Plowing Through Snow

After a nice breakfast, we rode west of town into the “Alabama Hills” ... a beautiful setting for many westerns. Great ride ... amazing blue sky with no clouds, snowed mountains on the left, round rock formations on the right, and a challenging sandy road to go though. We also saw 8000 year old petroglyphs and the WWII Japanese internment camps ... very eerie ... reminded me of Birkenau.

A flooded road (more like rivers) forced us to venture into the desert to find our own paths around the flooded areas ... a lot of fun.

Had lunch in Big Pine and headed out to try to make it all the way Benton, the end of the CA BDR route.

It was a great ride that took us through a beautiful slot canyon, but wait, ice on the ground? One more turn and ... snow everywhere! ... we looked at the map and, instead of turning around, guessed we were close to the top so we kept going ... needless to say, it was very hard, spooky, slippery, and slow going ... but we managed to get through it!

We arrived at the Inn at Benton Hot Springs. Great little place with only 8 rooms in the middle of nowhere ... with natural hot spring pools in the back. What a great way to end an amazing journey! Cooked some camp food on the porch and called it a night.

Titus Canyon

Picked up camp, loaded gas, and headed out towards Titus Canyon. Great ride out of Death Valley back up to around 3000ft.

The Titus Canyon Road was closed but we managed to go around the gate ... just to see how bad it really was : ) Apparently, they had a lot of rain a few days ago and it washed out the “roads” inside the Canyon. Not knowing what that meant, we went in to check it out.

This ride was one of the highlights of the trip. Great ride through open plains towards the mountains ... a great curvy climb, challenging ... you could see that a lot of rain had gone through these parts ... lots of ruts, sand, and gravel. The roads were in bad shape. As we begin the descent, the walls of the Canyon started to close in and we found ourselves riding on a riverbed full of sand and gravel between Canyon walls. A long andvery challenging ride ... a few wipe outs ... the Canyon walls started to close in on each side to only 10 ft from one wall to the other ... just amazing ... a great adventure.

After leaving the Canyon, we headed to the Saloon at Stovepipe Wells for lunch and a view of some big sand dunes.

Our final run of the day was to Lone Pine ... apparently a very famous movie set location for westerns ... where we rode the best paved road of the trip through some incredible curvy mountain roads ... from -100ft to 4500ft back to 1000 up to 5500ft and then back to 1000ft for the night. Temperatures in the 30’s at those altitudes this far north. Snowed capped mountains all around us.

Had amazing Chinese food next to the hotel ... weird but true ... Lemmon pepper scallops?

Road closed? Well, is this an adventure ride or not?

Yes, this is the road

Out of this World

Had a great breakfast at the only restaurant in town. Our waitress Alora was just as super happy and cheerful as Ariel, our waitress for dinner the night before ... a trend? ... maybe it is the water around these parts : )

As we were getting ready to leave my second and only pannier was broken ... and my front tire was flat again! So, after finding a guy with a drill, another guy with heavy duty zip ties, some straps from the general store, I managed to attach the box to the bike ... my bike now looks like those bikes in Vietnam with 10 things hanging that do not belong. Also, fixed the flat ... and found the culprit for the 70mph crash! A half inch washer inside the rim that was cutting the tube! Oh well.

Headed south to see some sand dunes and to ride some deep sand. No wipe outs. We must be getting good!

Riding Death Valley is an out of this world experience. The landscapes, the unique colors and shapes of the mountains around it (brown, green, orange, grey, red, purple), and the crossing of a river that Andy and Kevin almost submerged their whole bikes into. Exciting!

One of the BDR trails was closed because of flooding so we took the scenic route to Furnace Creek ... a nice ride with lots of fast twisties. Went by the lowest point in the US at -282ft.

At Furnace Creek, we managed to get the last camping site ... lucky! ... got some firewood at the general store and some real food ... grilled steak, bell peppers, and brussels sprouts. Amazing stars. All is good with the world.

Yes, second flat!

Salt in Death Valley

Richard on the moon

The whole posse 

After a good amount of rain, the desert was alive

This way to the Alien ship

Death Valley from above

Oops - ran into a tree

The Mojave and Gambling

The wind almost blew away everything last night ... gale force winds in our little slice of paradise... luckily, it died down at around 11pm (allegedly, I slept through the whole thing : ) ... we also hit 25 degrees overnight!

The morning was amazing. Sun was out. The mountains all around the bowl we were in were all lit. Quiet. Peaceful. Made a great fire, had a great breakfast, packed and headed out. All was good with the world.

Great morning ride. Tight trails. Lots of Joshua trees everywhere - apparently it is only an experience that can be had in the Mojave Desert.

