Leaderboard

I took the BMW on the SD to Big Bear to Joshua Tree and back loop this weekend. I didn't realize we had such epic trails in our backyard! I used a trail to get from Hemet to San Bernadino then went up the west side connecting a few trails (Adler Creek Rd, City Creek Trail, Clarks Summit, to Mill Cr.) The west side was pretty rutted and rocky, so it took me longer than expected, but I found first gear was great for crawling down sections and keeping a slow steady pace through technical sections. I had some creek crossings which was a blast, and almost had an incident with a mid-sized bear running across the trail right in front of me! Definitely locked up the rear on that one! I've been wanting to get up to Big Bear since I've gotten the bike to explore some of the trails and now I'm just made I haven't done this sooner! I stayed the night in town and took Burns Canyon down the east side which popped me out right through Pioneer town. From there I went into Joshua Tree National Park, which is an awesome ride with some dirt roads and trails you can explore as well. The only bummer was the Southern dirt road/entrance was shut down due to a fire, so I had to backtrack through the park and then just take the 60 to the 10 and then just took the back way home through Palm Springs rather than go along the Salton sea and come back through Borrego. All told it was about a 430-mile loop with plenty of first and scenic views. I might do another version of it in the fall, temps were getting high in the lower parts of the trails, especially on the east side. 95-105, up the mountain it felt great! When I came down the east side I used Burns Canyon (2N02) which popped out basically in Pioneer town (red Waypoint Below), that road was not bad, with some sand at the bottom, maybe a mile's worth, and some rutted sections but easily avoidable along the edges of the trails. For the most part, I would call that road fun and easy for 90% of it, even the rutted or rocky sections are only for 20-30 yards, so easy to make it through or around. The southwestern part (1N16 Adler cr, 1N09 City Cr, 1N54 Clarcks Grade, 2N10 Mill Creek, 2N17 Camp Osito) was extremely rutted and rocky and I spent most of my time in 1st or 2nd gear ascending in rocky sections and descending in rutted and rocky sections. It was definitely a lot more work and I would say would be considered moderate with hard sections. You really need to be able to work your lines through sections of huge ruts and rocky sections. By the time I was getting to the top of the mountain, it finally got enjoyable again, enough to be able to look around and enjoy the scenery more. This was the first time I've used On X Offroad to plan the map and use the service while riding and I love it, I build the route in there and downloaded the GPX file and up it, on my Garmin as a backup, and the On X map was much more intuitive and easier to build routes in and read while riding. I didn't have a phone set up for the bike yet so I had the phone on my tank bag, but I will be looking to get a quad lock or something for my phone now so I can run On X. Things like looking up other trails or options while on rout was waaaaaay easier and faster. If I were to go back tomorrow and was with newer riders or riders that get tiered faster, I would go up and down through burns canyon, then explore along the top and trails that go down a little, around, and back up. If you are looking for a legit ADV challenging with different types of terrain and challenging sections you have to push through, the southwestern route is for you.

