Death Valley......

[Wacked]

Death Valley - I'll try to do this in segments.  Just got back Friday night.  Super trip with great riding partners and incredible scenery.



Looking out west to Mt. Whitney, the highest peak in continental USA



More to come tomorrow.....   this is actually a test to see the best way to get my pictures loaded

[Wacked]

Test #3 ....   Photo down-load

][URL=http://s614.photobucket.com/user/h56028/media/IMG_0143.jpg.html][/url]

I'm extra technically challenged this week

][URL=http://s614.photobucket.com/user/h56028/media/5d44669b.jpg.html][/url]

Lets see how this works

Wacked

[Wacked]

OK .....  Good enough.

Still don't understand why one photo is nasty big and the other is sub-sized

[Wacked]

So .........    DEATH VALLEY. 

Seems like an iconic place to check visit on a bike.  The idea to ride i started out as a wild-hair at the beginning of summer.  By the end of summer, Pegleg, Wally, and I had some dates locked.

Wally would be our fearless leader.  Originally, the route he had sketched out would be strongly "back-country" and required each of us to carry apx. 7 gallons of fuel each to make it safely.  PegLeg and I needed some further bike prep to make this happen, so, over the summer, we each spent time outfitting our bikes for the tour.

Nature had a different idea.  A couple of weeks before the trip, the region was deluged with crazy amounts of rain.  Existing trails ere washed away to non-existance.  Reportedly, some roads had 30+ feet cut-outs that not even the Jeep/Rock-crawler crowd was able to navigate.  The weekend before our trip, we knew that the route would have to be flexible.  Wally was monitoring the reports and had a pulse on the conditions.  But, you know, sometimes you just don't know what it's like until you get there. 

PegLeg and I are DDSR's, but who's Wally?  Well, he's a southern CA buddy of PegLeg's who really digs riding.  He's been involved with racing, and in particular, desert racing all his life.  He's a Baja 1000/Trophy Truck kind of guy. 

][URL=http://s614.photobucket.com/user/h56028/media/IMG_1430.jpg.html][/url]

Wally is part Motorcycle Boy Scout - the Bruce Willis "Yippee-Kiayaeee" type - and part Desert Sensai. He likes the outdoors and currently uses the motorcycle as a tool to enjoy it.

So, Friday morning a week and a half ago, PegLeg, his wife, and I threw the bikes on the trailer and made the haul to Southern CA. 

][URL=http://s614.photobucket.com/user/h56028/media/IMG_1402.jpg.html][/url]

The trip was uneventful.  Made it down to the SW corner of Utah by the first night.  Finished up another 6 hours on Saturday.  Sure was good to get out of the truck Mid-day Saturday!  Rested for the next day and a half.

Checked the weather for the coming week - Sweet! Looks like the weather will be in our favor!


To Be Continued ...........      Stay tuned for Day 1

[Wacked]

Death Valley - Day 1

Woke up early and made the drive to Panamint Springs.  Parked, unloaded the bikes, and got everything sorted out by about 10:00.  We started winding our way westward and quickly jumped off the pavement towards somewhere called Darwin Falls.  We had a do-or-die course in navigating sand.  I think we meandered 8-10 miles and bumped into this unique oasis spring. 

[/URL]

Wally, told us to check out the pool.  After the dry landscape it was surreal to see Koi kind of fish cruising just under the surface.

[/URL]

We then headed 8-10 miles through the town of Darwin and then swung NW through a large valley with singular spiny desert trees.  We stopped to put on another layer and have a snack.  I was thinking the area was looking rather bleak.  The trail headed into and area with some hills and trees.  We were heading up over a ridge to get to an old salt mine.

Shortly after we came our the trees we hit a wash.  I was the first to go down.  As we navigated up the trail, we had legitimate trail 1/2 the time and the other half we had wash.  The wash looked like gravel but behaved like 16" of pea-rock.  Eventually, all of us took at least 1 turn going down.



We stopped briefly to lick our wounds and then continued for another 1/2 mile until we were stopped.  More going down.  We were tuckered out from wrestling and lifting bikes.  Wally did a Pre-Run and determined to back-track 4-5 miles and get a place for the night.  We wouldn't be making it over the ridge from this direction.

We set up camp, scrounged some wood, and get a fire going.  I was a good time to stop.

[/URL][/url]

Told some tall tales around the fire and went to sleep about 7:00


To Be Continued ...............

[tannerc]

Curious, what the temperature was like for the trip?

[Wacked]

Day 2 ....................

I can tell you the temps that night were chilly.  Although day-time temps were in the high 60's, we did wake up to ice in our water.  So, I'm thinking it was somewhere in the low 30's.  This was the worst night of sleep I had on the trip.

