..... Scotty's Travelblogue ......

Oct. 2011 Utah ride, Moab white rim trail

2012-01-24T14:00:00.002-07:00

Tom & i got up early, had a nice breakfast at the hotel, then rode out of moab to the white rim trail. We went along the colorado river, then past the potash ponds to the trail. We were hoping the road was open & we could do the full loop.

It was a chilly morning, but as the sun rose it warmed for us. We had no bike issues, & the sky was pretty clear.

We stopped at Musslemans arch.. Tom is demonstrating how he would ride across it, if they would let him.

The scenery along the white rim trail is fantastic. Next to the grand canyon, this is my favorite view ride. But the white rim ride has everything.. rocky switchbacks, wash crossings, long sandy stretches, etc. It is challenging, scenic, & without a doubt one of the best motorcycle adventure rides out there. You can do it in a day, & there is more to see than you can remember.

The audio got lost in this one.. my contour hd camera is having some technical difficulties.. sometimes the audio does not get switched on.. not a big deal, the audio is pretty useless. All you hear is motor & wind noise. But it does add to the video effect.

You can see by the long shadows that it's still pretty early in the ride. We hadn't gotten to the 'white rim' yet.

If you've got a fast connection, turn up the resolution on the videos. I recorded them in HD, and the detail is better if you can download it. In this clip, we come up on the edge of the rim. The whitish colored rocks along the edge give the trail it's name.

It is mostly rocky in the first part, with a few bits of sandy roads sprinkled in. There are also some switchback sections, where it is loose & sometimes stepped.

Every so often there are some very cool rock formations.. it is amazing how they can form from just wind & water.

We came upon this little section.. it had a rocky section.. a little steep, but nothing too bad.. i just got on the wrong side of the trail & bounced off. I landed on my feet like a cat & let the poor bike crash by itself. I picked it up, rolled down the hill & came up with no problems on the second try. Tom just yawned as he rode up it.

This is the section of trail that goes up to murphy's hogback. It sometimes is very loose & torn up from use, which makes it more difficult on a bike. It wasn't too bad this time.

The views from on top are always magnificent.

After another climb, we start following the green river & get down to the sand. We try to keep our speed up.. the sand is very dry & loose, & a bit of speed helps to get through it. It was very dusty, & whoever was following had to let the dust settle a bit or you couldn't see the road. This is a long clip. It also has a climb through some rocks, follows along the cliff, then goes back down to more sand. It was a little steeper, had more turns, & was looser, and longer than the murphy's hogback climb.

This is the final section winding along the cliffs above the green river, then heading back down into the sandy valley. The sand along here was the worst, & was very loose going down the switchbacks. This is another longer clip, but has great views along the river cliffs, & has some interesting riding terrain, too.

After this, we had few climbs until we get to the big switchbacks at mineral bottom road. But we still had lots of sand.. i rode behind, & the dust was so bad i couldn't get any videos. It was nice along the river, & several times we were just at the water's edge.

This was the final climb on the switch backs that got washed out a couple of years back. They had only been finished for a short time, & of course the riding was smooth & easy.

We got up on top, took a wide graded road to some pavement, then rode the rest of the way back to moab. Dinner, cold beer, & back to the room for a rest. Tomorrow, we head to hanksville!

Oct. 2011 Utah ride.

2012-01-24T13:58:00.000-07:00

We may think we're just taking a ride, but in reality we're continuing a quest started long ago by our ancestors. I've thought a lot about my rides.. the places I've ridden.. the people i've ridden with.. the adventures & events that happen along the way.. & i've come to the conclusion that i'm not just going on a ride, but a holy quest.. a search for meaning & the purpose of life.

So now when i go riding, take pictures, write a report, or have a beer with my riding buddies & talk about the ride, it has deep philosophical significance & connects me to the cosmos. The views, the crashes, the breakdowns, the reroutes.. the food & the beer.. all are no longer just stuff to do, but are filled with spiritual meaning & metaphysical connections.

My son in law has been wanting me to come up to Ogden to go duck hunting with him. I've never hunted ducks, but i do like to eat them, so i thought i'd come up & join him on a hunt. I also thought it would be a good time to go for a ride up through northern Arizona & Utah.

Then my riding buddies wanted to plan a ride in the San Rafael Swell in central Utah for a few days, so i thought i could combine both of those into a mega ride that takes up most of October. But the day i was planning to leave, rain was forcast. No problem. I'll bring my rain gear, & stay off the mud if it rains. The WRX will do pavement, fine. So i left early on Wed. Oct 5th, & headed north through the Navajo reservation toward Utah's southern border. It was overcast all day, but no rain. I mixed some pavement & dirt, as i wanted to make Escalante, Ut by dark.

I took a couple of side roads to see where they went. This road disappeared, but i followed a wash into a nice canyon spot where i took a break. Then back to the highway.

House Rock road went through house rock valley, & connected 89a with 89. It was about a 60 mile shortcut, & would connect me back to more dirt up the cottonwood canyon road, which followed the paria river for a ways. But as i turned onto house rock road, the skies darkened ominously. About halfway through, the rain started. The road was fairly dry, but was getting wetter by the minute. I kept up my pace, hoping to get through before the mud got sloppy & slick. I didn't stop to put on my rain gear, but wanted to get off the dirt before it was mud.

Parts of the road got a little slippery, but i finally made it to the slab. I pulled into a big culvert that went under the highway & put on my rain gear. I planned to head east to the cottonwood canyon road & follow it up to Escalante. I rode for a few minutes, & the rain came down harder. It was about 4pm, & it would be muddy. I stopped & decided to turn around & head for Kanab & get a room. Kanab was about an hour away, & it rained steadily the entire way. I stopped at a couple of places, & settled on a decent room that was within walking distance to some eateries. It was still raining, & would rain like this all night. I hung my clothes around the room & went for a pizza.

It rained all night, & was wet & cold in the morning.

It looked like rain was in the forcast for the next few days, so i decided to skip the dirt & stay on the slab. I figured i could go up 89, then take some other minor roads & get to Ogden without having to get on the interstate. The rain had stopped at 6:30, & i left, hoping for a bit of a pause in the weather. But as i headed north, the rain started back up, & it got colder. Kanab is in the 5k foot elevation range, & i would have to climb up to nearly 8k in a couple of the passes. I didn't know there was a winter weather alert up north, but i soon found out. About an hour from Kanab, i got into snow. The temperatures were dropping fast, too. It was in the 20's in the higher elevations. I could only ride an hour or so, then i had to stop & thaw out. I chatted with some highway patrolmen, who told me of a few accidents ahead where some cars had slid off the road. But they said the deepest snow was behind me, so i decided to press on & not go back to Kanab & cut over to I-15 at St. George.

I had on every bit of clothing i brought. I put on both pairs of socks. The rain gear was great.. blocked the wind & kept me dry. The windscreen was also greatly appreciated.. i put it on at the last minute before i left, because of the rain in the forcast. But i had decided to wear my Sidi road boots. They are very protective.. hinged ankles, good protection everywhere. But i thought they were more water resistent than they were. Water came right through them. My feet were wet all the time. I had dried my socks the night before, but they were wet within an hour. I put on my other pair, & they were wet in a short time as well. So my feet were numb with cold the whole time. I would stop, get a coffee, take my boots off & try to warm my feet a bit.. using paper towels to sop up some of the water. I would warm them just until they began to hurt, then hit the road. Back on the bike, they would be wetter & colder in a short time. Everything else was reasonably dry & warm. My hands got cold, but they were dry in some nice waterproof road gloves i got as a gift last year. I wished i had worn my full moto boots. They would have been a lot drier & warmer.

By the time i made I-70, i decided to cut over to I-15 & take it the rest of the way to the Salt Lake valley. But there was another high mountain pass i had to cross, & the snow was still coming down. I passed a couple of cars that had slid off the road.. some tow trucks were still winching them out of the ditch. That was, of course, very encouraging. I expected the rain. The cold was a not so pleasant surprise. If i had thought there was a slim chance of snow, i would have waited until spring or next summer to come up. This was a freak, early winter storm.

Several more stops.. more coffee.. wait until the feet hurt, then ride. There were a few spots along I-15 where it stopped raining.. for 1/2 hr or so.. what a wonderful reprieve! By the time i pulled into Provo, it was a balmy 46*F, but the rain started up again. The lower elevations were much better than the mountains, though, so it felt warm by comparison. Eventually i made it to Ogden, pried myself off the bike, put on some dry warm socks & shoes, & waited for the Daughter to come home. Tomorrow i could look forward to dragging a small boat through marshes & reeds with a wet dog, & of course, in the rain.

Ogden single track.
I scared a lot of ducks, but Taylor got a couple so we did have a duck dinner. Mary decided we needed to go for a nice ride in the mountains above ogden.. the day before i was to leave. So about 3pm.. on a Sunday.. when i'm ready to settle down & watch football & have a beer, we leave for Ogden canyon. I didn't even get my windscreen off! I thought i was riding to Moab next..

It was a beautiful ride up Ogden canyon.. the leaves were all changing & the colors were spectactular. We cut behind Pineview reservoir to the trail head.

Mary coming up the trail.

Taylor riding sweep.

The riders: Scotty, Taylor, Mary, & Trevor.

Mary. She would leave for Maui in a few days to compete in the xterra triathalon. She won her age group in Nevada in April, & was second in the Utah regional event.

I seldom got out of 1st gear on this trail. It was narrow, rocky, rooted, & wet in spots. I rode ok for the first hour or 2, but started to get tired as the evening approached. I had been up at 4am, & we had been busy all day. We came down off of one of the peaks, & were heading for the long downhill section when i must have dozed off & went off the trail.

Unfortunately, i did not get this on video, but i had Taylor snap the pickup. Trevor & Taylor helped me & we got it back on the trail. No more mishaps, & the nastiest terrain was still ahead.

I didn't get anymore stills, but the video shows some great views of the trail, & the fall colors. It was nearly dark when we got back, but we made it ok. I had to adjust my wind screen a bit.. tweak the headlight housing, & pack up all my stuff, but i got it back together & was ready for the ride to Moab on Monday.

Ride to Moab.
I had breakfast with the kids & they went off to work. I finished up my packing & cleaned up my room, then hit the road. I was planning on taking some scenic routes to Moab, & would be riding about 9 hrs. But just going through salt lake city was cool enough, so i decided to just go through one mountain pass, instead of several. The colors throughout the salt lake basin were beautiful.. vibrant reds & yellows, & all the colors in between. I turned in Hwy 6 to go through price & the highest mountain pass i would do this day.

I stopped a couple of times for coffee & a break (i brought my small thermos). Along the railroad tracks, i saw this guy. He stopped & watched me for a while.. wondering if i was his shepherd, but decided i wasn't & continued on down the track. I could relate. Here we were, 2 little lost lambs waiting for the freight train of life to run us down.

My alter ego disappered down the tracks, I finished my coffee & headed on down the road.

I was traveling pretty light.. just the 2 panniers & a tank bag. I had rigged the rear pannier up in ogden. I got some alum. stock & bolted it to the passenger peg, then bent it around to the license plate holder. It held the bags off the pipe & kept them secure.

It was still chilly, especially going through the mountain pass before Price. But it was dry, so i was warm enough. Once i got down to the desert floor, it heated up & i had to take off my liner jacket.

I gassed up in green river, then continued on to moab. I got there before 5, checked in to the motel, then waited for Tom to join me. He was trailering up from Prescott, to ride the white rim trail. When we rode it last year, he missed out because of bike issues. This time he brought the wr250r.

No videos of the ride, but tomorrow's ride along the white rim will make up for it.

Grand Canyon, June 2011

2011-07-15T09:01:00.001-07:00

Kim, riding a Kawasaki klx250; Tom on a Honda 650 xrl, & I on a Yamaha 250wrx met near Sedona for our annual Grand Canyon ride. It was June 1st, & we would be gone 4 days. Tom rode over from Prescott & we were off at about 9am. We would ride dirt up the old stoneman lake road, then go past Morman lake & connect to the winona ranch road & go north past Flagstaff.

Kim, checking out the honda.. wondering how they get all the bolts to stay on.

We got on the winona ranch road, & Tom & i got our helmet cams mounted for the rocky ride.. most of what we had been on to this point was fairly mild dirt. Now it was going to get bumpy.

Here's a section along winona ranch road.

More along the pines.

Much of this road followed a seasonal creek.. lots of boulders to ride through.

We get out of the pines, & into more juniper & pinon vegetation. We also see more cows.

Here we're getting out of the unimproved roads & on a maintained road. Notice the horse & rider (and dog) as i turn onto the road.

This road ends near Flagstaff at I-40, which we cross but don't ride on. Tom's rear brake was feeling limp, so we stopped to check on it. Fortunately it just needed adjusted.

Our route took us across the Little Colorado river.. twice. The first was by grand falls, which at this time is not grand at all. ..no water flow. But we still stop & admire the views, & imagine the roar of the water.

Still snow covered on the north sides, the san francisco peaks were a reference for us on the entire ride.

We rode through the rez & saw lots of wild horses galloping around.. Usually i've seen these guys further north.. up closer to the Grand Canyon. but they were out running & got very close to us on occasion.

One group crossed the road, then followed along it for a while. I took some one handed shots so i could keep up with them. Many of my shots were just of my finger but i got a few in.

But they veered off & headed for higher ground. We'd see more on the gray mt. truck trail later in the day. Unfortunately i didn't have my helmet cam on.. it would have been very cool to have gotten some video of them galloping along beside me for a bit..

We crossed the little colorado river again at wupatki nat. monument. Still no water this time of year. We were following the little colorado up to the GC.

By now it was after 2pm. We wanted to get to GC for dinner & Tom's long island iced teas (the only reason he goes up there, i think!). So we just had a snack at gray mt. A healthy candy bar, ice cream, & we're back on the road.. up the gray mt. truck trail.

Early on we saw another group of horses.. this herd has a small foal. They kept their distance & hoofed it to rocky high ground.

There were some pretty tough sections on the GMTT.. but here is a nice open spot.

