maybe it was the exhilaration of being where I shouldn't have been, or the fact that my first act of civil disobedience coincided with my first dirt bike experience, but something tells me it won't be long before there's a dual sport in in my garage.

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