Took forever to get packed up again and left camp around 8:30ish.  Due to the washed out trail, back-tracked it about 10 miles, hit the road around the other side of the ridge to CeroGordo to check out a mine.

[/URL][/url]

Explored the mine about 200 yards back.  Seemed pretty solid but I'm not a mine/cave guy so I was done.  Interesting that guys spend days/weeks/years tucked deep inside the bowels of the earth.  After we exited the mine, sat down for and early lunch.

[/URL][/url]

Continued up the same valley about 10 miles - I think this was the actual CeroGordo town - to an old, small mining town that appears to be turned into a B&B kind of place.  Maybe 10 buildings fixed up.  Beautiful views around here looking over an old in-land lake, Mt. Whitney, and the Sierras.

[/URL][/url]

We continued on a very sweet trail further north for maybe 10 miles until we encountered a loose rock incline that we couldn't navigate.  Took 1 dirt-nap, turned around, made it out to the slab.  From here we high-tailed it for Independence CA. 

In independence, we gassed, fought over the rest-room, ate at Subway and turned east to the Patriarch Grove.  We ultimately rolled into Grandview Campground around 4:30 and scrounged fire wood.  We cooked supper and stood around keeping warm and swapping tales.  At 8600ft, Grandview offered an absolutely stunning display of stars and an incredible sunset over the Sierras.

You know it will be a cold night when your washed dishes form ice at 6:00PM.  I had an inclination it would be a rough night when I parked the bike in a skiff of snow.  Boy Scout Wally didn't care to hear my whine and snivels.  He just had a heinous laugh as he questioned how a Dakota boy could so intolerant of the cold.

[/URL][/url]

That night I slept with 4 layers on top, 3 on the legs, and 2 socks.  Sleep was actually better than the night before.  Thinking it got down to the mid-teens. 


To Be Continued ...........

[Hank]

Tell us more...

[Bogus Jim]

Thinking it got down to the mid-teens. 

Dude that's cold for tenting! Higher elevation I suppose. The average 24-hour LOW temperature in January in Rapid City is 13 degrees.

[grubbie]

Loving this report........thanks for sharing.

[greatbuffalo]

Would like to get out there some time.

[Wacked]

DAY #3 - DEATH VALLEY .............

Woke up and immediately started searching for fire-wood.  With all those layers, it wasn't the worst sleeping in the mid-teens.  Got the fire restarted, ate breakfast, and packed.

Grandview really had some impressive purple-ish night sky outlining the Sierras with a sliver moon.   It was well worth braving the elements.

Got going on the bikes about 8:40 and headed 25 miles northward the the Ancient Bristle Cone Pine Forest

[/URL][/url]

Apparently, within this grove of trees is the oldest living thing/organisim on the earth.  Scientists claim some of these trees are over 4700 years old.  All I can tell you is that these trees are funky!  They grow all twisted and appear to have no bark.  But at the end of what you think is a dead branch, up will pop up some green sprigs/needles.  They are tough.

[/URL][/url]

After this grove, we went another 4-5 miles north until the road was blocked.  Just wind-swept plains at about 11500ft.  Barren with periodic snow drifts.  Thought Khan the Mongol might come across the plains and give us chase!

[/URL][/url]

Turned around at the end of the road and started heading to Bishop CA.

One of the highlights of the day was a section of trail named Silver Creek.  Its a high clearance 4wd trail that winds steeply down this  canyon.  It's steep enough that Wally cautioned us to stop and cool the brakes mid-way down.

[/URL][/url]

After we got to the bottom, a guy in a state truck stopped and talked to us and told us about a heard of mountain sheep that lived 1/2 way down the canyon.  Didn't see any but it would have been cool if we did.

Rolled into Bishop about 1:00 and stopped at Taco Bell.  Grabbed a bite to eat and argued who would be first to defile the restroom.  Hey, restrooms are a hot item when you're on the road.

After Taco Bell, we had a conference in the parking lot.  This route was nothing according to the original plan.  Ultimately we decided to slab it eastward towards Beatty NV.  It may not be the most interesting, but we'd grind it out and see some cool stuff tomorrow.  It was possible that some of this road may actually be closed.  Wally had heard there was a big washout.  We hadn't heard if repairs had been completed.

Wally and I switched up bikes for the heck of it.  The landscape wasn't too pretty.  We pegged it across some nasty, scrubby, crap and through up a sizable dust plume.  The road ended up being kind of fixed.  Had maybe 3-400yds of funky washout/repair road to navigate.  Wasn't bad.  I had one little dirt-nap, and then we popped out at Ubehebe Crater.  Don't know why it was there.  Spent maybe 5 minutes there and again hit the road.