On the high ground, views were impressive from all directions.

We finally got to the switchbacks down to hwy 64. There are some spectacular views along here. The deep little colorado river gorge shows in sharp contrast

We were planning on going to the convergence of the Colorado & little colorado on Thursday. But today, we just wanted to get to the GC village.

We got down to hwy 64 & took it for a few miles to another dirt road that we'd take to grandview road, near the overlook. Last year, this was an unimproved dirt road, but not too rough. It had long straight stretches where you could open it up. But this year, they had gravelled it with a blue grey gravel.. pretty large rock, too. It made the dust much worse, & traction was tougher in the curves with the loose gravel. We couldn't figure out why they did it.. not much traffic on these roads. We've never seen anyone else on them. But this was in the national park & forest, so no doubt there was a good reason related to national security or perhaps it was part of the bank bailout.

We got to the Maswik lodge by 5pm, checked in & got Tom his tea. We strolled along the rim for a bit, but it was quite chilly & the wind had a bite to it. But it was nice inside the bright angel lodge.

But before we went to the lodge, we found mechanical problems with one of the bikes.. problems that would affect the rest of the ride. The next day we would address those problems. But this night we would get some rest.

End of day 1.

Day 2. Work on the Kawasaki.

I got up bright & early, as usual, & went for a stroll along the rim. The air was chilly, & there was a hint of smoke in the air.. a fire had started near Williams, & the smoke drifted north to us. It's been a bad year for forest fires this year.. some of the biggest ever in eastern Az.

But i got a couple of pics of the sun peeking over the rim of the canyon.

I warm up in the bright angel lodge a bit, as the air is cool & the wind is starting to pick up. Then i head back to see if my riding buddies are up & about. They are, & they're hungry. We make our way to the maswik lodge cafeteria for a hearty breakfast.

Before, during, and after breakfast, we discuss what we're going to do with Kim's bike. When we arrived yesterday, we notice the sub frame at the back of the Kawasaki is broken.. on both sides. The steel tubes are completely broken, & the back is flopping around, only held together by the fender & the muffler bolts. We consider going into Tusayan for some parts. But Tom & i had this problem a couple of years back trying to find just a bolt for his honda. I suggested we go by the maintenance dept & ask for some wire & maybe a piece of rebar to jam into the holes & hold it together. We walk right by it when we pass the mule corral.. always a highlight of the trip visiting the mules!

So as not to overwhelm the maintenance guys, Tom stays at the room, & Kim & i walk over to engineering. We first go in where a guy is behind a desk in what looks like the parts & ordering dept. We tearfully describe our dilimma, & the heartless guy behind the desk turns us down flat. No, we don't have a piece of wire in the whole grand canyon village. No, we don't have a bit of rebar or all thread, either. Ok, we get it. We leave discouraged, but before we go all the way back to the room, i approach some guys heading out to work by their trucks. Sure, we've got some wire & all thread we'd be glad to give you. Come on by the shop down the road & we'll fix you up. Our discouragement turns to elation! We float back to the room & tell Tom the happy news. We gather up our meager tools, & head over to the shop.

The guys here are very nice.. they're real working guys, not some bureaucrat behind a desk, parroting policy. It probably does violate some kind of insurance regulations, but they take a chance on us that we're not conspirators looking for an insurance fraud scheme. They look in the scrap bin & pull out some hanging wire for suspended ceilings.. perfect! very stiff, but will twist & hold. Then we look for some rebar or all thread we can jam in the tubes to hold them together. Some 3/8 all thread is a bit small, but we wrap some diamond lath around it & it fits tight. We have the whole back of the Kawi apart to get the broken frame so the all thread & wire can hold it back together. It feels very solid.. we also add a bolt in the muffler, & wrap some tie wires around it, too. We worked 1-2 hrs on it, & are very happy with the result. Kim is very happy to have his bike back functioning, & gives the guys $50 to buy donuts or pizza.. the boss would get it for them that afternoon.

No pictures of the bike surgery.. too bad, it was a very elegant fix. We ride back to the room, & decide to just hang out along the rim for the rest of the day.. too late to get out for a ride. Plus Tom was going to have shoulder surgery soon, & was riding with a bad wing.. so it would be better to pace ourselves. Big league pitchers get tommy john surgery when they tear a rotator cuff, & this was Tom's issue as well. Too many 90 mph fastballs on his playstation.

We stroll along the rim, admiring the awesome views. We get an ice cream, argue politics, & generally kill time while waiting for the NBA finals.

There is a pizza place at the maswik lodge, with big screen tv's. We get there a little early to secure a good seat. Tom & I were in a packed house last year when the world cup was on, & it was standing room only. But even with Nowitski playing, & all the german visitors, basketball was no match for the drawing power of the world cup. Sobbing germans left the place last year.. too depressed to enjoy the grand canyon as Espana dashed Deutchland's hopes of world domination. But the Mavericks win didn't seem to inspire them.. though Kim cleaned up with his choice of Nowitski's scoring. I picked Lebron, & Tom went with a long shot.. Berea. But with the game nearly over, & miami with a comfortable lead, Tom decided to double down & went call the mavs victory. Kim took that bet, already counting all the cool mods he could buy for his bike, now. But the mavs came through, & i was the only loser..

end of day 3.

Day 4. Good vibrations, hybrid horses, cape solitude.

Today we're going on a real ride! ..down past desert view, across the wild navajo nation expanse, & to cape solitude.. one of the most breathtaking views in the GC.. & the least visited.

I get up early again, & go out to explore the area.. mostly to visit the mules.. they always understand me & nod sympathetically as i pour out my heart. I saw some deer also visiting the mules.. lost woodland creatures seem to know instinctively where to go.

I don't know why Kim & Tom rolled their eyes every time i suggested we visit the mules.. I hung out with them a lot, & can't really tell the difference.. except the mules are better listeners..

Tom was so excited to go on a real offroad ride that he spent the night on the bike. Kim & i just had to wake him up & away we went!

We had our usual maswik cafeteria breakfast, then hit the road. It's about 25 miles to desert view, where we fill up out tanks & start off road.

The first few miles are pretty steep, have lots of loose switchbacks, & views to die for. We stopped a couple of times, but had a long ride ahead, so didn't want to dawdle too much.

This is longer than my usual videos, but has most of the ride down the switchbacks.

Kim took this of me with the tiny desert view tower in the upper left distance.

We continued our way along the winding trail to the outskirts of the Navajo reservation.

This is a very rocky, bumpy road with lots of twists & turns. We make a few turns, & not even halfway to our destination we notice a problem. Kims rear end is flopping around again.

Normally, we don't worry about Kim's rear end.. it can flop about all it wants. But we're heading to cape solitude, & there's no place on that road for a floppy rear end. We consult the experts.. the muffler bolt has fallen out again.. & one of our 'fixes' has unfixed itself.

One of the holding rods we put in the broken subframe has slid forward & no longer is holding the pipes together. At least 2 bolts have vibrated out.. one is the main bolt for the muffler. Fortunately the tie wire that we put on as insurance has held. After vigorous debate & an indian leg wresling match, we decide to return. Perhap we'll find the bolt, I suggest optimistically. We return with our eyes on the trail, & sure enough, a few miles back, we find the offending bolt lying passively on a steep grade. A few feet away is the spacer. We tighten it back on, & Tom finds a spare bolt in his tool bag for the other missing bolt for the seat. We still think we should head back.. more vibration will not improve things, & there are miles & miles of rough, rugged roads ahead.

We stop every few miles to check things.. just to make sure noting else has vibrated out of Kim's bolt spitting machine. We then come to the switch backs.. very steep, rocky, & of course, bumpy. At the top we stop to catch our breath & wait for our hearts to start back up. What do we notice but the bolt is out again of Kim's bike! The main muffler bolt has again vibrated out.. even with us watching & checking on it. Kim vetos going back to look for it. We were lucky once, but lightning usually does not strike twice in the same place. The worst of the bumpy trail is nearing an end, & we can get on hwy 64 to head back to the lodge. So we make sure the rest of the bike is functional, then head for pavement. I was wanting to try a road that cuts back into the blue gray gravel road we came up on a few days before, so when we made to highway, Kim took it back to the village, with Tom following for backup. I crossed the highway & continued along some nice dirt roads until tying back into the blue gravel road.

I get back just a little after Tom & Kim. They ran into a traffic jam coming into GC from desert view. So we decide to walk along the rim a bit & enjoy the views. They are pretty spectacular.. it is not one of the seven wonders of the world for nothing.

We finally get tired of walking around & head to the bright angel bar, where Tom can get his usual long island iced teas. After boring each other with the same stories, lies, & exagerations, we leave near dusk & head back to the rooms.

End of day 3.

Day 4. The long ride home.

Kim decided to take the pavement back home.. he was wanting to minimize vibration. The route we were planning to take was near williams, & was the site of a forest fire, so we wanted to avoid that. Tom thought he'd go back on the west side, following the railroad tracks & coming out near ash fork. And I've been wanting to take the grandview road all the way past flagstaff. It looks like a better dirt road on the maps (you can tell that by looking at a map?). So we decide to dissolve the fellowship of the bolts, & each of us goes our seperate way.

We have our final meal together.. another maswik cafeteria fare, load up & bid farewell. We all ride out through tusayan.. Kim continues down hwy 64, Tom turns west toward the grand canyon railroad tracks, & i go east from tusayan toward grandview road. I make a couple of wrong turns at some forks, & have to backtrack a bit to keep on the right road.. i started to go down the way that Tom & i took last year that turned into a mountain bike trail. There were a few connecting roads that had some texture to them, but most of the main roads were fairly well maintained.. dirt, but easy riding.

I finally got on the open road.. the original stage road to the GC. There were several ruins of old stage stops. It made it interesting thinking about people coming along here to see the GC riding in a stage coach.

It wasn't long before a major point of reference came into view.. the san francisco peaks. The tallest mountains in Az, with snow still on the north face.

I liked this road.. it had a few challenging spots, but nothing too gnarly. It had great views all along, with a few gates for cattle. I did see quite a few cows, but they were uninterested in me. There was no other traffic.. no cars, bikes, pedestrians.. After this open spot, i came upon some antelope. One loner got on the wrong side of me, & had to run past me to get to the high ground. I didn't get any pictures, but he was running very fast.. i don't think i'd seen them run that fast before.

After this section, there were a few wash crossings.. some were pretty rough, with some rugged, rocky climbs out. I tried to imagine how the stage coaches came through here, with only a few horsepower. Some of the trail was lined with big rocks.. i suppose the early road crews went through to mark the way, & clear some of the rocks from the road.

There were a few long sandy stretches along fence rows, then it began to go down the northern foothills to hwy 89a. Once on the pavement, i took the short route home, through flagstaff & down oak creek canyon.

It was a shorter ride than usual, our grand canyon ride, but it was still eventful & fun. I always look forward to this ride, & even though we didn't get out to cape solitude, the rest of the ride, & the views along the way, were more than enough to make the ride worthwhile.

End of Day 4.

3/3/11, Copper canyon, Cherry road.

2011-03-06T08:01:00.000-07:00

It finally warmed up enough for us to plan a ride. Tom would ride over from prescott & meet Kim & i who would ride up copper canyon. Then we *planned* to ride dugas road down near childs, then down to bloody basin & back.

Kim & I at the gate. We went through a half a dozen water crossings.. some of them fairly deep. But now we were going to climb up copper canyon.

We made it up copper canyon without incident.. the power company had put in some new lines & they graded the road last year. But once on top, we got into a little mud.. some of the road was very rutted from 4 wheelers driving on it, so you had to watch the road. but as we neared the meeting intersection, i looked ahead to see if Tom was there, & my front tire slipped into a dried rain rut. My back tire was in another, & the bike quicky went down. I slid on my head for a few feet, then rolled & got up. My right thigh had taken a hard hit on a rut, but i was otherwise ok. My helmet cam was intact, too, so i turned it on briefly to record the crash.. those are always more interesting to viewers than successful rides. A lens had popped off my front turn signal, but the major problem was it looked like my bars were bent. The right side was pointing further back & down than it did. I could still ride it, but it was going to be a problem.

Here's my helmet, with the marks from landing on it & sliding on the road. I'm surprised the visor stayed intact.

As Kim rode up, i picked up the bike, started it up & rode on to the meeting place. I stalled it again going up another rutted, muddy spot going up to the main road, but finally we all arrived.

Kim was on a Kawi 250klx, Tom on a yammi wr250r, me on a yammi wr250x. After i pulled up & stopped, my bike would not start. The starter wouldn't turn, but the dash lights came on. Tom had already taken off, so Kim suggested i bump start it while he ran ahead to get Tom. We were on a curve in the road, which wasn't the best place to work on a broken bike.

I pushed it up the hill for a bit, then turned around, ran it down the hill a bit, turned on the key & shifted to second. I popped the clutch, but still no start. I pulled off the road & started to look for problems. The bent bar was the first suspect. I thought perhaps a wire was disconnected with the jolt.

So Kim & Tom come back, & we start tearing things apart. Check the switch.. check the fuses. Look around behind the headlight cowl. I suspect a wire that runs behind the radiator (naturally). It comes from the starter button assembly, so i want to follow it & check the connection.

I took the radiator off & loosened the tank. Kim steadied it while i fiddled with the connection. I pushed on the wire, & then heard a 'click'. Turn on the key, push the button. The engine started right up. We had found the culprit.

The offending plug is the white plastic plug in the hole.. i reached under the frame & held the lower wire, while pushing the upper wire down. That's when i heard it 'click'.

We put everything back together. About an hour had elapsed, & we were doubting our proposed route. Tom was certain there would still be snow, & lots of mud. He suggested we go the other way on the Great Western Trail, lunch at dewey, then go home with a nice ride under our belts, & no one dying of exposure. Kim thought that was a great idea, plus he wanted to eat at leff-t's in Dewey. It was near noon already, so going on toward bloody basin road would make a very long day of it. I jumped on the bandwagon & we all took off to leff-t's.

