Southwest Desert Tour

[HotRod82 2]

So the week of 11/9/14 Chris, Buck and I were supposed to be on our way to Cabo. We had a great route planned and a chase truck lined up, this was a long awaited ride for all 3 of us and it looked like the stars were finally going to line up so we could finally pull this off. Unfortunately between the hurricane and losing our chase truck driver we were forced to postpone it yet again. We were determined to still get out and ride, we decided on a 5 day tour beginning in Big Bear. The result was a 905 mile loop that was a ton of fun.

This sign pretty much set the tone for the ride...

I pulled a major bonehead move when I loaded up the GPS for the trip. I forgot I had removed the base map from my 60csx so when I loaded the tracks / routes in there was nothing to overlay them onto. I ended up with a bunch of straight lines going from waypoint to waypoint. This made for some interesting navigating to say the least.

Day 1 - Big Bear to Barstow

The 3 of us stayed at the Vintage Lakeside Inn Friday night so we could park the truck there and get a decently early start in the morning. We headed down the hill to Lucerne via Big Pine flats, down to the poleline road and headed east toward Johnson Valley. A quick stop for fuel and into JV we went. The GPS led us to a closed area so we were on our own. Fun place to ride through but the race courses are really rough and they seem to be everywhere as we kept running into them. Never the less, we found some fun passes to climb through and a lake bed to play on. My newly rebuilt 525 had developed an oil leak and was making a real mess of everything...

Chris and Buck on the Lake bed..

My 525 between oil fill-ups...

After some wheelies and big power slides, we pressed on to Slash X cafe for dinner as it was getting dark. Place was busy as it was Saturday, the food was good and the company was even better. We packed up and headed through the dusty off road area adjacent to Outlet center and pulled into the Hampton Inn for the night.

Day 2 - Barstow to Stovepipe Wells.

I knew this was a big day mileage wise so I got up early and went searching for that oil leak that was bad enough it was speckling the goggles of anyone who followed me. I thought I had traced it to the shaft on the manual decompressor, I couldn't do anything about it so I bought another quart of oil and hit the road. We headed out toward Fort Erwin road, wandered around a little due to my now very confusing GPS, then finally sniffed out the pole line road heading North toward Silver Lake and Baker. We caught up to a line of 5 Razors and as you can imagine the dust was intense. I was leading but wasn't sure if the guys behind me were up for bombing through the dust to get ahead of the several mile long train of s x s rigs. Buck decided he had had enough of the dust and blitzed by me. We charged through the dust and as I went by the last razor I clobbered a rock and was rewarded with a front flat. I was pissed to say the least, I changed out the tube while I watched every one of the dust machines ride on by.....ugh.

After a quick stop for fuel and a sandwich in Baker, we slabbed it North toward Dumont. We then took the cut-off to Saratoga Springs, which still has plenty of water in it even with the drought....

Departed the springs and headed North toward Badwater. Fast, smooth dirt roads helped us click off some miles as we were now racing the sunset. The road turns to tarmac at Ashford junction, the plan was to take West Side Road north to Furnace Creek but the dust was heavy due to the complete lack of wind. We decided to slab it instead which turned out to be a great call. We had this great road all to ourselves with nice warm weather and the sunlight beaming through the hills at sunset. Truly a special part of this ride. After fueling at Furnace creek, we pulled into Stovepipe well after dark. We closed out the day with a good ribeye and a cocktail. I could not help but wonder where the heck all that oil is coming from on my bike....huge leak but really hard to see the origin. I decide to take another stab at it in the AM.

Day 3 - Stovepipe to Panamint Springs.

My day started like this....

I finally could see that the sealant had failed beneath the rocker cover and oil was leaking across the entire front of the engine. I made sure the bolts were tight, added more oil and off we went. Heading toward Scotty's, Chris's new 500 decided shifting gears was overrated and was stuck in 4th gear. We decided to head back to SP and look things over. The 500 magically began shifting again so we pulled the oil screens to verify there was no metal present, topped off the fuel and off to Scotty's we went.

Yours truly at the Crater headed toward Racetrack...

Racetrack...

Lipincott...

Overlook on the back side of Lipincott...

Me an Buck...

A short stint on the tarmac and we pulled into Panamint, I actually coasted up out of fuel.

Our digs for the night, A.K.A. the meth house.

The dinner and cocktails were excellent...

To be continued.......

[Vacman 0]

So far so good. Bring it on!

[TrophyHunter 15]

Thx for taking the time for the RR. Look forward to the continuation.

[HotRod82 2]

Our journey continues......

Day 4 - Panamint to Cal City.

We survived the night in the meth house, I swear it was like being trapped in a classic 70's slasher flick. I was sure any moment someone would burst through the door with a chainsaw. Today was going to be a big day, over 200 miles and up to about 8500 feet in elevation. We headed south on Nadeau road which very quickly turned pretty technical. We were all feeling the previous 3 days ride and it took some determination to keep the pace. This was one area the lack of a proper map in the gps made navigation difficult. I was looking for a small trail in the wash when Chris stops me and points to the main road 100 yards away which I had failed to notice....ugh. This was in fact going to be a long day. We reached Ballarat, bought a few sodas from the old timer and listened to a couple Charlie Manson stories. Back on the bikes and East up the hill we went toward World Beater Mine.