Adam (my son) was getting stir crazy after a few weeks of Sabbatical, so he decided to burn some free air miles and come down for a quick visit. I picked him up at the airport and we headed straight to the hot tub with a couple of Old Fashions and stayed up way too late catching up on "the latest". We would motel it one night, and camp the second night. The ride-plan was to ride some ADV bike routes I'd not done yet, starting with what I call @Mr.JAJA's track from Ramona to Big Bear. I bypassed some for the sake of time and miles as needed. So we hot footed it up Wildcat Canyon, Old Julian to Santa Ysabel, and on to Warner springs where we put it in dirt-mode at the Indian Flats turn off. I love this track, from there to Anza. It's scenic, fun and has a lot of playfulness to it. Both the old broken pavement and the white dirt trail have about a hundred wheelies built into them. These should not be wasted! Occasionally there's an area here and there where you can wander a bit and explore. North of the crossroad we ran into about 7 or so honest dirt bikers and stopped for a chat. They were part of the Flying Monkey gang out of Temecula. Good folks. I've ridden with them a couple times in the past. One fella on an orange bike warned me twice that the road ahead was in pretty bad shape and had roughed him up a little. I let him know that I ride it 6 or 8 times a year. In hind sight I should've said I'd heard there was a Starbucks up here and needed an Iced Carmel Macchiato. But I usually think of something cute to say long after the moment's past. This was going to be a sort of dirt shake down test for my sorta healed up leg. Any goof ball can gimp his bike around the street, but I needed to see how dirt worthy the leg/ankle/foot was. And . . . . . . sure enough, I took a heavy dab in a tight sand corner and yelped like a whipped coyote. Holy schmokes that stung. Thought I might have really boogered things up again so we took a scenic break for awhile and then moseyed forward to a great breakfast burrito in Anza. I got robbed of a LOT of great adventures last summer by a stupid broken clavicle. And I NEEDED to make sure I didn't have a repeat this summer. So over a smokin' hot sauced breakfast burrito I decided no more dirt. We would stay on the roads and just tour where there was very little risk of furthering the mornings setback. Udo's track would have to wait. Next stop Idyllwild. Off we went. And I gotta say, if you're bored riding pavement from Anza to Idyllwild, you're either on the wrong bike or you're just doing it wrong. Sometimes sight seeing mode is just fine. Of course the Pines-to-Palms highway all the way over to the 10 is just dreamy. Both visually and sweeping all those turns. There's something magical when you ride the perfect line, at the perfect speed, getting slung through and out the end of the turn only to line up for the next one. Left right, left, right, .... I love the dance. We were blessed with little to no traffic on this road and pretty much the whole trip. Figured we roll through Joshua Tree backwards, going south to northwest on our way to Big Bear. I purposely didn't take much for pics here as we could have lost the day to it here alone. If you've been, you know. If you haven't, you must. Of course Pioneer town was sitting smack in our path, so, there's that. All this was new to Adam, and was a reminder to me of how much cool stuff we are surrounded by in So Cal. This looked like a good spot to take a break, so we did. After a few songs from the live band and an appy at the bar, we toured onward and made the counter clockwise loop through Johnson Valley to Big Bear for the night. We checked in and then wandered the village for a cold beer and a great dinner. All in all a great day of riding, sight seeing, telling stories over the Cardo's for about 350 miles. Adam remarked that it felt so good to just soak up "the joy of riding". For the last 2 years he's been training daily for the GS Trophy and hasn't really gone out to just ride. This was going to turn into three days of really good medicine for both of us. To be continued . . .

Went for another afternoon trail jaunt across the prairie, last Tuesday. Rolling open hills and a bit of canyon riding through Sally Draw. Lots of places are named after women up here I suppose these places were named by love lorn cowboys of the day, who couldn't find any female companionship (other than dance hall girls). Anyway, we followed some backcountry dirt highways, some faint cross country two tracks, etc. and found ourselves on a cow trail on the backside of somebody's ranch at one point. Had a gnarly climb out of that canyon. It was the first time that I noticed the gas tank on my FE 501 actually start to boil. A 15 minute rest stop took care of that. We came across a quite large band of wild horses on the way back. They were somewhat scattered, but we estimated that there were over 40 of them meandering about. On the last stretch heading back to the staging area at Kolman Ranch, my front tire went flat. All in all though, it was a good day, as the afternoon wrapped up with some rain storms coming through.

Friday found us ready for a dualsport ride. We were originally going to trailer the bikes south and ride at Little Mountain, but the weather looked like storms might come up down that way, so Kim and i met up down in town and rode from there up to the top of White Mountain and Pilot Butte. Then we rode a stretch of county road (unpaved) to a two track that meandered through a drainage valley of Alkali Creek. We popped out the west end onto another dirt highway that ran along the Green River. We ended up in the town of Green River, where we took a much needed lunch break at Don Pedro's Family Mexican restaurant. From there, we would take another dirt route south of town, eastward back to Rock Springs. That road was not a well groomed highway, but rather a curvy, hilly, rocky jeep trail that was washed out in several places, though this was no problem for two European enduro bikes. On this leg of the journey, the storms that we had been speculating about were pressing their way northward, and we were watchful of them as we motored along. The storm front never covered us, but came close enough to offer some cooling breezes and cover from the sun. As it was, we managed to stay just out of the rain clouds reach as we wended our way homeward. We could not have asked for a better summer day of dual sport riding. It was about 78 unhurried miles of mostly dirt.