Back together & ready to roll!

We had tried to straighten the bars, but could not get any leverage. As we rode along the great western trail, i looked at the bar clamps. They did not look even. I have rox risers, & high bars. I think i discovered the 'bend'. The bar clamps had given a bit, & twisted the bars. I stopped & loosened the bar clamps, & straightened the bars. While i did that, Tom loosened the fork clamps & made sure they were straight. After this bit of work, the bar was back to being straight. No damage. A perfect bike.

We had a nice run north & west along the trail, then took the old cherry road back to hwy 169.

Finally to our main destination... Leff-T's!.

We went into Leff-t's & had a nice lunch. It was a little pricey, but the food was good. Kim had not steered us wrong.

So we geared up. Tom headed back to prescott, Kim & i went back to cherry road to take it to the verde valley.

The cherry road is a nice, scenic road.. it has a lot of windy switchbacks & stunning views every so often. We could see the sedona red rocks in the distance, & even the san francisco peaks in Flagstaff.

I got a new camera.. a sony tx-5. It has a cool panarama feature. Just hold down the button & sweep across the scene. It automatically stitches it together. I had to try it out.

No other video, stills or dramatic crashes. We rode home with the sun shining, the views stunning, & the bikes running. The ride was good. The bike is still reliable & sturdy.

Sheeps Bridge, 2/15/11

2011-02-17T05:09:00.000-07:00

Kim, Tom & I met at Bloody Basin Road & I-17 at 9am for a ride in the lower desert. It was cool in the morning, but warmed up nicely by afternoon.

My pentax 'waterproof' camera drowned in Hawaii last month, so until i get another, all i have is the videos from the Contour. I think you can still play them in HD, just find the button on the videos to change resolution.

Here's an early part of the ride.. along Bloody Basin Road. It's about 40 miles to sheeps bridge from our staging point at i-17.

There are some terrific panoramic views along this ride.

Here's the bridge crossing..

The steep section after the bridge.. with my stylish drop at the end.

Tom & Kim came down more uneventfully.. i got a few vid clips, but their engines were off & they crept slowly down the rocky path. I didn't feel those scenes were compelling enough to include in this fast action thriller.

Dead Man's Creek crossing.. a long boulder filled wash. Lots of 4x4 activity had flattened down the boulders.. it was much easier than it was for Tom & I last year.

The road to horseshoe dam.. lots of tall saguaro lining the road, clear & warm weather to ride in.

I've got a couple more to upload.. the dam crossing & the last climb out. The roughest parts of the ride were done later, along a powerline from New River up to Table Mesa Road. Unfortunately, my camera was put away by then..

You're never sure what this ride will hold.. the spot after the bridge is tricky, & the wide wash changes after the spring snow melt & major rains. But right now, it's fairly easy.

Here is the gps loop we took. We had a few miles on the slab.. between table mesa & black canyon city we were on the freeway. It was about 130 miles total.. a great day for a ride in the lower desert!

scotty

Last of the Utah ride.. Ogden, glocks, elk & long ride home.

2010-10-25T10:59:00.000-07:00

Friday, 10/8/10

On this day, the rest of the gang would be heading home. I would be riding solo up to Ogden to visit the Daughter for a couple of days, then head home in time to take the Wife to the airport, where she would go to Milan to meet the Daughter. So this was a very busy couple of weeks.

Here's a couple of pics Tom took..

After the joys of mudville ride:

The next morning, we packed up all our stuff & had another hearty breakfast at Blondies. I asked them if i could use their hose out back to wash my bike a bit, & they said yes! Tom took this one of me washing down the wrx.

I got it pretty clean, then loaded up my bags & bolted on the windscreen. ..ready to go. My riding buddies headed south back to Az, & i headed north up to Ogden. After i crossed I-70, my gps routed me onto a nice dirt road.. i took it fairly tentavely.. had my fill of adventures already. But there were only a few muddy spots, & nothing too long or deep.

Still clean, outfitted for the road..

This was some fun, scenic solo riding..

Then i came to this:

I stopped & walked it, first.. didn't want to get stuck in the mud by myself. I was ready & willing to turn back, but the ground was firm & had a sandy/rocky base, so i hopped back on the bike & rode across.

After a few miles, this road came to the paved road going to Price, which connected over the mountains to Spanish Fork. It was fairly cool, & got cloudy as i got to Price. My bigger tank was giving me a nice range, so i kept going, after a short warm up stop. The road through price canyon was rainy. There was snow on the surrounding mountains! The windscreen did a fantastic job of keeping me warmer.. i would also throttle with my left hand, & warm my right hand by the now open radiator. The left hand i could tuck between me & the tank bag as i huddled behind the screen. The extra farings on the acerbis hand guards helped keep some of the wind off my hands, but they still were cold. I had all my jackets on, plus my silk balaclava.. that & the full face helmet kept my face & head warm (er!)

This is a very nice ride.. very scenic. Because of the rain & cold, i didn't stop to take any pics, though, but wanted to get to the warmer & sunnier valley at spanish fork. When i did, i gassed up & took a long break to warm up.

I got on the interstate at spanish fork. No problem. The 250 wrx can cruise at 70 all day. I probably averaged about 75.. i kept up with the traffic, & passed some cars. I could hit 80-85 if i needed to. But by the time i got to Provo, all the stress of the week, the cold of this days ride, the drone of the freeway.. all of this made me very tired. I was having trouble keeping my eyes open. It was about 3pm, & i was wanting to beat as much of the salt lake rush hour that i could. But i finally conceded defeat & pulled over to a big mall parking lot. On the outskirts of the lot were some trees in the little islands. The ground covered with wood chips. With my helmet still on, earplugs in, & even gloves, i stretched out & closed my eyes for a bit. An hour later i opened them. I would now have rush hour to deal with, but felt much more rested.

A couple of hours later, i pulled up to the enthusiastice greeting of Soshi, their new pup. Taylor & Mary took me out for a nice olive garden meal, & i got to bed fairly early, still tired from the week's rides.

Sat, Sun, 10/9-10/10
No riding for me, these days.. Taylor had a cyclecross race, so i went along to watch.

Taylor is in here, somewhere!

I thought you were supposed to ride the bikes... Taylor in great form clearing an obstacle..

Mary helped out with tires, wrenches, & also took some pictures. She didn't ride in this race.

I helped baby sit the dog & took a few pictures. We stayed & socialized afterward.. i entertained the dog, mostly. They have a nice circle of friends.. most of them cycling atheletes.. but hanging out with 20 somethings is not for old people.

Taylor had gotten a new pistol, & wanted to take it to the range & show it to me. I hadn't fired a pistol since i was 20, but went along. They were both impressed with my marksmanship. I guess it's like riding a bicycle. It was a Glock.. and after firing it i decided i needed one, too! It is a very nice pistol, only 9mm. I'll look around & maybe get one when i get some extra money. In 10 or 20 more years i should be able to do it!

Sunday we went to Taylor's grand mother's 80th birthday! She is a wonderful woman.. quite the character. I met her at their wedding. Afterwards, Taylor wanted to take the dog out for some grouse.. so we all went hunting.

The dog, Mary & I were supposed to flush out the birds for Taylor, but we didn't do a very good job. I got real tired (again!) clambering around on the steep hillside, & wanted to wait at the return point while they continued. They did flush out 3 deer, which i saw coming down the hill. I took some pics, but they didn't come out.. too dark, too many trees. But i asked, how many birds did you get? I shot 3 deer.. with the camera, of course.

Monday, 10/11/10 Ogden to Sedona.

Mary did not want me to ride all the way home in one day, so i said i would stop & check on a hotel in Kanab or Page. I left about 9, letting it warm up, some, & hoping the rush hour traffic would die down. I took the interstate again all the way to spanish fork, then cut over to hwy 89. It was cool at first, but warmed up some as the day wore on.

By late afternoon, i saw these guys all out sunning themselves..

I'm sure they were part of a private herd.. they were fenced in.

I made good time coming down 89.. made a couple of stops, but kept riding. I passed a lot of cars & rv's. It was nearly 4 when i neared Kanab. I decided to keep going to page, & took a dirt road shortcut over. It has some washed out spots, especially in the low water crossings, but it was dry enough & i rode it without incident. It was a little past 6 when i got into page. I took some pics while riding of lake powell, but the light was dim & they were all blurry. Too bad. The late sun was very nice. I decided i was only about 3 hrs more to home, so why stop now? I continued along 89 into Flagstaff. I kept my speed up very well, probably averaging 75-80. I passed quite a few cars & trucks, but had few pass me. This is another great thing about this bike.. it will rumble through the rocks, slog through the mud, then cruise down the hiway. The windscreen was the best.. it really keeps the wind down.

By the time i got up to flag, it was very dark.. & cold. I cleared an 8k' pass & stopped in Flag to warm up a bit. I called my wife who was at work. ..Only about an hour to go. I made the final ride down the canyon, warming up as the elevation decreased. It was about 9pm.. about 12 hrs total, around 580 miles.. mostly pavement. ..nice to be home.
scotty

Day 4. No joy in Mudville. Hanksville mud, 10/7/10

2010-10-20T13:58:00.000-07:00

Day 4. No joy in Mudville.

The outlook wasn't brilliant for the mudville 4 this day.
Tom was staying home so only 3 of us would play.
But since Bryan was a newbie, & Kim & i were lame,
The sticky mud would be the only winner of this game.

Tom's ribs were pretty sore after the last drop on the right side from the day before. He found out later he had cracked them. But he did not complain, just rode the bike out of the most difficult riding i had ever done. But that minor inconvenience, with the flakey running of the honda convinced him to stay at the hotel this day. So after a hearty breakfast at Blondies.. & i do mean hearty.. they do not serve a stingy breakfast.. we gassed up & headed for the surrounding hills. An easy dirt ride to Goblin valley, then a loop around. This was some of Kim's old riding grounds. We were all looking forward to riding after he had regaled us with tales of derring do in his long lost youth. Kim's gps was too small or his eyes too dim for him to see it, & Bryan didn't cotton to that sort of thing, so i defaulted into riding point.

The 'dirt' road into Goblin Valley. The shiny ground is wet mud.

We crossed a few puddles.. a reminder of the past few days steady rains, though the early part was reasonably dry. But after a few miles we came upon a longer wetter crossing. I saw it coming up, and tried to pick up momentum to get through, hoping i would find solid ground underneath the wet mud. I soon found out why i was appointed to ride in the lead.

I buried it to the axles. I got off & the bike stood up by itself.. no kickstand. I walked around it some, looking wistfully back at my riding companions. Have you seen nature shows where a lion catches a gazelle or water buffalo & the rest of the herd watches at a distance as their hapless friend is eaten? I was the gazelle in the lion's claws.

I tried several times to walk it out, but only moved a few feet, & sunk it deeper. I went for a walk to see where the nearest exit point might be. It was at least a hundred yards in any direction.

I was about in the middle of the mud patch. It was a low spot where all the drainage from the rains had collected. The mud was deep & consistent. Finally, Brian & Kim came out to help. We picked out a spot that headed toward some high ground. Bryan pulled with a tow strap he had thoughtfully brought, Kim pushed, & i walked beside the bike spinning the rear tire. We started to move! First a few inches.. then it picked up some momentum.. finally when it got in some grass clumps it caught & took off. I jumped on it while the back was still spinning, & rode it onto high ground.

This was the brown mud challenge.

Kim & Bryan were walking around by my mud road entrance to find a drier, easier way to cross. Kim did not want to get his jersey muddy.

I yelled across to them that i would ride ahead some more & see if i could find where the road continued. If it was more of the same, i would have to come back. I went up more, & could see something that kinda looked like a road.. but it was very rutted. I gave the signal that there was a road ahead.. one long blast on my fog horn.. then walked over where i could see them. They must have debated the merits of trying to cross for a long time. ..or maybe they were eating lunch. ..or telling old stories of when they got stuck in the mud.. or wondering if they left me would i would hunt them down like Clint Eastwood in Hang 'em High. They stayed there for a while, then finally, i see them turn around & drive back the other way! They would take their chances that i would not survive to hunt them down.

Right. It's not like i could run into any trouble on this easy trail.. and i certainly was not going to turn back & cross the mud field alone. So my only option was to press on. Tom was not there to inspire & motivate me, & i could only imagine the maniacal laughter fading over the hill as Kim & Bryan disappeared from view. I checked the rope scar on my neck, grim determination setting in.

OK. Abandoned by my closest friends, I turned to one who could get me out of this jam.. one who could be relied on in every situation, to not care about mud, rocks, rain, or unsteady companions. ..who is strong & reliable & can be trusted in a tough situation to keep their cool. My trusty motorcycle. It had already taken me through some severe riding conditions the day before. This was just another routine challenge for the wrx.

A little muddy, but ready to ride!

I walked back to the bike & surveyed the terrain ahead.. not much of a road.. lots of washed out ruts.. some too deep to cross. I started out trying to follow the road, but it disappeared every so often. I kept near where it was supposed to be by watching the gps. I got on the wrong side of some washout ruts & had to backtrack to keep on the road. There were also occasional puddles in the road.. puddles i didn't want to go through, considering what they can be like, & that i was alone to fend for myself. I comforted myself with the hope that Kim & Bryan would at least call search & rescue in a few days if i didn't show up.

But at last i made it to a park boundary gate! The road was pretty muddy & i still did not trust it. But after opening the gate, i walked around on the road & it felt firm under a thin top layer of mud. If i could keep moving, i should not sink. So i sling shot myself back on the road & followed it to the pavement. This was near the entrance to Goblin Valley state park, where we were planning on turning north to another loop. Kim & Bryan should be back this way in an hour or so. They would have gone back on the dirt to hwy 24, then taken it north to the paved Goblin Valley turnoff. I had taken the scenic route & the shortcut.

This was my last video of the day... i don't know if the card was full, the battery low, or a bad connection in the switch. But i retired it for the day. I had gotten enough on video.