Made it to Primm for lunch ... sensory overload ... a mini Las Vegas ... hotels everywhere, one with an outside roller coaster, signs and gambling everywhere ... what a contrast after where we had been ... we did have a great Greek lunch and headed out for one of the rougher rides of the trip!

We followed the road under the transmission towers that carry the power out of a huge 377 MW solar panel plant outside Primm to LA ... rocky, steep climbs and drops, wash outs.

Passed by the Excelsior mine up in the mountains, a low quality gold mine still producing and headed into an amazing expanse of nothing as we descended into the lower valley - just wilderness, desert, mountains on the horizon, open sky ... no roads, people or civilization as far as the eye could see. Reminded me of northern Vietnam : ) ... weird. I know.

As we were approaching Shoshone, our stay for the night, we saw hot springs everywhere, weird stone formations, and lots of people.

Shoshone is a town that is owned in its entirety by one person. The gas station, the hotel, the restaurant, the general store ... interesting. Our hotel looked terrible. But once you opened the door to your room, it was great ... great shower and bed!! Wow.

We had dinner at the one restaurant in town and called it a day. Another great ride in paradise : )

After gale force winds, a nice chilly morning at the camp site

Abandoned old mine

A 377MW solar plant outside Primm

This road was tough - through a great canyon and then open fields

Salt Mine and Joshua Trees

Got up early to inspect the motorcycle and to try to put it back together. The good thing was that the tire and inner tube did not suffer a catastrophic blow up and managed to patch things and put it back on the slightly bent rim. A few zip ties here and there and one less pannier (unrecoverable) and the bike was moving ... so the trip was still on for me.

Unfortunately, Evgeniy’s clutch did give up the ghost and was unable to fix ... so he left the group and started making his way back to Phoenix to explore repair alternatives.

We finally left the around 10am to see some Nasca like figures in the desert we heard about. Short dirt ride in and out but very challenging. Steep drops, rocky climbs, sandy river beds ... but we managed to get out.

Loaded fuel and gas at Vidal Junction and headed into the longest desert ride yet. Fast riding. Passed by a massive salt lake with lots of abandoned rusting stuff. Got the chance to use our camping gear for lunch ... in an abandoned rail car to hide from the wind.

We then hit Route 66. Road was closed because 6-7 bridges were gone but we managed to go around them. Got to Sahara Oasis ... weird tourists time warp California-kitsch place. Gas was $5.50 a gallon. Pretty cool all in all.

As we were running out of daylight, we decide to make a final push to our camping site. Long ride. Beautiful setting. Joshua trees everywhere. Lots is sand. By now, no big deal. As it was getting dark we found our spot in a beautiful little clearing surrounded by rocky mountains on 3 sides. Temperatures started dropping fast and the wind started to pick up. We found a camping area next to some trees for cover. Hard to build camp in the dark when it is cold and the wind is howling.

Went inside our tents for protection and went to bed at 8 hoping the tents would not be blown away with us inside : ) The stars were amazing!

Yes, I managed to piece the bike together after last nights crash.

Eating lunch in an abandoned railroad car

8 Miles of Sand ... and More

We managed to all converge at the River City Grill in Yuma as planed within 5 minutes of each other. Richard and Kevin from San Diego and Andy, Evgeniy and I from Phoenix.

Everything worked out like clockwork: got up at 5am, took off at 6:30, landed at 8am in Phoenix, got on the Lyft at 8:10, met Andy and Evgeniy at 8:30, loaded bikes, got gas, water and hit the road by 10am, and arrived at the grill at 12 noon California time.

After a nice lunch on the patio, we headed into the wild. Beautiful ride into the Picacho State Park. The desert here is a bit different. A little harsher. The mountains have these pointed jagged peaks with all kinds of brown hues. Rode by Taylor Lake. What a setting ... extreme desert around it with a beautiful blue lake in the middle.

The ride started on simple graded gravel road leading into 8 miles of sand and into a steep rocky climb across Indian Pass. Slow going but we managed to get everybody through it with only 1 hour of daylight to spare.

I thought I had been the lucky one by not falling even once. But wait. On our final stretch, only 15 miles to our hotel, my front tire blew up at full speed ... 70mph! After swerving uncontrollably from side to side, I crashed. All my gear did it’s job perfectly - knee braces, Kevlar clothing, elbow and hip armor, boots ... not a scratch on me. The bike apparently sent sparks flying as it was sliding ... side pannier was ripped off its hinges and broke into pieces, headlamp grill gone, handlebars and bark busters bent ... my, shall we say, “undergarments” all over the road ... I think they call this a yard sale : ) Tomorrow I will try to put the bike together to see if I can continue the trip

Called a tow truck from Blythe and, once a the hotel, we had a pizza party in the lobby and went to bed.

We all made it to the start point for lunch

Yeap, very deep loose sand and gravel.

We made it out of sand hell!