High plains twofer 07/05 and 07/07

[dirt dame 559]

the rain storms have let up....a little tiny bit anyway, so we have been trying to get some rides in where we will have less of a chance of getting stuck in the high desert gumbo or get struck by lightning.  Wednesday turned out to be a nice sunny day, so i drove up to the ranch that Kim lives at, and we rode out from there.  I had a brand new Beta Factory/Sachs shock absorber for Bugz Beta that i had installed when there was still plenty of snow on the ground, so I was chomping at the bit so to speak, to trail test the bike with the fresh rear boinger on it.

We saw a herd of elk on our way up to Aspen mountain, visiting Three Patches picnic ground on the way, and had fun following some pretty steep two track along the mountain range spine.  From on top, we could see the remnants of an old homestead at the base of a bluff.  So we wended our way down and zigzagged across the abandoned highway, now covered in dirt and rocks, most of the bridges washed out, the blacktop long gone for the most part.  Then we headed west on some more two track until we found the old cabin tucked up in a canyon.  From there, it was back to ranch before the afternoon turned to evening.

The new shock absorber performed very well, and I may have to invest in the matching factory front fork kit as well.

Yeah, it's blurry shot, I know.  But we were so far away, and the elk were on the move, so I had very little time to whip out my old P&S A590 and get the telephoto shot with no place to steady the camera.  So it is what it is.

[dirt dame 559]

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.

Edited July 9, 2023 by dirt dame

[kkug 146]

Looks Great Thanks for Posting Your Ride Up .

[Zubb 1061]

That is BIG country!

[Bagstr 287]

Mimi,  You do such a great job with your reports. Thank you for taking the time to create the report. 
You are definitely on the “Need to visit” list. Your area is on a Grand Scale… we rolled through there years ago doing the Continental Divide route and camped with the Pronghorn antelope.

Bagstr, Breaking out the maps