I waited for almost an hour. I got to fill up on fluids.. take plenty of pictures.. ponder life's mysteries, & rest up for the remaining ride. I even stretched out on my jacket & closed my eyes for a bit. They eventually showed up.

I think Kim was upset there was mud on his bike..

I don't know how, but they convinced me that i should go first, again. We were on an easy gravel road, now, so i did. It wasn't long before i no longer saw anyone in my rearview mirror. I waited a bit, then turned back. Kim & Bryan were watching some antelope on the hillside. Bryan's sharp hunter's eye had spotted them in the distance.

Then the easy gravel road ended, & we were riding in a wash. It was wide & firm. It ran through a bit of water, but nothing too deep. Mud was thin & was in small patches. Fun riding.

There was ease in scotty's manner as he climbed upon his ride.
There was pride in scotty's bearing & his beaming smile was wide.
The mud might claim a lesser man, but scotty would prevail.
He'd roll through every obstacle on every hill and dale.

But after a few miles, we climbed up out of the wash & rode along a semi-muddy road.. it was mostly drained off, but had some spots. I got through everything by keeping my momentum up & by keeping power to the rear wheel. Then we got to the grey mud. This was the bentonite Kim spoke of in somber tones. It would stick to the tires, jamb up the chain & sprockets, & cripple the bike. He told us of many poor souls who had burned out clutches, slid off roads, or gotten lost & never heard from again. It was the utah bentonite that did it.. lying in wait.. looking innocently easy when dry, only to seize it's victims after a rain, never to release them from it's sticky clutches. We rode into a section that looked like it had a thin layer we could roll through.

Several spots we cruised through.. sliding around some, but getting through it. But then we got into a longer section.. i was fishtailing through it, trying to keep moving. But i couldn't keep it up & went down in the mud. I picked the bike up, but before i could remount, Bryan came along & tried to pass me. But the mud was not very maneuverable, & he went down & ended up facing the other way. I helped him pick his bike up. Kim approached slowly, riding in our tracks to have better traction. He did not go down.

Let's not turn back.. this is surely just a short section & will end soon. Once we get out of it, it will be easy riding, again. You think?

We mostly stayed out of long stretches of the bentonite, winding along the trail, crossing washes, & avoiding ruts in the road. But then i came over the crest of a hill with a long grey stretch of road before me. There was a few hundred yards going down, making some turns, then climbing back up. I'll keep the wheel driving & my momentum will get me through.

But it didn't. About halfway through i go down again, slipping in the slick mud. It is caked & jammed in the wheel, chain, & sprocket. I had difficulty picking the bike up, as the rear tire would slide in the mud, & my feet didn't have much solid ground, either. It was about a 4" layer of sticky but slick grey mud. I had about 150 yards to go either way. I pushed the bike, spinning the back wheel for a few feet. I was really having to give it throttle to get the wheel to spin, so thick & jammed up was the mud. On the hilltop in the distance, i could see the rest of the herd watching as another one of their own is eaten by lions.

I get the bike to rest on it's stand, then walk ahead to see how the road is. It is slick & muddy the whole way. I am sweating bullets from working the bike, & drink the rest of my sport drink & most of my water. I walk back to the bike, the lucky ones still watching on the hill. I realize if i go on, i will be alone. They will not cross this mud patch. Then what? What if there are miles of bentonite waiting for me over the next hill? I figure i will have to push back through the mud, climb the muddy hill, & get back on the road we came from. Once i got back on the watcher's hill, i would not stop, but keep moving & return home. It was me & the bike. We were on our own.

I turned the bike around & spun it through the mud a few feet at a time. It was a grueling workout. I was fully geared & had to keep the wheel spinning to free it from the mud, but it would fishtail on me, & the front would build up with more mud. My feet would slip & i dropped the bike a few more times. My gloves, grips, seat, boots, & pretty much everything was covered with grey, sticky mud. I had about 100 yards to go through to get to the hill. I didn't know how i was going to climb the hill, but i knew i wasn't going to help anyone on this ride. I would work for a few minutes, then stop.. my heart pounding & my head spinning like the back tire. I would catch my breath after another few minutes, then go at it again muttering insinuations about the watchers & their moms. I was probably at it for 45 minutes, though it felt like hours, before i got to the base of the hill. Then Bryan started down. Why bother, now? I'm almost there. But i probably would not have been able to climb the hill by myself. The mud was too slick & the back just wanted to spin out. We wrestled it about halfway up the hill, then Kim came to help, too. We worked together for a few minutes, & got it on top. I took off my gear & collapsed on the roadside.

Oh, somewhere in this favored land the trails are wide & green.
The temperatures are perfect, their gear is nice & clean.
The riders ride with carefree joy, their bikes remain upright.
But scotty, mighty scotty is undone by bentonite.

I did not take any pictures during this ordeal. I would have completely covered the camera with mud. I did see Kim & Bryan taking some on the hill. I doubt they will post any, though. This was the grey mud challenge.

The view down the hill, after i was back on top. The shiny grey mud is the bentonite.

I sat on the side of the road uncharacteristically quiet. I was panting hard, trying to get my vision back, & catch my breath. Kim got a tire iron out of his bag & began digging the mud out of my chain & wheels. I had some trail mix, but couldn't eat after all the exertion. I finally cooled down.. my vision cleared, & my breathing returned to normal. We got on the bikes & headed out. I was going to take off & not wait, but i didn't. I kept my speed up, but would stop & wait for them to come. I cleaned off my gloves, boots, & other parts while waiting.. stopping by puddles. We eventually got out with no further drama. Back on the main road, i was not going to get on another road that was not gravelled & graded, this day.

Once we got back to the goblin valley pavement, Kim & Bryan wanted to continue the ride. It was about 3pm by now, but we were only about an hour from the rooms. Fine with me. You guys lead the way.

We rode along a nice, scenic gravel road for a few miles. It was starting to get dark & cloudy again.. rumbling in the distance.. plus the temps had dropped quite a bit. I put my rain jacket on because it looked like we would not get back before the rain hit. But we turned back in time, & missed the rain.. only got a few drops.

We got back to the room & i ditched my muddy gear. I washed off my jacket.. it had gotten covered with mud. I cleaned up & we headed over to Blondies for a nice dinner.

End of Day 4.

Happy Birthday, Tom!! Day 3, Kane Creek, Moab. 10/6/10

2010-10-20T13:49:00.001-07:00

Day 3. Tom's birthday ride. Kane Creek.

Not many people are still riding dirtbikes at 70 years old. It takes a man with grit, determination, & demetia to keep pushing & ride through every obstacle that comes up in life. It takes guts & real manliness.. like John Wayne turning his back on Bruce Dern in The Cowboys. It takes a man who sneers at death, scoffs at injury, & considers danger among his most intimate friends. Tom is such a man. His physical fitness level eclipses that of much younger men. His mental toughness is an inspiration to all who ride with him. He does not give up, wear out, or break down under the most grueling conditions.. conditions that convince most riders to take up knitting or switch to quads. So on his 70th birthday, what kind of ride could we do to celebrate such a monumental event and milestone in his life?

It had rained most of the night. It was still sprinkling & cloudy when we walked next door for a fast food breakfast. We were planning a short ride in the morning, then trailering the bikes & heading for Hanksville, our next riding destination. With the rain, it looked like we might be missing the ride this morning. But after we bought Tom a hearty breakfast.. a $1 muffin sandwich & a coffee.. no expenses spared for this special day.. the skies began to clear! We might get a ride in after all! We figured we had about a 3 hour window. Kim & Brian wanted to ride to arches & look at the rocks. Tom wanted to do some dirt & see how his bike was running. I thought we could do the Kane Creek trail. It was a longer loop, but we could just cut it short & return, or there was a shorter turn off that cut over to highway 191 for a 30 mile loop back to moab. We checked out of the rooms, leaving our stuff in Kim's truck. We wouldn't need lunch or much water.. just going on a short, easy ride! We'd meet back at the truck at 1pm, grab some lunch, then head to Hanksville.

The sun was shining brightly as we headed out on Kane Creek road.. a wide, graded road with stunning views.

We passed a few cars, a couple of motorcycles, but it was not busy, & we had the road to ourselves most of the time. Tom & I were both dazzled by the majestic beauty of the canyons & rock formations, & we stopped several times to take it all in, & snap some pictures.

We hadn't gone far, & Tom realized his bike was still not running right. He would later find out the accelerator diaphragm had a hole in it, & was causing the bike to run rich. It would stall under acceleration, cough & sputter when starting, & it smelled very rich following him.. too much gas going through the engine unburned. It would start very hard when it died.

After a few miles, we came to a crossroad. There was an unimproved road heading to the east, which on the map reconnected with Hwy 191 & would take us back to moab. Or we could continue on the improved road for another hour or so, then turn back to meet Kim & Brian.

Tom's bike wasn't running very well, but he thought we could ride the easy loop back to moab.. it was only about 20 miles or so.

The first part was fun.. had a lot of ups & downs, wash crossings, rocks.. nothing too hard, but still challenging enough to be a fun ride. Tom could keep his momentum up, so the bike didn't stall.

But it was still running rough.. Tom wanted to stop again to look at it. He tinkered with it for a bit, & was a little worried about it overheating.

He messed with it a bit, but it wasn't running any better.. so we had to decide whether to keep riding or turn back for the easier road. We had gone about 10 miles into this part of the trail, & while it had some challenging spots, it wasn't too bad & Tom was not having a problem with it. ..only 10 more miles or so, we could finish this out & be back at Kim's truck early.. maybe we'd go over to Arches, too & meet them.

The last picture of the riders with color in their faces and their limbs all intact..

Then we ran into a narrow, rocky section. The honda stalled, so Tom had to get off & manhandle it through the narrow slot. I helped a little, getting the back up over some rocks.

I followed, & got through the narrow part, but stalled on the hill.

Now the trail began to follow the creek.. sometimes right down the middle of the water. Other times, it wound around in the sand. There were other tire tracks, so we figured it was passable.. at least some other unfortunate souls had come this way, too.

We got through another long section along the rocky edge, & got into sand & water crossings. Would the honda have what it takes to make it through the sand? ..got to keep up the momentum & keep the wheel driving in that stuff..

Here we start into the water.. right away there's a small crossing with a steep sandy bank. Tom get partway up, but the honda stalls & buries the back tire.

I decide to continue along the creek.. not really any better, just different.

About this time, my bike starts to act up, too. It won't start unless it's in neutral. I suspect the kickstand switch is the culprit, since i had disabled it & put a jumper in it. That has happened before. So now when i stall, i can't just pull the clutch & restart, i have to shift to neutral, then start, then shift back to 1st.

We wrestle with the bikes for 4 or 5 drops in the sand.. lifting them up, getting the rear tire some traction. It's a lot of work, but it looks like we've only got a few miles to go. More sand washes. More following the creek. Then we get to a section with a narrow ledge with about a 3' drop down to the creek. Branches are sticking out with dense undergrowth. No room for error, have to ride the 12" ledge. I start looking for another way, but Tom goes ahead. Then i hear some yelling. Tom's bike slid down the drop off & pinned him against the bank. I walk over & help lift the bike off. Now it is in the creek, so he gets it started again, then follows the creek for a bit until the trail crosses again. I decide to go down a 2' drop & follow the creek, too. I make it down the drop ok, but get into some deep sand again & drop it.

My video card is full, & i don't take any pictures of the next few miles, but it is more of the same: a few more drops in deep sand, some boucing around in the river bed, & a couple of deep pools we ran fairly fast to cross. They covered us with a sheet of water.

I only brought a small water bottle. It is gone by now, with all the physical exertion. I had a small bag of trail mix, but neither of us wanted to eat. Tom had his camelback, & gave me a cup. Fortunately, it wasn't hot.. it was warm enough with the work we were doing, but a 90* day would have done us in.

The road starts to climb up away from the creek bed. We think we must be coming out. But now the road gets narrower.. hardly big enough for a bike, much less a quad. We finally come to a sign.. this is a 'more difficult' trail.. glad we know that, now. There were no signs when we came in.

We considered turning back. But the trail we had come on was pretty tough already, & we didn't really want to go back through it. So we pressed on, hoping it would get easier. It didn't.

This section had some metal tracks for going over some big steps. I'm not sure why. There were other bigger steps we had already been on & would come to that were bigger. But they were nice for getting down to the creek.

I managed to get through the water ok, then had to gun it to get up the sandy bank. It spun & dug in, but i did finally make it up. I then watched as Tom followed. He decided to go a different way across the creek, but he eventually made it, too. We then rode through the creek for a few hundred yards, with not a few tense moments to add to the increasing drama.

No sooner across this obstacle, than we came to a gnarly uphill, steep, & stepped section. We got off the bikes & walked it.. trying to decide whether to go on or turn back & ride through everything we'd already done. I picked out a line, & i thought if i could keep my momentum, i could keep the line & make it up. I had also put in another memory card in my video camera.. i figured if we were both going to die in fiery crashes in this canyon, i would at least get it on video. But i didn't turn it on in this part, so intent was i on plotting this section.

I backed the bike up a bit, then hit the throttle & raced up the hill. You can see the start of it at the end of the last video. Somehow i managed to actually keep the line i wanted to take & got up the hill in just a few seconds! I was euphoric! I was very stressed in anticipation of this climb, and making it was a great relief.

Now it was Tom's turn. He also gunned it & started up. I could see him boucing up the big steps & he made it almost all the way up before the ornery honda stalled again. Fortunately, there was only a short section to finish up. We wrestled the bike up & rested for a bit before continuing the journey.

The trail we were on was not on my gps. But i could see on the gps that the highway was only a few miles away.. as the crow flies. Tom wondered how far if the crows had to walk out, pushing broken down dirt bikes..

We were both getting a little tired & stressed from the constant challenges at every turn. We knew it would be much later for us getting back, if we did at all. It was about 3pm, local time, & we were supposed to meet Kim & Brian at 1pm for the trip to Hanksville. I was getting dehydrated. It was also starting to cloud up again.. like it did the first day. The skies were getting very dark, & we could hear distant rumbling. We fully expected to have torrential downpours added to our list of obstacles.