Look who I found in Norway.

Kim texted me that she had intel on another old ranch site and it wasn't too far out,so perfect for another afternoon ride. I loaded the Beta up late in the morning and headed for Kolman ranch to start our jaunt. We took a small trail out to the familiar jeep track that went up through a stand of quaking aspen, it the main route towards the top of Aspen mountain, then split off the the south. By and by, we were running down a finger of the plateau, stopping to peer over the edges from time to time, to see cattle browsing around in the bottom land. As we rode downslope towards a valley, there was a track to our right which we followed down to the ruins of an old cattle operation. There was a spring creek down there and we stopped and took pictures. From there, we were heading back up another hill, when Kim stopped to look down into another draw her was a faint jeep track in the bottom that eventually piddled out into a cow single track. Kim also spotted what looked to be an old rusty car down there, but it was too far away to be sure of what we were looking at. So we turned around, went back towards the valley, found the jeep track and headed up the draw. By an by, we reached the vehicle and were surprised to find that it was disappointingly modern. If the expired 2014 registration tags were any indicator, it meant that the car had been there for 9 years. The interior was rotting out, as some windows were open, but the paint looked really good, so maybe the car hadn't been there quite that long. We looked through the car....not much in it but a "greaser" bag with a company logo on it, and a hard hat. Not one to waste anything, Kim took the greaser bag with her as we left the area. We saw the same band of wild horses that we had seen last time, and lots of antelope on our return route. We stopped near a sheep camp to watch antelope run. I looked behind us and there were two muttly sheep dogs eyeballing us. They were quiet, but not friendly, and came right over to pee on the tires of both our bikes, before heading back to the sheep wagon. We returned via the route we came up, stopping at Three Patches picnic ground to eat a snack and watch the weather start to roll in. Just another day on the plains, on bikes.

I know I know, it took a while to make the video and post it here, but it was trip after trip and I got busy with a million of other projects, so better later than never! Let's start with Day 0 - March 24, 2023. Friday After all preparations, it is finally time to leave. Bike is loaded and the journey starts. On my way to Yuma, I stop at the Golden Acorn Casino on I-8 and Max Thielen with his Husqvarna Norden 901 join me for this adventure. As we ride through Imperial Valley, we go through a cloud of small mosquitos and flies that completely cover our visors and bikes with crap. Arriving in Yuma, we check-in at the hotel and go out for a walk on downtown Yuma and dinner at the Prison Hills Brewery. On the way back to the hotel we stop at a dive bar named Jimmy Dee for a night cap. Day 1 March 25, 2023. Saturday. After breakfast, we ack the bikes and leave about 9am. We stop near the hotel to take pictures of an old locomotive. As we prepare to leave, Max's Norden 901 don't want to start. Weak battery. We had to bump start it. The trip starts with its first adventure. The first dirt segment is Picacho Road, leading to Picacho Park Campground on the margins of the Colorado River, on the Californa side of the Arizona border. Seeing the Colorado River was an awesome sight and how it transforms the desert into a green oasis along its margins. The next section was Indian Pass Road. Since I first heard about the CA BDR, section 1 was feared by most because of this part with deep sand and gravel combination. To our surprise, they had recently graded that road and it was not a problem at all. We made a pause to fly the drone as well. Milpitas Wash Road was a bit more challenging with some areas with medium depth sand, but keeping a good pace helped us go through without a problem. The second adventure of the day was Max's luggage coming undone and the strap getting caught on the wheel hub. Luckily it just teared the strap and after a few minutes fiddling with ripped straps rolled around his hub, we were on the road again. Bradshaw Trail had some really fast sections. I broke 100 mph for the first time with the DDX in a part that was as wide as a freeway. We arrived in Blythe early, around 2:30pm. After check-in and some relaxing, we went out for dinner at a place called Stakes and Cakes. An old diner with a vintage vibe for some steaks, fries and beers. The plan for the next day is to tackle sections 2 and 3. We need to leave early, as it will be a long day. Continues...

