padu 345 Posted October 31, 2023 May 27, 2023 In our third full day of riding, we finished two sections of the CABDR, sections 5 and 6. We camped at Furnace Creek campground and it was hot at night. I used no tent cover and had to sleep on my undies on top of the sleeping bag. Not comfortable. We woke up, packed up and headed to "The Ranch" at Death Valley. It's a true oasis amid the desert. Palm trees, a nice restaurant and facilities, and most importantly, AC in the convenience store. We bought breakfast and ate on the porch just outside the convenience store. After filling both our stomachs and gas tanks, we started our day riding north on CA-190. Our first stop was really close, just a few miles up ahead onto the Harmony Borax Works. That gave us a glimpse of the working conditions for the pioneer miners working under scorching conditions in the 1800s. Very interesting stop. Titus Canyon was closed due to road damage because or recent floodings, so the great majority of section 5 was paved, well, at least all the way to Ubehebe Crater. I've heard about this crater before and always thought it was due to a meteor impact, but no, it was a volcanic explosion, and pretty recent ("only" 2100 years ago). The pictures and videos don't tell the magnitude of the crater. It's almost a mile across and 600 ft. deep. People can actually hike down. We didn't - first because we had another section to complete, and the other that it would be super exhaustive to climb up again, especially on heavy MX boots. From Ubehebe to "The Racetrack" was the only part of section 5 that was unpaved. It's a fast washboard decomposed granite with dispersed bigger rocks. If you don't ride fast, this road will rattle the bones out of you. We obviously stopped for mandatory pictures at Teakettle Junction (yes, lots of tea kettles hanging on the sign). We left Furnace Creek around 9am, stopped by Ubehebe by 10:45am and by Teakettle by 12:00pm. We finally arrived at The Racetrack Playa by 1pm. We stopped to take some picture but didn't hike all the way to the sliding rocks. Too hot, too far. We ate our packed lunches and ready for the next section... a complete turn of gnarliness - to be continued... 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