We tried to keep moving if we could.. didn't want to stop for anything, since we were already late, & we figured Kim & Brian would assume we were dead & go on to Hanksville without us. I checked for a cell phone signal several times.. nope.. Not in these canyons.

We rode along for another few hundred yards, when we came upon another creek crossing with a steep, rocky climb afterwards. The rocks had slick moss on them under the water, & this was the hardest section, yet. How many more can there be? Each one was harder than the previous one.. was this trail ever going to end?

It was getting darker & darker.. loud crashes of thunder followed the bright flashes in the sky. We were going to get hammered by the rain, & did not want to spend any more time in this canyon. We walked up the trail to see what was on the other side... another creek crossing & a sandy bank. It looked easy compared to what we had to do first. I was feeling very weak.. the stress, the work of wrestling the bikes, & the lack of water was taking it's toll. I began to look at some of the rock shelves, thinking we could huddle under one of them & spend the night. Going back would be even more impossible.. we knew what lie behind, & would rather take our chances on hopefully fewer challenges ahead.

I stretched out on a flat rock for a bit. I drank some water out of the creek. This was a critical survival situation for us, & i needed to be clear minded & positive. Tom could sense my dispair, & exhorted me to press on. The skies continued to darken & large drops began to fall. He was feeling very threatened by the rain, knowing it would make our exit from this canyon even more difficult, not to mention flash flood possibilities. So Tom didn't wait for me to go first, but hopped on the honda & motored up the hill. This next pic shows some of the terrain, though as usual does not capture the steepness or the step size. The big step he was about 15' from stalled him & he dropped on the right side. I ran up & we pulled the bike upright, & tried to get the wheels in a good slot for climbing the rest of the way. It is a little blurry because of the low light conditions.

We got it up & the wind began to gust extremely hard. I looked down & my bike had fallen over! The wind had blown it off the side stand & it lay there, whimpering on its side. I stood it up & began to psyche myself up for the climb. You can tell by the headlights & dashlights in the pics & video how dark it was getting. At the beginning of my climb, you can also see the rocks dotted with big raindrops. Maybe there was more ahead, but we had to get out of this, now. I straightened up my handguards & took off up the hill.

I dumped it in the same spot as Tom, falling on my right side. My new radiator guard was installed just in time.. this ride tested it out. We wrestled my bike up the hill, mounted up & kept going.. the rain was falling harder, & we did not know what was ahead.

The rain was falling harder.. it was dark.. as you can tell by seeing the headlights on the trail in the videos. We made it up the most difficult climb we had up to this point, & were hoping to get back to Moab before dark. It was about 4pm by now. Bryan & Kim must think we'd fallen off the edge of the world. We thought that, too, on some parts of this trail.

Here was my bike before the previous climb. A fierce gust of wind just toppled it.

We were still running along the creek.. in the creek for a lot of it. Sorry about the raindrops on the camera lens.. it fuzzies out some of the terrain.. makes it look nice & soft. But it wasn't. It was sharp & had an edge.

The trail followed the creek a bit more, then started up another rocky/sandy/muddy climb. We didn't stop to check it out, but just twisted the throttle & climbed up. After all, we were advanced riders, now. I was very relieved to see we were at the top, following a wide road, & heading away from the creek. In a few miles, the road came upon a gate, which opened up onto hwy 191 which took us into moab. We were very happy to be riding in the rain on pavement, and it wasn't far. It was nearly 6. We were over 4 hours late. We were very happy to see our loyal comrades Kim & Bryan waiting in the parking lot, bikes already loaded. Kim gave me a cold gatorade which i drank down almost in one swig. We loaded our bikes into Kim's trailer, kissed the pavement, then took Tom out for his Birthday dinner. Tom & I rambled on and on, boring Kim & Bryan with our tales of danger & brushes with death. They were mostly amused, but patiently listened. They told us they had to cross a trickle of water on the pavement in Arches, & the blow dryer was out in the men's restroom, so they had some grueling experiences, too. But we all survived to ride another day. We drove to Hanksville & made it to the hotel by 9pm. It was wet & muddy there, too. We drove through the rain. More fun tomorrow!

Tom admitted this would be a very memorable birthday ride.. one he wouldn't forget soon, & would retell many times in therapy. I told him God must have a twisted sense of humor to let him do this ride on his 70th birthday, & why did i have to go, too?

Adversity brings out the best & worst in people. I learned a lot about Tom & myself on this ride. Tom is a man with dogged determination. There was no whining, no regrets about what we should have done, or blame. It was all about what we needed to do, next.. what we had to do to get through this. Even though we both knew we were in over our heads, Tom kept our focus on the problem of the moment, & how we would solve it. We both knew we were very close to spending the night outside in the rain, with no relief until morning, no water & no food. It was not a pleasant prospect. We were on the edge.. very close to a meltdown. I felt a mixture of anxiety & anger. ..a little afraid, since injury seemed very possible, as well as exposure if we broke down. I was angry with myself for not looking into this ride & finding out what it was.. for assuming a line on the map was a normal navigable road. Compulsive streams of epithets were coming from my mouth, like a sailor with tourette syndrome. But it was spilt milk to Tom, & he pressed us to keep going & not give up. I will remember this life lesson for my next adventure:

Competition Knitting.

End of day 3.

10/10 Utah ride, Moab, Hanksville, Ogden. Mud, rocks, and rain.

2010-10-20T07:34:00.002-07:00

Days 1 & 2. 10/4-10/7

I decided to break this up into pieces. It is too long for one reading. I put day 3 & 4 in separate blogs.

We finally decided to get up to Utah for some riding. We'd talked about it a lot, but getting everyone's schedule together is no easy task. Kim wanted to trailer the bikes up.. too much riding up for him. Ok with me, too. So Brian, Kim, Tom & i met at Kim's early monday morning, 10/4/10 to head up to Moab. Kim's Avalanche was an easy ride.. smooth & comfortable. We checked in to our hotel & decided we had time for a short ride. We thought Gemini bridges would be close, so hopped on our bikes with minimal gear & was on the trail before 4pm.

It was a nice climb up the switchbacks.. great views, & a rough road to whet our appetites. As we got closer, the skies darkened. I stopped several times to ask if everyone still wanted to continue. We were having fun on the ride & no one wanted to turn back. Then big drops of rain began to pelt us. "Forward!" was the cry, so forward we went. Then hail came down, & rivers began to cross the trail. 'Maybe we should head back,' Tom reluctantly conceded. By now it was a serious summer monsoon.. cats & dogs. Big hailstones. No one had brought a rain jacket. Everyone was drenched.

We eventually got back on the pavement & made our way to the protection of the motel. We wrung out our clothes the best we could, hung them up anywhere we could, & changed into some dry clothes to go to dinner. We walked to a nearby sports bar/restaurant & had a nice if pricey meal. Back to the rooms, we zonked out early.. get some rest for the next big day's ride: White Rim Trail.

I've limited my videos in this report.. i got a lot more, but decided to just have a few to show the terrain & riding conditions better. They are all in HD, so you can click on the HD button on the youtube link to change the resolution.

Day 2. The White Rim Trail.

We had heard that the white rim trail had gotten washed out by mineral bottom road, & was no longer a loop. That was very disappointing, but we figured we could still ride one of the classic western dual sport rides in the country. We would go out by the potash ponds, go as far as our fuel would allow, then come back. We'd get most of it.

First a group shot: Kim, Brian, Scotty, Tom.

With all the recent rains, we counted on wet conditions, as well as more rain on the ride. Rain jackets were packed, & our delicate finery was left in the rooms for another time.

Kim & Brian were on kawasaki klx 250's, Tom brought his honda 650xrl, & i was on the lone yamaha wr250x. All of them fine bikes for the white rim. The ride takes about 20 miles of pavement to start, but along the colorado river.. great scenery & an easy ride. Then it hits dirt & starts to wind through rocks & washes.

It came out on a nice overlook above the colorado river.

It was a great day.. we could see clouds forming in the distant mountains, but we had a sunny start. ..not too much water in the washes we crossed, either.

Every turn had spectacular views & fun, rocky riding.

Unfortunately, Tom's honda began to give him trouble. It was sputtering & stalling when he'd open the throttle. It only ran ok with full throttle. He was not confident it would make the ride, so opted to turn back. It started, & he turned back.. missing the white rim ride. We all wept briefly for him, then hopped on our bikes & continued the ride.

An early stop along the way was musselman's arch. Kim is an old utah native, & can remember when they used to ride motorcycles across it.. before it became more restricted. He was happy to just walk across it this time, though. I figured when he first saw it, it hadn't eroded underneath it, yet, so was an easy ride across.. plus the motorcycles then were just driven by feet & had stone wheels..

It was fun for me to ride the trail the other way around.. i had ridden it from mineral bottom road in June. It still has the usual scenery to die for.

The trail winds along the rim of a huge canyon. The rocks are very light colored near the rim. Hence, 'white rim'. The road is pretty rough.. lots of rocks. But it is no trouble for our monster dirt bikes.

The trail follows the rim fairly close. Sometimes it goes right up to the edge. ..makes a good photo op.

The clouds were beginning to pile up on us, but it just made the sky more interesting for picture taking.

The klx's were very pretty.. but neither the riders nor the bikes wanted to go very fast. That was fine to me.. it gave me more time to stop & take pictures while i waited for them to catch up. My 'mad max' wrx wasn't very pretty, but it was a great adventure bike.. as over 1000 miles of riding it on this trip would prove.

There's not a lot to say.. the vistas were spectacular, the riding was fun & had some challenging spots. We passed a lot of bicycles & their support vehicles, but no other motorcycles. It was a tuesday with rain in the forecast.

It wasn't long before big drops began to fall.. with some nice wind & cooler weather. It rained on us climbing up murphy's hogback, a steep & rocky climb up to more spectacular views. When it's dry, the trail is very loose, with deep powder to run through. The rain settled that down, & it wasn't a hard climb.. but it's not for beginners. There were more than a couple of spots that surprised us.. some high steps we had to climb up.. no time to think about it, just twist the throttle & jump over it! No major mishaps.. a drop or 2 was all for the three of us.

Here's Bryan climbing up the last part of murphy's hogback.

We decided to make this our halfway point. We stopped a lot on the way, oohing & ahhing & snapping pictures like tourists. But our fuel was about at the halfway point, even though i had brought an extra 2g. in my rotopax.

So now we had the long descent.. still a beautiful ride along some amazing rim rocks. You can see Kim & Bryan coming down.

This spot had a big step going down.. i skipped my skidplate on it going over. I'd still rather go down these kind of steep sections than up them.

We rode through more scattered showers, but didn't stop as much for picture taking. Now we were getting hungry & thirsty.. home beckoned!

We made it back before dark, greeted Tom who had been troubleshooting his bike, & called out for a pizza.. i picked it up on the bike, along with a sixpack of polygamy porters. We did a little under 200 miles, about 50 of which was paved. It was a fun ride, amazing views, & interesting situations.. not a lot of nasty mud or steep, stepped rocks. That would come later.

End of day 2.

Easy day loop, Sedona, Williams, Jerome. 9/10/10

2010-09-12T06:25:00.001-07:00

Kim had a neighbor drop by while he was out working on his bike.. 'Do you ever ride that thing?' He asked. So Kim invited Mark to join us on an easy loop to Williams then back through Jerome.

We met at the gas station in Sedona ~ 9:30, then headed up Oak Creek Canyon to the dirt road to Williams. We just rode.. i didn't get any pics of the switchbacks, or the rough dirt roads before Garland Prairie.. I finally stopped & took a picture on the easy gravel of Garland Prairie.

Mark & Kim were both riding KLX 250's. I was on the lonesome wr250x. No videos today, either.. just a few stills since it is along areas we had ridden before.

After we got out of Garland Prairie, we took a side road toward a small lake we had noticed before.. thought we'd explore it a bit. We ran into a narrow path, but continued on until we came to a fence. ..a little bit of tricky singletrack. We had to walk the rest of the way to the lake. It is a pretty lake.. & pretty remote.

We continued our way toward Williams, & Twisters.. one of the older 50's style eateries. Right before we crossed the railroad tracks, we saw them. White Buffalo. A sign. Times would change. A new era would begin.

We made it to lunch, our main purpose in riding. It was fairly pricey, but decent enough. Don't look for food pics on my reports! We eat like starved coyotes.. stop & take a picture & your food will disappear.

No gas stop.. we all have big tanks, now! We headed past the Williams reservoir & got on the old perkinsville road.. very rough, windy, & steep in spots. I had a few gps issues.. the contaption wanted to steer us back on the pavement.. got tired of the bumps, i guess. But i kept forcing it to go on the obscure roads, & eventually it agreed to take the old perkinsville road toward Jerome.

The bridge over the Verde River on Perkinsville road.

As we neared Jerome, we got along the side of the mountain.. a plume of smoke was visible in the distance.. a proscribed burn, Kim speculated.. he's a retired Fire Captain, so he should know these things.

Except for the haze from the smoke, it was a clear day. It was even a bit chilly in the pines, early. I don't think it got to 80* until we hit cottonwood.. very good riding weather.

Cottonwood to the left in the valley, Jerome & the copper mines to the right, on the mountainside.

We stopped & jawed a lot.. new rider to get to know.. swap lies, etc. Mark's turn signal vibrated off.. then his license plate. We found the turn signal early on before garland prairie, but the plate was lost in perkinsville. No other bike or health issues, so it was a good ride. I was home by 5 or 6. We did a little over 150 miles. I still have gas in my tank! ..like the new range of the ims. Now I have 3g on my phone & my gas tank.

riding the rez. Chocolate Falls, rocks, & rain. 8/20/10

2010-08-23T06:03:00.000-07:00

Ridin' the Rez. 8/20/10

Kim, Tom & i met at the sedona exit off of I-17 to for a ride to the Navajo Reservation. With the recent monsoon rains, we hoped there would be some water in the little colorado river, & grand falls, aka chocolate falls would have some flow. Tom rode over from Prescott, & we were off, going up the old blue grade into the mountains in the mogollon rim.