The road less traveled BY ELIZABETH FITZSIMONS MARCH 7, 2004 12 AM PT The story goes that in 1857, a young woman traveling to meet her fiancé in Northern California fell ill on the punishing stagecoach trip from the East. She stopped to rest at the Vallecito station, a desert outpost about 70 miles east of San Diego where travelers revived themselves after making the “Journey of Death” through the Imperial Valley. She died at Vallecito and was buried in an unmarked grave in the wedding dress found in her luggage. The grave, covered by a mound of stones and protected by a small fence, is still there. And so is her spirit, if you believe in such things. She is known as the Lady in White, and some say she restlessly roams the old station’s grounds, now a county park and campground 40 miles southwest of Borrego Springs on County S2. It is a ghost story fitting for the road, which on most days is so quiet you can hear a car’s approach long before it passes. How many people travel it is anyone’s guess, but except for seasonal weekend visitors to the desert, it’s usually deserted. The small number of vehicles offer “no reason for us to be doing traffic counts,” said Mike Robinson with the county’s traffic division. It may be that S2 is the county’s loneliest road. Even so, S2 is a vital artery, used to deliver groceries and gasoline to a hardy few desert dwellers, and them to civilization. It runs from the sleepy Imperial County town of Ocotillo, near Interstate 8, to state Route 79, just east of Lake Henshaw in North County. S2 is at its loneliest along the 40 miles from Ocotillo to the junction of state Route 78 at Scissors Crossing. Bracketing this stretch are tiny communities of about 300 inhabitants each. At the south end is Ocotillo, and in the north Shelter Valley. The desert settlement sits in Earthquake Valley, but landowners changed the name of their community to something more inviting. It didn’t have telephones until 1978. Midway is Canebrake, named for the bamboo-like reed that grows around a nearby well. About 20 homes on this 640-acre parcel are occupied year-round, with more people visiting on the weekends. Canebrake was once a federal homestead parcel, reserved for sailors and soldiers returning from World War II. Until the early 1980s, it survived without telephones or mail delivery. “When we first came out here it was two tracks in the sand, no highway,” said Eileen Brennan, who has lived in Canebrake off and on since the 1950s. “It’s just like living in heaven. There’s quail and bunny rabbits here every morning for you to feed. ‘Course, we got coyotes, too.” In the early ‘50s, Brennan’s son delighted in the ghost stories told by a woman called Old Mary who sold milk and bread from a 4-by-8-foot shack near the Agua Caliente Hot Springs. At 86, Brennan figures she’s outlived many of the folks from her early days in Canebrake. But there are many like-minded people to keep her company. “There’s nothing out here. It’s just a group of people that love the desert and love to live out here. It’s an entirely different way of life.” Rich history Though the number of travelers on S2 today may be few and unremarkable, the road’s historical importance is grand. And the desert it crosses, an unforgiving expanse of rock, sand and cactus, is much the same as it always was. Years ago, when S2 saw more use, some had high hopes for it. In the 1920s, it was called the “Gateway to Imperial County.” Today, at Ocotillo, it is called the Imperial Highway. The route roughly follows some of Juan Bautista De Anza’s 1775 trek through the region and U.S. Army Gen. Stephen W. Kearny’s 1846 journey to San Pasqual near Escondido, where his Army of the West was defeated during the Mexican-American War. Later, that course through the desert delivered gold-seekers to the hills of Julian and brought mail from the East. In 1851, it was part of Butterfield Stage Route, on which coaches carried passengers from Missouri to San Francisco, including the Lady in White. All of those souls made the trip on a rough dirt road. It was unpaved until 1929. Paid for by the Imperial Highway Association, the pavement extended 15 miles from Ocotillo. From there to Sweeney Pass, the road was still a meandering pair of ruts in the sand. In 1951, San Diego County built a road that followed the hillsides and traveled down the pass, but didn’t pave it. In 1953, residents pressed the Board of Supervisors for road improvements, which the county finally completed seven years later. With the paving came a granting of residents’ request to change the road’s name from Imperial Highway to the Great Southern Overland Stage Route of 1849. According to the county’s account, a minor detail eluded the residents and the supervisors. The route had never been known as “great” and the mail route did not exist in 1849. Lonely, but inviting Perhaps the best way to experience The Loneliest Road is