The peak on the right way off in the distance is where we are heading.

The ride up to the Summit carries you through 3 mining camps as well as an old Indian corral and a US Forest service cabin. We would also ride up into the treeline which makes looking for oncoming traffic difficult. We were fortunate enough to run into the E. Clampus Vitus crew there at the main mining camp. These folks were very knowledgeable about the workings of the mine and we stayed a little too long jawing with them. We summit at about 8500 feet and begin the decent back down to the desert floor. The road down is steep, rocky and no joke. You are very remote in difficult terrain, a mistake here would be costly. I met a couple guys that did this loop on KTM 990's and that would be something to see, it was tough to keep my 525 slowed down, a bike with 200 more pounds on it would be a real handful. Luckily, we had no major issues and made it down to the adopt-a-cabin sites. One of the cabins in particular was really set up nice with a kitchen, hot tub, and shooting platform. We will be planning a trip there to stay a night or two. Very cool deal.

Cabins...

The road from the cabins to the desert floor is pretty tough, which is a good thing because it keeps the traffic to the cabins down. I'm not sure a stock jeep would even make it back there. Once down to the floor, the navigation fun really begins. Heading south, you quickly exit the DV park and ride onto BLM land. I had found a BLM trail (on a jeep website) that goes up and out of the valley, through the pass and into Trona. I had a waypoint but there was a mushy lakebed between us and the trailhead. If someone was watching, it would have looked like keystone cops with all 3 of us zig zagging around looking for the trail. Perseverance paid off and we were on the road to Trona. We had already logged about 100 miles for the day when we ran into the roughest part of the trip. There is a rock garden climbing up out of DV which consists of bowling ball PLUS size volcanic rock that was beating me to death. If there was a "call your mommy" button on my spot tracker I would have pressed it! We pressed on, a couple decent climbs later we were heading down into Trona for fuel and a snack. It was getting late so we flew South, through the edge of the Spangler ORV area and onto the 395. We had planned to stay in the dirt to Randsburg but it was dark now so we slabbed it down to the 20 Mule team road heading to Cal City. This was without a doubt the sketchiest part of the trip. We were tired, sore, and hungry in the pitch dark on a miserable road. This road is a lot like Mexico, about 2/3 paved with WICKED potholes and major dust. Buck was leading and on the gas, I was parked on his rear fender trying to mitigate the dust, Chris was locked on my rear fender. Running 70 plus doing violent swerving maneuvers trying to dodge potholes......good times. As a bonus, the high speeds had flung virtually all of the oil out of my KTM and onto my riding pants. To my relief, this road dumps us right into the parking lot of our hotel. The new Best Western Suites on the south edge of town. After a great Mexican dinner, we retired for the evening and I for one was feeling the 750 (ish) miles we had ridden so far. My bike was feeling it too.....

Day 5 - Cal City to Big Bear.

We awoke on our final day of riding to more perfect weather, after a quick breakfast we headed into town to get fuel and off we went. I had not planned any of this part of the ride, I figured we would sniff out the Husky monument and just wing it from there to Barstow. It took a little searching but we did finally find the famous monument.

To be honest, I had mixed feelings on the place. I thought it was endearing to see the memorials to the old guys who had lived a full life, however, I was deeply saddened by the large number of kids there taken way before their time. One placard in particular had a fresh hand written message written on it by the kids mother, which was just so horribly sad. On a somber note, we pressed on toward Barstow. I was pleasantly surprised how much area was still open toward Barstow, we wandered a bit with no gps for the area but eventually pulled into Barstow for fuel.

Middle of nowhere west of Barstow...

Full tank of fuel and one last oil fill up on my 525 and we were off toward Johnson Valley then down to Lucerne once again. After an uneventful run to Lucerne, we stopped for a sandwich as it was getting late and we hadn't eaten since breakfast. The meal went long as we were rehashing the ride, comparing it to other rides we've had. We all agreed this had been a good one, we have set the bar pretty high for the next ride. Leaving Lucerne, the sun was setting and absolutely blinding as we headed for the poleline to take us back up into Big Bear. We decided to slab it up the 18 instead of dealing with the sun and the dust. The 18 turned out to be the perfect end to a great ride, no traffic! We finished supermoto style, torching what was left of our tires after 905 miles.

A couple of notes....

This route can be done with very little tarmac. We had a couple tarmac sections only because we got a late start and we were trying to beat the sunset. There is a significant part of this ride where you have no cell service, plan accordingly. I want to plan an overnight ride from Goat's in Randsburg to Stovepipe and back. Lot's to explore there! To my surprise, neither of us 3 missed Baja which I think was a first.

Hope you guys and gals enjoyed the recap of our little adventure. Cheers.

[bboyle9 24]

this looks fun...

[Riggerdan 147]

Looks like you guys covered some ground

Great pictures....