The ride up stoneman lake road.. this used to be the main road to flagstaff before they built I-17.

It was about 4k ft where we left, & we would get up near 8k elevation. The rim country is nice & cool this time of year. We had some puddles, but nothing too dramatic.

We did a little exploring.. took a different route than we usually do when in these parts. Naturally, we had a bit of backtracking to do, gates to cross, some pretty rocky roads, too. It was nearing 11am when we got to the morman lake area.

Back on some easier roads, we enjoyed the trees.. nice cool pines & some aspen stands.

This is Morman 'Lake'. It's an open meadow that can get filled with water in a very wet season or high snowfall. We had a pretty wet winter, but it was pretty dry by late spring. It did make a nice wildflower display, though.

We lost a little time on the rim, so decided to jump on the pavement for few miles.. lake mary road to wynona ranch road.

Here we got onto the wynona ranch road.. some of it is a boulder field.. just rain drainage.

This went on for several miles.. we took a couple of stops for rest.

We could see the vegetation change.. the pines started to give way to open chaparral. Cows looked hotter & crankier.

Off in the distance, we could see the san francisco peaks for a reference.

The road also opened up & got easier. We passed more cows & continued the ride up toward the Rez.

We crossed I-40 & stopped for lunch at the 2bar3 saloon & steakhouse. It's kind of a biker bar, now, on the distant outskirts of flagstaff.. where renegade bikers like us hang out. It was decent.. reasonable, but not cheap. Nothing to take pictures of, though.

It was after 1pm, so we decided to take Leupp road up to grand falls. It is paved, so we cut some of our off road riding. The last 10 miles or so to grand falls are sand roads.. with some ruts & a few boulders to keep us alert.

The big question on our minds was: Would there be any water in the Little Colorado river? Tom & I came here last month & it was dry as a bone. Would the recent monsoon rains provide some decent flow at the falls? Our question was soon answered.

Who would go first? Someone had to record such a monumental feat, & Tom was already camera ready for the brave pioneer who would venture across. Kim didn't hesitate, but blipped the throttle & took the plunge.

I followed suit. The water wasn't too deep.. just to the axles at the deepest point. But the underlying concrete low water crossing was in pretty bad shape.. still it was better to stay on the concrete, as Tom would soon illustrate.

Kim & i were surveying the mud on the other side of the river when Tom began his crossing. I just turned in time to catch him taking a dip to cool off.

It looked like he had taken a gallon (or more!) of chocolate milk & dumped it all over himself & his bike. He had gotten too close to the edge of the concrete, & had gone into the rocky river bottom. Obviously, you could not see the rocks on the bottom, so we had to man handle the bike back to the concrete crossing.

Kim sat motionless on his bike, in answer to my question, 'who's going to go back & help him?' So i guess i volunteered to slosh through the muddy torrent & help our poor soggy comrade.

Using our water skills, we maneuvered the bike out of the rocky river bottom & back on the safe concrete.

Now we would have the mud to go through..

Even though Tom's bike had fallen over, he had killed the engine right away, & got it up before water got into the air intake. It started right up with no problems. Had water gotten into the air intake, we would have had more problems on this day. But Tom's quick thinking.. with no regard for his own comfort or appearance.. saved the day for more fun riding ahead.

The mud turned out to be much easier than it looked. I got across with no issues.. just stayed in the ruts that some trucks had made. Tom & Kim went off to the side, but it wasn't too deep, & they got across, too.

We went the rest of the way to Grand Falls, which was a few hundred yards from the river crossing. This was the Little colorado river. It runs from the white mountains near snowflake, az, to the Big Colorado river in the Grand Canyon.

Now there was pretty good flow in it. The mud gives it a chocolate coloring, hence the alternate name of 'Chocolate Falls'. I'll have to ask Tom how it tastes.

Just for reference, here's how Chocolate falls looked a month earlier, when Tom & i came back from the Grand Canyon:

But it had a nice roar to it, now, & was muddy & well named. Even though they were splattered with muddy water & soaked from the crossing, the bikes were happy to pose at the overlook.

Chocolate Tom, with Kim looking on sympathetically..

I asked Tom if he wanted to see it from the other side.. we could cross back so we could get some other shots from a different perspective. But he was happy enough to see it from this side.. so we didn't cross back. It is nice seeing it from the different points of view.. it's pretty dramatic.

Tom & I had taken our boots off & Tom removed some of his gear for drying. The sun was hot, & things dried out a little.. not that it mattered as the day wore on. Kim somehow managed to stay relatively clean & dry throughout the ordeal. Here he is demonstrating the swimming stroke Tom employed while in the water, & Tom displaying his nice chocolate stained t shirt.

Drier & warmer, we continued our way into the Rez, following some nice sand roads as we headed up toward the next crossing at Wupatki.. there aren't that many places to cross the Little Colorado river. If we could not cross at Wupatki, we'd have to go all the way to Cameron & cross at the bridge.

As we rode toward Wupatki, we saw dark clouds & falling rain in the distance.. right in the direction we were heading. Perhaps it would move on by the time we got there. Perhaps not. There were also a few lighting bolts in the distance.. another enjoyable prospect for us to face. The air cooled, & the winds picked up. In the next clip, you will see the rain start to fall as we rode along.

I had brought my rain jacket, & i think Kim had one, too. But Tom only had a thick cotton sweat shirt. He seemed to enjoy the rain.. He takes great pride in his appearance.. always nattily attired, so perhaps he welcomed the rain as an alternative to washing his clothes. So Kim & i did not put on our rain jackets. We would suffer with our riding comrade & ride unprotected in the downpour. I could not let my poor nuvi gps take the rain, though.. so i stopped & put it in my tank bag. Someday i'll get another waterproof gps, but for now this works ok.

The rain continued, & so did we. As you can see, the terrain was very open.. no cover anywhere. We could only ride on & get through it. The temps dropped quite a bit, & the water ran through my mesh jacket, pants, & into my already wet boots.

The other problem we had was the road started to get slick from the rain. A thin layer of slippery mud began to form on the road. Fortunately, it was pretty straight, but there were some interesting spots with ruts & turns.

After about 20 miles or so, the rain began to diminish. The skies cleared, & the roads got wider & sandier. We eventually got to the Wupatki crossing.

It looked deeper & more ominous than the Grand Falls crossing! We pondered whether to cross or to continue another 30 miles to cameron. We were already wet. Might as well try crossing.

It was a bit deeper than the other crossing, & it was harder to make out where the concrete bottom was. There was a little disturbance in the water from rocks about halfway, so i made toward that, then aimed to the other side. The water was a little over the axles, but the bottom was even.. a little bumpy, but no big holes. Next Tom would attempt to cross..

He was riding too close to the edge, & got tossed off the concrete bottom into the rocky river bottom. But now he had the skills & experience to keep it upright.. plus he was mostly cleaned up from the rain & didn't want to get muddy again. He got off & expertly maneuvered the bike back onto the crossing & safely out.

But now it was Kim's turn to cross. Would the pressure get to him? Would the stress of getting his outfit muddy make him choke? Nah. Cool as a cucumber, Kim rode straight across, almost yawning as he went.

We were heading for open, sunny country. The road would be paved in a few miles. It was after 3pm, & Tom was ready to head home, so we cut short the ride around the Peaks we were considering. Tom still had about 150 miles to go back to Prescott, & Kim & i had about 100, so we hit the pavement & headed south. The air was dry & much warmer, so we finished drying out as we rode along.

We came in the back way to sunset crater nat. monument.. most people don't come through the reservation to get there. This was an old volcano.. not that old, though. .. still a lot of volcanic rock & cinders around.

But we didn't stop to site see.. we kept on the throttle & headed home.

I stopped for gas in Flagstaff.. Kim & Tom had the big tanks & didn't need to. Kim & i went down oak creek canyon, into sedona & home. It was around 200 miles for us, & probably 100 miles more for Tom total. It was a very scenic ride, lots of interesting terrain, very varied. We had pines, open desert, chaparral, & lush riparian sections to ride. River crossings & overviews were icing on the cake.

Tricky tracks. Flying cows. Deja vu Grand Canyon, 7/26/10

2010-08-10T06:25:00.000-07:00

Deja vu daytrip, Grand Canyon revisited 7/26/10

I'm a couple of weeks late getting this ride report up.. i didn't take any videos.. didn't even take the video camera. I got a few stills, but nothing spectacular.. even though we were going to the Grand Canyon.

Tim had to cancel on our Annual Grand Canyon ride, & Terry has been wanting to come over from Ca & ride with us. Tom eventually got tired of the whining & set up another grand canyon ride. It would be a deja vu ride to the Grand Canyon, going up through Ash Fork, where he had gone earlier with some of the Phx boys.

I'm always up for a ride to the Grand Canyon.. it has to be one of the most amazing spots on earth.. certainly that i've ever seen in my few years of living on this planet. I was to meet Tom & Terry in Jerome, then we'd take dirt up through the perkinsville road, over to drake, then up to Ash Fork, where we'd meet Tim.

Early morning along the perkinsville road..

North toward the San Francisco peaks

We met Tim in Ash Fork, gassed up, then went north to go along the railroad tracks for a bit. Tom had the gps tracks, but he had also given them to Terry as a backup.

After a few wrong turns, lost riders, & general confusion, we determined the problem to be with Tom's gps. His tracks were the same color as the roads, so he couldn't tell if he was on the track, or just another road. Terry would stop when we made the wrong turn, but it would take a while for us to get back on track. Once we corrected the track color on Tom's gps, it was easy sailing.

Along the tracks.. this is a fun section following the train tracks. We followed 2 different train tracks on this ride.

The trail wasn't hard.. it went up & down & treated us to some great vistas in the junipers.

The riders: Terry, Scotty, Tim, Tom. Riding honda xr650l, yamaha wr250x, honda xr400, & yamaha wr250r, respectively.

Our only mishap on the ride.. Terry picked up a staple somewhere along the road. Tom had a spare tube, which we expertly changed & continued on the ride.. less than an hour, even with all the talking & gawking from the gallery.

Soon we left the train trail, & ventured into open cattle country. We crossed many gates, which worried Terry. Being from California, he was used to closed gates being closed trails. Rules, regulations.. But out here, unless it is clearly marked & padlocked, a closed gate is just for the cows. If we can open them, we're going through. Terry did draw the line in not wanting to cross a gate with signs warning to stay out.. no trespassing.. violators would be shot, etc. Tom's track had us going through that gate.. following the route that the earlier Phoenix troublemakers took. So we took the long route.. out across the open prairie, following miles of wide easy roads.. with occasional ruts & washouts to keep us alert & entertained.

Terry had the big tank.. he was the supertanker. Tim had the smallest range, & eventually ran out. You probably didn't know this, but the old honda xr400's are so versatile they will run on colas.

A couple of drinks for the honda, & we were back on the road. We were getting closer to the track Tom had, which would get us back to following the train tracks.. the grand canyon railway tracks. But dark clouds were beginning to form. Afternoon rains are quite common this time of year.. some of the monsoons we get can be drenching. We were heading towards those clouds. As we followed the train tracks, we also came upon more cows. Most of them would flee in terror from the vicious carnivores who pursued them. But this time, Tom felt sorry for the terrified beasts, & circled around them. Terry & Tim dutifully followed our leader who was so sensitive to the feelings of nature's gentle creatures. But there was one who seemed to enjoy watching his quarry flee the pursuing hunter.. the morbid torturing of the victims we intended to eat. I stayed on the trail, watching the cows scatter from the mighty hunter, like a cat toying with a mouse..

Some of the cows got seperated from the main herd.. then would realize they weren't following the group & bolt across the trail, risking death for both the hunter & the hunted. That's how the herd instinct works.. doesn't have to be based on common sense, or what is reasonable.. just follow the herd. ..even if it kills you. We do that, too.

My herd was back on the trail, & the guy above made it back safely to his herd. That is a good reason to always ride slowly & carefully through animals like this. I've seen many cows wait motionless until you were right on them, then bolt unpredictably.

We got through this group of cows safely, then it began to rain. We were hurrying to get to Tusayan.. we were hungry, tired, & wet. The temperature dropped 20* & being wet didn't help, either. It was later than planned, due to backtracking, re-routing, & flat tiring. We ran into several dead ends.. the road was marked on the gps, but fizzled into nothing or a fence. We finally did make it to Tusayan, gassed up & had a pizza.

We were planning to go back along the Az trail.. ..dirt trails toward Flag, but it was getting late, so we decided to slab it back home. I turned off on hwy 180 towards flagstaff, while the rest of the crew continued toward Williams, then over to Ash Fork. We rode all the way up to the grand canyon, but no one wanted to go see it. Tim said he'de seen it in the rain before. So this ride didn't really have a destination.. it was for the ride. What about the title shot? The first picture in this report is from an earlier ride i was on this year.. i thought i should at least have a pic of the Canyon since it is in the title of the report.. Sorry about that..

I had over 300 miles on my odo when i got home.. most of it from the pavement home. But it is very nice to have a good street worthy bike to ride on the pavement if necessary. Tim's xr was geared a bit low for the long ride home. But he got back to his truck & loaded up to go back to Bullhead City. Tom & Terry made it back to prescott. We survived another long day ride.

Grand Canyon 2010, Day 4.

2010-08-04T09:06:00.000-07:00

Day 4. Home again, Home again, jiggity jog. 7/8/2010

We got up early, loaded up the bikes, & were on the road by 7am. We gassed up at Tusayan, then took a NF road east. We were going back through the Navajo rez, & would take the Gray Mtn. truck trail to Gray Mtn, then go up to Cameron & go south on Rez sand roads through Grand Falls & to the Townsend/Wynona road near Flagstaff.

The road from Tusayan was graded gravel.. easy & very nice through the pines. But we took a few turns to get to the east, went through a gate, & the 'road' turned into this.