Although the scenery was no better than the past 2 hours, we now had tar.  We had about an 1-1/2 hour of riding to our camp site.  This should work out because we also had about 1-1/2 hour to dusk.

So we rode.

We blew the Ranger station because nobody was there.

And we rode. 



Then .......    WHAM!



To Be Continued .........

[Wacked]

Day 3.5 ............


This afternoon has been dusty and boring.....   But that's OK because this morning was over the top great. 


Now WHAM.


We have a flat tire.  Pegleg was riding #2 and his rear tire took a dump.  He got pulled over OK but now our setting up camp at dusk routine is shot.

Got the bike propped up on some big rocks.  Pulled tools out of different bikes.  Wally the desert racer and his mad mechanical skills took over.

[/URL][/url]

PegLeg and Wally first had to sort out the "Tubeliss" system.  Ultimately, they decided to gut all this fancy crap and put in an extra tube that Wally had on his bike.

Half-way into the repair, a guy by the name of Craig pulled up in his Tacoma 4-wheeler and asked if we needed help.  We were doing OK but he actually had a gas engine-operated compressor in the bed of his truck.  We weren't saying no to that.  Great guy.  Helped with light.  Gave us some grease and paper towels which sure made the job easier.

[/URL][/url]

Got on the road AFTER dusk.  Still had 30 miles of slab and 10 miles of trail left to go.  Oh well ......


We just get on the road and the fun starts all over again!


You see, just before the trip we bought some SENA intercoms.  PegLeg beeps in and says he can't see jack.  What?  The aftermarket head-light he's running isn't adjusted properly or the bulb just isn't doing its job.

What now?  So Wally leads and I ride Wingman about 8' back and 8' to PegLeg's left with the high-beam on.   That mean I  ride on the line or in the oncoming lane until we turn off.  We're still on tar.

We find our turn off.  We're now about 20miles west of Beatty on a trail headed to Chloride Cliffs.  Our plan is to camp 10 miles in at an old abandoned mine.  It's a winding 4wd trail that probably would not be too challenging during the daytime.  Night is a different story.

We did the same routine on the trail, only the distances were tighter.  1/2 the time my lights helped PegLeg, 1/2 the time he couldn't see much and had to drive by Braille remembering where Wally was.  Every now and then, he'd push me off the road as he navigated the next curve.  We managed to keep both bikes upright.  Somewhere along the way I had to stop and refuel.

I won't lie, I thought this "night run" was a HOOT!  This was great fun after an otherwise drab afternoon.  Not sure PegLeg has fond memories of this part of the trip.

Well we made it to camp and set up in the dark.  Got our lights out and set up for cooking in an abandoned mine shack.  Had good conversation around our bags of Mountain House.  (thanks guys for not warning me about that little bag of dessiccant in my supper!)

It was a good day!  No fires needed tonight.  It will only get down to the mid-40's.


To Be Continued ............
 

[Hank]

This is just excellent so far, thanks a lot for sharing.    Sena's sure add another level of enjoyment to group riding don't they?.

[Wacked]

DAY 4 ................

Obviously didn't get to see the landscape when we rode in last night.  When I woke up, the hills were pretty bleak.  It was fine by me to come in under the cover of darkness.  Last night was somewhere in the mid-40's.  Set my tent up 30' feet from this poor bugger.  Kind of wonder what his story was.

[/URL][/url]

After the pee alarm became too much to ignore, I let the air out of my mattress and went into the little cabin/mine shack to start breakfast water.  Wally scared us the day before telling us how the desert rats would be  scrounging around in the night.  Luckily, they didn't find our garbage or food stuffs we'd left in the in the shack after supper.  This would be our last day of riding.......   Big Bummer.

[/URL][/url]

We rode out to the road again.  It was the same trail we came in on.  In my mind, I was thinking the trail was actually a little tougher than I remembered from last night.  Guess I was having a good time.

Turned East and turned off at the abandoned mining town of Ryolite, 5 miles out of Beatty.  Judging by the train station, it appeared to be a happening mining place for some time.  Not much going on there now.  Someone built an intense house constructed of spent bottles and mortar.  The house was 600-700 sqft.  There's also 5 acres of "art" that they want you to check out.  It's eclectic.  They have anything from the grim-reaper on a bike to 30' crazy Blondes.  The blonde makes me speechless......   don't know what to say.

[/URL][/url]

[/URL][/url]

[/URL][/url]

The blonde must have been done during one particular hard-up and lonely period in the artists life ......  Wow, don't know what to say.


To Be Continued ....................