Superstition / Plaster City Ride

[Guest KTMrad]

This describes some areas we'll be using for future dualsport ride, tentatively planning for February.Sunday I rode the KTM out to Alpine to my friend Colin's house ). We loaded his XR600 and my Katoominto his truck and drove out to Plaster City. The plan was to explore andscout trails for my future dualsport ride. Colin knows the area very wellsince he has raced desert out there many times. So after unloading, weheaded under I-8, he wanted to show me the area south of the interstate.Then back north, along some trees and a wash and behind the prison. Then upthru the mudhills (some interesting, fun, ridge trails) and then up alongthe backside (east side) of Superstition Mountain. We found a trail Colinknew about that is challenging and fun. What we ended up exploring becameextremely challenging, and I must say, not so fun. We ended up on somechallenging hillclimbs with loose dirt, sand and many rocks. That wasn't sobad, until the trails kept fading more and more, and we tried finding ourway out of some narrow canyons without turning back. Colin and I both hatehaving to turn back, so we pressed on. We found a few dead-ends on thetrails, and some impassable options, and eventually dropped down into anarrow, rocky canyon where we saw some jeep tracks. Well, this canyon wasonly about a 1/2 mile long (maximum), and took us well over an hour. It isthe rockiest, nastiest canyon I think I've ever gone through, and perhapsthe most challenging trail (or close to it, and it wasn't really a trail,just an extremely, rocky canyon wash). I finally had to strip off my jacket,helmet and gloves and leave them on the ground because I was starting to getoverheated and exhausted. At the bottom, Colin found a way out of the canyonto a main trail. I had to walk back up about a 100 yards to get my gear, andafter the hike, had to take another break to cool off. We sat and talkeduntil we were both ready to go, at this point now out of H20. We thencontinued along the easier trail along the base of the hills, then up to thetop of one of the peaks, where an old concrete bunker sits. Colin saidGeneral Patton used to sit up in this air-conditioned bunker and watch thetank troops doing maneuvers in the desert, pretty cool !! We then headedthru the big sand dunes of Superstition, and Colin mistakenly led us thrupart of the active bombing range. I saw bombshells and actual bombs on theground, so I rode in Colin's tracks until we got out of that area. Then thruthe Painted Gorge area, heading towards Ocotillo. We got on a main trailthat was wooped out for miles, man that sucked (we were pretty beat from thenasty canyon earlier). By now we were in need of water, beer, and food.After a stop at the Lazy Lizard Lounge in Ocotillo, rode a few miles ofpavement east, then into a wash and high speed woops and open stuff back tothe truck. An awesome day of riding !! I am a bit sore today, and the Katoomhas some nice, serious scratches in the tank from the huge rocks I hadfallen on in those canyons. But, OH WELL !! It's a dirt bike.Last time some guys on the dualsport ride I organized asked if I can throwin some more challenging trails, so, thistime the guys won't be able to say I didn't includeany tough stuff. I'm going to give them some options that will be prettytough and nasty, experts only !!