We had to climb some pretty steep & sharp turning switchbacks, which were a bit of a problem for Tom on the big Honda. He got the back tire buried in some loose cinders on one of the switchbacks. The bike stood up on it's own as Tom had to dig out behind the tire so he could rock it out of the hole. I went on ahead, then waited.. on these obscure trails, we didn't want to get too far apart. He didn't come for a bit, so i backtracked.. all the way to the switchbacks. No Tom. So i slowly went along the road looking for a cliff he went over, or a detour. He had gone off on a rabbit trail & lost the main road, such as it was. But he heard my engine & came back to the trail. We decided to stay in sight for the rest of this trail.

Here's a few short clips of this part of the road.

It was only about 10 miles or so, but eventually it opened up into a bigger, main road. We were still in the pines.. the air was nice & cool & the road was easy.

I was cruising along, enjoying the scenery & cool mountain air when i came too fast upon a sharp curve. I saw i wasn't going to make the turn, & ran off the road into a ditch. I wallowed around in it for a while, then finally got straightened out & made it back to the road. Tom was wondering what my side trip was about.. Unfortunately, i didn't have my camera on when i went off the road, & i didn't feel like doing it again.. we had a lot of miles still ahead.

Very quickly, we got out of the pines & into pinons, junipers & sage.. chaparral vegetation. You could see the turns coming up, so we could open it up a bit more.

Almost to the end of this road.. going to connect to the old Gray Mtn. truck trail going through the Nav rez. Now it was very barren.. little vegetation.. sage & scrub brush & a few junipers dotting the vistas.

We had a mile or so of pavement before we got to the GMTT. It starts going up right away, with some nice views to the north of the little colorado plateau.

This is a nice road with a lot of variety, great panoramic views, & no traffic. I think we say one pickup from the GC to Gray Mtn... about 60 miles.

Lots of wide open spaces. But we were not alone. We came upon several groups of wild horses.. many with foals. They are very smart & know where to go to be safe from the crafty motorcycle hunters.

The road was mostly open, with tremendous panoramic views.. but there were a few spots where we crossed deep washes & small canyons. The road got rougher in them, but no problems.

In the distance, we could see our mountains coming up.. the San Francisco peaks. To the right on the next pic, there are more wild horses.

They would go up into the rocks.. daring us to follow them. We wouldn't follow.

This lone maverick got caught out in the open.. it looks like he stumbled & fell trying to get away from the road. But he got right up & galloped off.

As we got down from the higher ground, it flattened out & the roads got wide & straight.

We stopped a couple of times to take pics of the horses, & one time i came upon these bigger 'hedgehog' type cacti. It is unusual to see them this big. I left my glove to show perspective.

This was a large group of horses.. but they were distant. I zoomed in to get them, but they were still a ways off. I liked the mountain backdrop, though.

Soon we came to the pavement, & gassed up at Gray Mountain. We then headed north to Cameron, where we could cross the mighty Little Colorado river & take some Navajo sand roads back.

This is another stretch of open, desolate country. Some homes are visible in the distance.. every 10 or 20 miles.. but not much out here. .. a few sheep, some cows, & a couple of noisy motorcycles.

There were a couple of roads we got on that were less travelled.. some pretty narrow, but nothing too challenging to ride on.

We were heading for the mighty grand falls.. or chocolate falls as it is sometimes called. During the spring snow melts, it has some pretty impressive sound & water volume. But in the summer before the monsoons, not so much.. Here we ride up to the majestic grand falls..

I knew the water got low in the summer.. but there was nothing! I didn't know it dried up completely.

Here's what it looks like with some water in it.. this is from a trip my wife & i went on this march. You can see here why it is called 'chocolate'. The pretty lady in the video is, of course, my lovely wife Darlene.

Tom & i left Grand Falls, crossed the Little Colorado river again, & rode on another sand road for about 40 miles to pavement. It started to rain a bit.. the sky darkened, so we decided to take pavement the rest of the way home.

Tom continued on to Prescott, & i went down to Sedona. It was a good ride home.. lots of miles, but easy roads, mostly. I'm looking forward to this ride again, next year.

Grand Canyon 2010, Day 3.

2010-08-04T08:58:00.000-07:00

Day 3. Viva España! Renaldo's bolt shop. 7/7/2010

We slept in a bit (7am!) & decided our plan for the day. We were still pretty tired from the previous day's ride, & were also thinking of taking in the semi's of the world cup.. España vs. Deutchland. But we had to get Tom's bolt for his rack so he could take his panniers home. The only hope for a bolt was the general store in Tusyan. We rode into town the back way, down Rowe Well road (dirt). Then we stopped for breakfast at Wendy's.. fair but reasonably fast. Next we hit all the stores.. only one general store, & no bolt. Next door to it was an rv park. I know they have to have a lot of maintenance & repairs, so we headed over there & i went inside to ask if they had a bolt in some junk box somewhere. They referred us to Renaldo, the maintenance guy, who was very helpful. We not only got the right size bolt, but some spacers & a nylon lock nut. Tom generously gave the guy $9, which was a lot for $1 worth of bolts.. but we didn't have a lot of places to shop. Rebolted, we headed back to Maswik, where we could catch the World Cup in the pizza/beer bar.

We got there just in time.. after the game started, there would be standing room only. Lots of Europeans go to the grand canyon.. Asians, too. They say there are more visitors from Tokyo to the GC than from Phoenix..

Anyway, it was packed.. seemed like mostly a Germany biased crowd. I asked a young couple behind us to snap the above pic, then asked who they were for, España or Deutchland. 'Deutchland', was the young woman's immediate reply. Every time the German goalie made a stop, the place burst into polite applause. Tom thought it would be fun to get beat up by a mob of angry Germans, so decided to root for Spain. We didn't see or hear any overt Spanish fans in the room. But when the goal was scored late in the second half, the room burst into cheers.. there were a lot of Spanish fans there! Tom's enthusiasm for Spain diminished somewhat, but Germany couldn't overcome their 1 goal deficit, & as you know, Spain went on to win the World Cup. It was fun watching the game with fans who were enthusiastic about the outcome. Some even had little flags painted on their cheeks.

After the game, we decided we had time for another ride to the west. Tom wanted to go along the railroad tracks for a bit, so we headed back down Rowe Well road, then into the NF & followed the Grand Canyon railway tracks for a few miles. Then we came back down the old 'brush' road, & returned to the lodge. I didn't take any video, & only stopped for this pic of the lodge..

Rustic accomodations at their finest! The ride was only 2-3 hrs, but one nice thing about summer is the longer days. We cleaned up after the ride & walked over to the famous El Tovar hotel to check out the bar.. it had a better view of the canyon than the one inside of the main Bright Angel lodge. We had a couple of drinks, split an appetizer, then returned to the room to get updated on where Lebron would go, and an early retirement.

End of Day 3

Grand Canyon 2010, Day 2.

2010-07-10T17:26:00.000-07:00

Day 2.
Switchbacks, travertine & solitude.

I got up to catch some early morning views while Tom went through his morning routine.

We were heading for the east side of the canyon & knew we'd be in for a long day. So we got an early start & gassed up in desert view at the east entrance. We went down the rocky switchbacks that came out in the Navajo rez. It was very rocky, steep, rutted & required all our concentration, riding skill, & dumb luck to navigate.

We left desert view about 7am & started down the rocky switchbacks.. they were even more washed out this year, & had deep loose ruts added to the steep decline. That made the descent a little tricky, especially being distracted with the awesome views.

There were a couple of pretty gnarly sections on this road.. we had to roll along a narrow ridge to miss some deep ruts, & some of the turns were in steep, loose rocks. But we made it through, & weren't planning on coming back this way for the ride back.

Some of the next few pictures have a small tower in the upper left corner.. this is the desert view tower.

Eventually, we made it down the steepest switchbacks, & began heading east into the Navajo rez.

The road continued to be very rocky, had lots of ups & downs, some loose steps, & occasional ruts. We would get a workout today, & have to be very alert for the whole ride.

Along this road there were several ruins.. some smaller hogan foundations, some old wooden remnants, & lots of rock stacks of unknown function. Some were fairly new, others were very old.

The road continued, becoming more open & arid. Junipers disappeared & sage, low shrubs & small cactus dotted the countryside.

Along here we had our only mechanical mishap.. a bolt had vibrated out of Tom's rack somewhere, & was now flopping uselessly on the side of his bike. Finding it seemed impossible, & we couldn't find a spare that would work. So we pushed some zip ties through the hole until we could get a replacement bolt.

Our problems temporarily solved, we continued along the long & winding road.. miles & miles of open road with plenty of surprises to keep us awake.

Somewhere along here, Tom remembered he used to be a racer, & got tired of my plodding pace.. he flew by & increased our speed for a while, but the long road takes it's toll with the constant concentration, & he eventually slowed down to a more leisurely pace.

There were no breaks.. no flat stretches of easy riding, but rocks, hills, ruts & off camber riding for hours.

We didn't stop because we thought we'd need all the time to get to our destination & back.. but we could have stopped a few times to refresh & recharge.. next time we will.

When the rocks thinned out some, the ruts replace them.. i got tossed off the road a couple of times by the ruts.. no spectacular crashes, but i did have to regain control & get back on the road.

We kept hoping the next hill would afford us a view of our destination.. but for miles we only saw open spaces & rocky grades.. the road endlessly stretching out before us.

Finally we made it to our destination: The confluence of the Little Colorado & the Colorado rivers: Cape Solitude.

We were not disappointed. The views were spectacular. The sun was high.. it was nearly noon. The visibility was pretty good, even with the smoke from the north rim fire. We had a pretty good breeze blowing to the west, so it kept the smoke away, & it kept the temps down. We were in the 5-6k ft range, so it was hotter than on the rim, but not too bad. The sun was pretty intense, though.

We were also a little closer to the river from here, & could see rafts on the river.. they were tiny specks, but we could see them.

We stopped & had our lunch here.. looking out across the vast expanse. Cape Solitude was aptly named. We didn't see another person along the entire road. No hikers. No jeeps. No bicycles. ..just an occasional bright green lizard & a chipmunk scurrying across the road.

To the north, the river was a bit straighter as it came to the rivers confluence..

The bikes were tired, too, and seemed to enjoy the views.

As we started to walk down to get a better view of the little colorado river, i noticed this guy under my jacket on the bike.. he snapped his jaws at me & made a funny chirping noise. I thought he wouldn't be any happier than I if he got under my jacket on my person, so i got a stick & relocated him to a nearby bush.

The confluence. Tom & i both wondered why the water was blue from the Little Co. river. I looked it up later & found it was because of travertine & limestone in the canyon above, which turns the water blue. It dissapates when it hits the main river. During high water, it is muddy. It was kind of cool seeing it bright blue. You can see a group of rafts right above the blue water. There were several more coming down river. I'm zoomed in 5x in this pic.. you can't see any better detail with the naked eye.

Here's the view to the east along the little colorado river canyon.. the river is blue all the way.

Back north along the Colorado..

More pics of the area..

This was definitely a primo destination spot. we oohed & ahhed at the views for a while, took lots of pics, & finally decided we should head back.. we had to backtrack for about 30 miles of pretty tough terrain before we got to a different way out.

I didn't take many more pics, since we'd been this way before. It was still pretty fresh in our memory.

We eventually came to where we had come down, but we didn't go back via the rocky switchbacks.. we thought we'd take the 'easier' way of going up the gray mt. truck trail to hwy 64, then return on the pavement. I didn't take any pics or vids, but i had forgotten how long & steep & gnarly the climb is from the Little Colorado river plateau. It went up for nearly 2k ft, & was almost as tough as the casner mt climb, but with more steps. But we finally made it through, & got on the pavement. We went through the east entrance & got back to our room. Too tired to go out, we crashed & napped for about an hour before heading over to the pizza joint at Maswik for pizza & beer. We were too tired to walk over to the tavern for our usual rounds before dinner.

Tom said this was the toughest ride he'd ever been on. But remember, Tom forgets anything more than a few days old, so it probably wasn't really the toughest. But you get the idea. It was a rugged, gnarly, challenging, & long ride. Would i do it again? In a heartbeat.

End of Day 2.

Grand Canyon 2010, Day 1.

2010-07-10T05:32:00.000-07:00

The Climb, the Canyon, the Cows.
Grand Canyon, July 2010, 4 days

Every year I try to take at least one ride to the Grand Canyon.. it's close, it's amazing, it's a wonder of the world, for crying out loud! So this is a must do ride for me.. the highlight of my year.. probably the only reason i haven't despaired of living altogether.. well, maybe not the only reason.

So anyway, this year we got a little later ride in than usual, but it was fairly cool & we were mostly in higher elevations. We had 4 or 5 riders who were going to come, but things came up for everyone except Tom & I. So we met in Cottonwood, Az at Bill Gray road about 7am on 7/5, & began another epic ride to the Grand Canyon. I had rooms reserved at the maswik lodge & Tom always liked going there for the long island iced teas.

Bill Gray road turns to dirt almost immediately, & meanders in the foothills until we hit the powerline road going up Casner Mountain. This is a great ride by itself, & the first time we've done it at the start of the Grand Canyon ride.

The staging area.. just the bikes with the big church in the background.

We went up Bill Gray road for a while, then started up the powerline road, through the gate (no 4 wheeled vehicles!), & climbed the mountain. It is steeper than it looks in the video.. but when i look back, you can see how high we came. This part wasn't a particularly hard switchback.. i just was slowing to look at the views, & lost my momentum, then my balance.. my only drop of the ride, & we got into much nastier terrain. Perhaps i could suggest that i 'stopped' on purpose to take some pictures?

The view from where i 'stopped' in the above video..

More climbing up Casner..

The view toward Sedona.. it was a little hazy early in the morning from the fires on the north rim, & the ones that are mostly under control to the north east of Flagstaff.

..still more of the casner climb..

Here's Tom taking on one of the switchbacks..

The view to the northwest. It's getting some morning sun. We're still only about halfway up. We started at about 3k ft, & will climb to over 7k in the pines.

The riders.. Scotty & Tom.. hiding our faces under our helmets so as to travel incognito.