to start in Ocotillo, where the distant mountains look like crumpled brown paper bags. Spilling out before them is an endless repetition of soft-looking teddy bear cholla and the spindly ocotillo. Later this month, officials in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park say the desert, fed by recent rains, will hit its peak for wildflower blooms. At Sweeney Pass, the mountains close in, squeezing the asphalt from both sides as S2 twists and turns through canyons, past places where people have come to get away – some permanently, some just for a break. Everyone has their own reason and their own pursuit. On a recent afternoon, a shirtless man did push-ups on a rock next to his car. He had pulled into a little nook off the highway, a space clear of rocks and brush, and begun a workout with 40-pound barbells. Muscular, tanned and sweating, he stood in the sand wearing ankle-high socks, but wasn’t interested in talking. Farther north, a fork to the left leads to the Agua Caliente County Park and its general store, the spot on which Old Mary’s store once stood. The first sign of life this day was Paul Dobrasin, who steered his off-road motorcycle into the small parking lot shaded by pepper trees. He had just crossed 40 miles of desert on dirt roads, a bone-shaking journey from Ocotillo Wells that left him parched and his motorcycle low on gas. But the store was closed, and the soda machine outside out of order. He sat on the curb, studying his map, as a skinny coyote trotted along the road behind him. Dobrasin, who is 50 and lives in San Pedro, camps at Ocotillo Wells and spends his days riding his motorcycle on the road or the web of dirt paths near it. Hugging the turns and gliding along S2’s undulating asphalt, it is as if Dobrasin is flying. No one is around to distract him. It is just him and the road. At the thought of it, his suntanned face softened, and he smiled dreamily. “Oh, S2 is great.” Back on his bike and heading north, his image shrank in the distance. The quiet returned. Hangers-on At Butterfield Ranch mobile home park, the history of S2, the ghost stories and decline of the ranch are kept alive by a hardy group. The 100-acre park, hard by the highway, once was home to as many as 500 trailers, RVs and campers. Thirty years ago, there were year-round residents and waiting lists to get in. Much like S2, there were high hopes. A dozen occupied mobile homes remain today. Knee-high grass droops over the concrete spaces that used to be filled with RVs. The clubhouse is closed, and the pool is empty. The flight from Butterfield Ranch began in the 1980s. For some, living in such a remote place had lost its charm. “These were older people who were scared to live so far from a hospital,” said Barbara Searles, 46, a park resident. Today, a building that once housed the Butterfield Ranch Restaurant, destroyed by fire in 1998, still has black soot marks above the windows. Once the only place to get a meal for miles, it has never re-opened. A store, post office and lounge also were heavily damaged, and also sit empty. Searles supports herself and her 9-year-old daughter by collecting sage and selling it for its restorative powers. She has begun organizing residents to improve the park. She wants to bring people, and pride, back to Butterfield Ranch. In Searles’ plan, the residents would buy and own the land together, and the area’s history would be incorporated into the new park. As difficult as life can be out here sometimes, Searles said she would never leave. “I can’t even fathom going back to the city,” she said. Searles doesn’t watch television. And she doesn’t care to journey to Ramona or Imperial, a small town near El Centro, just to see a movie. The simple life is a good one when you are raising a child, she said. Searles’ daughter goes to elementary school in Borrego Springs, where there are “no gangs, no drugs, no living in the fast lane,” she said. An empty chair The quiet and the desert’s austere beauty are what have drawn Washington state resident John T. Stone here for many years. Stone has set up what looks like an outdoor living room next to his motor home at Agua Caliente County Park. He has arranged two chairs neatly on a rug. But instead of looking to a television, they face out across the desert floor. A covey of quail skittered across the road near Stone’s home away from home. “I like the sound they make, that soft cooing at night,” said Stone, 78. For years, he and his wife traveled from their Pacific Northwest home to this campground. This year, Stone has come alone. His wife died last fall. Stone said he loves the desert and plans to stay until April. At least that is the plan. He will see how he feels. He’s never been here alone, and he may get quite lonely, he said. What better place to grieve, than on The Loneliest Road? Elizabeth Fitzsimons: (760) 737-7578; elizabeth.fitzsimons@uniontrib.com

Had a great time, thanks for organizing the ride 350thumper! Fun trails and beautiful views, couldn't ask for more.

Everybody likes live updates. This morning’s sunrise:

Started from my place in Pacific Beach on my 23 ktm 690 enduro R I recently bought back in may (Love the bike!). Rode slab out to Otay Lakes rd and jumped into the dirt on Otay Mtn Truck Trl at the beginning by Thousand Trails RV park. Rode Otay Mtn until popping out onto the 94 in Dulzura, Stayed on the 94 until I hit La Posta Rd near Campo. Got off the Pavement where La Posta turns into a very fun flowy dirt rd (15S05), stayed on that until reaching the top and hung a left to jump onto Fred Canyon (16S08). Took Fred Canyon down to Kitchen Creek Rd where I jumped back on the pavement. Took Kitchen creek to old 80, which I took to Buckman springs rd and from there to Corral Canyon Rd back into the dirt. Took a left on Kernan trail to Corall Canyon Staging area, then made a left onto Sky Valley Rd. Looped around to Corte Madera and then to Espinosa Trail, took a right turn onto Los Pinos. Once back at the staging area, jumped onto Corral Canyon once again and took it down to the Kernan trail intersection where I then made a left onto Kernan trail. Climbed Kernan trail and then headed to Bear Valley rd and took that to Pine Valley where I got back on the Pavement. Got gas in Pine Valley and then pounded pavement back to PB. Threw together this route last night and it made for a nice relaxing ride.

But wait, there's more!

Damn small cc bikes are addicting. Will be doing the suspension and luggage but that is about it. Sooooo fun though.

I think that’s a great idea. We can tweak them as we go also to keep things fresh and fun. Getting together with our club members is something that is ALWAYS a good time.

Nearly 20 year old article, it’s a nice time capsule piece of the area. We have a few people who enjoy desert history on the site @Bagstr @kkug @dirt dame @tntmo @paulmbowers @MacDuncan @97xr400r @kato @350thumper @Uncle Champ

The first storm of the winter should arrive today. It should not bring too much snow to this region, so hopefully there will be more rides to be scheduled before the new year arrives. But you never know. Last year, it snowed up here two weeks before Halloween and we managed one ride at the beginning of November....and that's all she wrote until May. So Kim and I did a 75 mile loop on Monday. Between our last ride and this one, I have been busy fishing the lakes up in the Uinta mountains. We visited some petroglyphs, went down to the shore of Flaming Gorge (the fish weren't biting), took a run down Cherokee trail, crossed Sage creek (was running better than last year), then made our way back to the truck. Lots of hunters out on the hills right now, so we encountered a few of those and their camps. It was mostly a mellow route on major dirt highways, but with a few two tracks thrown in, and of course a couple of annoying spots.

Cool meeting everyone that came out yesterday! Good company, entertainingly rough dirt road, romantic sunset... with purple flowers, temps more pleasant than expected... look forward to another.

I didn't see anyone at the coffee shop at 6:10 so I figured y'all already left. I didn't confirm going because I wasn't sure when exactly I'd be able to leave work and didn't want anyone waiting for me if I was running late. I tried to catch up to the ride but I guess I was in the lead the whole time, passed a group of 3 on the way back down including a shiny 350 and #151. Then a few minutes later passed a husky rally bike so awesome I almost fell over staring at it. I'll do better next time with the meeting up part, hope you guys had a good ride. Regarding road conditions: it's been a while since I rode that but there's a bit of rain ruts and lots of partially buried sharp edge rocks just looking for a rim to destroy if you're not paying attention. Not the most fun road but sure beats watching TV.

A good tech day at the home of Dave Minsky ....thanks to Joe Desrosiers (Joe Hauler) for bringing and BBQ'ing the chicken, thanks to Dave for hosting, thanks to all who showed up and also to those who donated a few bucks to our SDAR club website ! About 12 - 13 people showed up which was perfect. And a huge thanks to EC Dave for making a VERY generous contribution to SDAR !

Great training, very informative and you could tell it was coming from a place of experience. It was nice to see some of you again and meet others for the first time!!

If it gets to the point that you can no longer lift your bike by yourself, it's time to just get four wheels.

Photo: CoveredInDust

I have ridden the TT track on a borrowed VFR 750- not in the race, of course. And yes, it was a hoot.