Once you get to the top of casner, there is still more climbing & following a ridge or saddle with spectacular views on either side. In the morning light, the green hills to the east overlap each other with great shadows.

Southeast toward Sedona..

Climbing again from the saddle..

Once on top, we got into the pines. The vegetation changes & the air gets cooler.. we're probably about 6500' in this area.

There were still plenty of rocky roads, though..

We had some views of the burn in the area last year.. it looks like they have been harvesting some of the burnt timber, which removes future fire fuel, & gets at least something good from the fire. It still looks bad, & you can smell the smoke as you pass through, even though it hasnt' rained in a while.

we were heading for Park, an old route 66 stop near I-40. We got on some nice cool roads in the pines.

After we crossed I-40, we filled our tanks in Park, had an ice cream break, & continued our way north to the canyon. We had a short bit of pavement around the I-40 corridor. But the road turned back into dirt, & we got onto the old stagecoach roads that are common in the area.

There was a lot of wildlife along these roads.. they were pretty slow getting off the road sometimes.. But you should always approach cows very slowly.. you want to make sure they don't spook & jump into you or suddenly dart in front of you. Big animals & little bikes do not mix well...

It was only about 10am, but we both had a sudden urge for a hamburger..

The terrain changed again & the pines slowly disappeared. We were now in open high prairie. There weren't too many trees, but some sage & a few grasses..

The road went on for miles.. long, flat & wide open. We had to keep alert for the ruts, though. They would appear suddenly & can easily flip you over or toss you off the side of the road. No daydreaming allowed.

We were on the coconino rim road for some of the ride, the Az trail for some, then got on grandview road as we got closer to The Canyon.

Soon we got off the dirt & turned onto hwy 64 that follows the canyon rim. We stopped here for our late lunch, enjoyed the views for a while, then turned to the village & our room for the night. It was now about 3pm. We had been riding for about 8 hrs in some pretty tough terrain. Plus we had to hit the tavern & sample the local brews, & get ready for some serious dinner fare.

No longer incognito.. posing for the paparazzi. Fortunately, there were mostly europeans & other foreigners at the GC & they didn't recognize us.

While staggering back from the tavern, we came upon a couple of these guys browsing along the railroad tracks.. There must have been a bright spotlight shining.. surely we weren't going home while it was still light..

We made it back to the room somehow, & fell asleep after catching some sportcenter for the important news of the day. We had a big day planned for tomorrow.. a long ride to the east of the canyon & through the Navajo rez.

End of Day 1.

Bodie mine, Crown King, 6/12/10

2010-06-13T07:18:00.000-07:00

Mayer, Bodie mine, Crown King. 6/12/10

We met in Mayer on Friday at 8:30. It was freezing! I had on mesh jacket & pants, & my fingers were numb riding through the pines. It did warm up some as the day progressed.

It was easy gravel for the first part.. down Poland road unti it became very rugged.

Here's a short clip on the post Poland road. We criss crossed a creek a few times.. nothing too deep, but the rocks are always slippery & tricky. We were going up & down all day.. some of the hills were pretty steep.. they seemed to get rougher & steeper further into the ride.

Tom had some tracks for this ride.. he had also ridden part of it the month before. I made a few waypoints on my gps before going out.. just in case we got off track.. but that wouldn't happen, would it?

Lots of good, challenging riding. We were in the pines early.. nice & cool.. too cool. We were looking forward to getting into the open desert so we could warm up!

I forgot to lower my tire pressures after my ride home from moab last week.. it's like a different bike when you lower the pressures down to 10# or so. The steering feels better, the suspension feels softer, the wheels don't jump around as much.

Stuff like this is easy on the wr with the right air pressures!

We rode along the pines for a bit.. then the flora began to change, as it often does in Az. We were getting into some very dense manzanita, & it was blooming. You can see the brown bark in some of the videos as we wind along the trail. This section of trail was for motorcycles & below.. no quads or jeeps. The path gets pretty narrow in spots.. a branch hit my mirror & spun it loose.. i didn't get it back to functional until i hit the freeway later in the evening.

Tom had told me we were going to have a big hill climb.. i thought this was it. But no, this was a wrong turn. So we went up it, then came back down. Gluttons.

For some reason i don't have audio on the climb.. don't know why. All the other vids are fine. You can see the hill as we approach.

Tom coming down 'wrong way hill'.

My descent..

So we tried turning on another 'road'.. this was not the right way, either.

We were trying to follow a gps track that Tom had gotten from someone. But we weren't sure if it was the right track, or if it was the one Tom had ridden before. No problem. Part of the fun of rides like this is exploring new areas.. taking the path less traveled.

Here's Tom coming down that path!

We dead ended at a steep, rocky, gnarly climb.. even worse than what we had done so far, & more than what we wanted to do. I went up the trail a bit, but it got steeper & rockier. I walk it a little, & saw some 12-16" steps right on a steep uphill curve.. we opted to go back.

I studied my gps map, & it look like we missed the road we wanted back about 5 miles. So we returned down the 'path less traveled', & made it back to the main trail.

Finally we got to where we wanted to be.. but my water supply was dwindling.. i didn't bring extra gas..Tom's power bar had fallen out of his pack or he forgot it. We were only about 30 miles into the ride.. about 60 more to go.

This is supposed to be the easy part!

Some nice water crossings broke up the rocky steps & steep up & down hills.

Tom had said we'd just do an easy ride to Crown King & have lunch.. now it looked like we might be lunch for some buzzards. The tougher part of the ride was still ahead!

We were still in some pretty grueling ups & downs.. lots of loose rock, off camber trail, big steps, & boulders littering the road. We went in & out of the pines, some more water crossings.. lots of variety, something for everyone!

Here's another of the tougher climbs.. the steepness of the hills don't really show up on video.. but you can tell sometimes by how the engine is winding out.

As usual, on these embedded videos, you can change the playing resolution by hitting the button after play starts. I try to keep them in the 2-3 minute range.. some are 5 min, some are 1 min or less.

We got out of the pines again, & got into more open chaparall.. more manzanitas, scrub oak, & open vistas. I was following Tom on this next clip, when i came upon what looked like a small stick across the left side of the trail. It was not a stick.

You'll see me pass this guy, then stop & come back.

I'm not going to kill a rattlesnake in a remote area, doing what he is supposed to do. He wasn't bothering anyone, & other than an occasional papparazzi, no one was bothering him. Live & let live.

Tom didn't notice the guy. ..too busy looking ahead for a good line. He waited until i caught up, & we continued along the open country trail.. nice views, fun rocky road. We were heading steadily down from the chaparal. ..back down to sand washes & river bottoms.

The road disappeared in places.. we followed the river in several spots. The road varied between rocks & deep, loose sand.

It was nice & cool along the creek.. just had to watch out for soft, deep sand & gravel.. don't want to sink in that stuff..

After one last, long, deep, steep water crossing, we came to a clearing & took a break. I finished the last of my drink, & we considered going back for the snake for a snack. But our fuel would be a problem soon, so we decided to continue on to Crown King.

We still had some ups & downs to contend with.. some long sand washes.. rocky, steep hills.

Sand washes can be tricky.. best way it to keep your speed up & your weight back. Some of these were pretty deep & would toss you off the trail pretty easily.

We were finally coming to 'The Hill'. As we came upon it, it didn't look any steeper than what we'd already done.. but as we got into it, i could see why Tom described it in ominous terms. ..loose, big rocks, a couple of turns.. easy to lose it here. About halfway up, i lost my line & the right bank tossed me into a mesquite to the left. I didn't drop it, but had to pause a bit to pick a new line. Tom, as usual, went right up without a problem.. though he did pause at first with a little trepidation.

Still flustered by the last hill climb, i didn't keep my momentum up & stalled going through this ditch.. i didn't drop it, but had a few stalls in this ride. This also turned out to be my last video. I didin't know if it was full, or if the battery didn't get fully charged. But it beeped & turned itself off. I just packed it away. Too bad. There were some really nice clips to be had ahead. We were only about halfway, & the toughest sections were still ahead.

We came out to the main road that went to wilhoit. There was no gas there, so we wanted to take the turn off to crown king. Tom thought (i know, a dangerous thing to do..) there was a 'shortcut' to wagoner road that took us to the crown king turnoff. So off we went on another adventure. The road wasn't on the map, but that didn't necessarily mean it wasn't there. But this road did fizzle out into another wash. We tried to follow it for a bit, hoping it would turn back into a road. But it didn't. It became more & more 'washlike' as we went along.

Eventually, we acknowledged defeat & turned back. We went through a few gates & got to a nice graded road.. wagoner road. We cruised along it for a few miles, then made the turn north again toward crown king. Here the road got very rough.. steep, rocky, rutted.. all the things that are fun in moderation. But it was almost 3pm, & we have been having fun all day. No water. Hungry. Low on gas. All the ingredients for an exciting riding adventure!

Our trail began to follow a small stream.. nothing too deep, but littered with rocks, some big steps & tricky lines to go through. Fatigue, hunger, & dehydration was starting to take it's toll. Tom got tossed off line & dropped his bike.. twice. His gps mount broke, but everything else seemed ok. We pressed on. ..either that or wait for the buzzards.

I didn't take many pics through here.. the video spoils you some.. don't have to stop for pics, just turn on the cam & get it all. We were also trying to get to crown king alive.. pausing for photo ops wasn't a priority. We finished going through the creek road, then got into the usual up & down, rutted, rocky hills that are common in this area. This is a very cool ride..

We finally got on the road to crown king.. here we ran into the first contacts with other humans on the ride. Quads & jeeps were tooling along the road, kicking up dust, oblivious to anyone else being on the road. Several times i had to come up right on their left side & beep my horn to get them to see us so we could pass safely. I guess they are on vacation, & are the only ones in the universe.

My reserve light had come on a while back, so i was very relieved to come to the crown king gas pump. There was a quad parked in front of it, with a tatooed gal yakking to another couple on quads. We pulled up, stopped our bikes & waited. She kept yakking.. the quad still blocking the pump. They talked about this & that & seemed oblivious to Tom & I. I guess you really are invisible on a motorcycle. Finally Tom got off & went inside to pay for the gas. I got off my bike. Took off gloves, helmet, jacket.. waited.. watched.. went over to the gas pump & jiggled the handle.. looked at the price. Finally i heard her say, 'i better move my quad, I need to go, anyway'. Talk some more.. heartfelt goodbyes, exchanges of eternal love.. within another 10 minutes she managed to get her quad started & moved out of the way. Tom & i both marveled at her inconsideration & self absorbtion. The other 2 were equally indifferent to our plight. ..hard to figure some people.

But we did get gas, then went over to the saloon for a crown king ale.. just a rebranded red hook, i think, but it was very good after the long day. It was now after 5pm, & we were just having lunch! We had some mexican food.. single tacos & burritos, then got back to the bikes & headed home. We decided to take the direct way home. It was still a dirt road, but improved, so we made good time. We got to the mayer turnoff, & Tom headed toward mayer & prescott, while i turned toward i-17 & north to sedona. It was neary 8pm when i got home. My odo read 200 miles.. about half of it pavement. The other 100 miles are some of the roughest, toughest trail riding around these parts. We basically did a 2 day ride in one day. I would recommend to split it up so it can be savored a bit. But we made it unscathed, & will live to ride again.

Moab, Ut. 1000 miles, 4 days

2010-06-08T18:07:00.000-07:00

Moab, Ut. 6/10

I got invited to join a group of riders from the southeast (mostly Florida) to join them in Moab for a few days. I was behind in my work, had 2 vacancies, was in the middle of moving, & didn't really have the money. So of course i went! I rode up on memorial day, starting from sedona to moab, about 360 miles of pavement. I left about noon & got there by about 8pm, moab time.

I went up oak creek canyon, through Flagstaff, then up through the Navajo reservation to Mexican hat, ut.

I rode pretty easy most of the time.. did the speed limit or less, mostly in the 60's. I had a little bit of a tail wind, & got about 70mpg for a lot of the ride up.

I always enjoy riding through monument valley.. it's different every time because of the shadows & different lighting.

Here is my adventure bike.. a yamaha wr250x. I put a windscreen on it for the long slab rides, but took it off in the dirt.

Here's a spot where i opened it up a bit.. got up to 86.5mph before slowing down. There was still some room to go. I've had it over 90 before without luggage & screen.

After you hit the play button on the vids, you can change the resolution if you have a slower connection.

Here's a short clip in monument valley.

I didn't bring any camping gear, since i was staying with the guys in a condo. I had my tank bag & the tank panniers for all my gear. Shorts, shirt, flipflops for casual wear, & mesh pants & jacket for riding.. it was moab in june. I brought the rotopax for extra fuel. One of the rides would need about 150 mile range.. i can get ~ 120 with the stock tank, so had to bring the rotopax.

I ran ~ 30psi in the tires on the slab ride up & back. For dirt i dropped it to 10-12psi.

Overlooking Mexican Hat, Ut.

Going up from Blanding, it started to get a little chilly, so i put on my rain outer cover on my mesh jacket.. it gives me a little more range in temps. It was probably in the low 60's through the mountains.. might have dropped to the 50's in some spots.

It was nearly 8pm when i got into moab. The guys i stayed with had dinner waiting.. they were waiting to eat until i got there! I got my civvies on & had a nice steak with them. There were 5 of us staying in a nice condo outside of town. 3 of us had wr250x's! The other was a KLR & a DRZ. A nice group of guys.. all from Florida.

Outside of the condo.. 3 wrx's!

tomorrow we were heading for the famous white rim trail.. a classic off road ride!

Day 2. White Rim Trail, Ut. XX rated with 2 wrx's! Also several Klr's, a super sherpa, & misc. others.

We met some other riders at a campground in moab. There were a total of 8 of us, but only 3 from our condo. Tom had tweaked his knee, & Ron stayed to drive him around & keep him company.. they would ride with us the next day.

On the paved road, heading to wrt.

We met about 8 am, & were on the road before 9. We rode out the north side of moab & came down mineral bottom road into the white rim trail.

..at an overlook before we got into the canyons.

Going down into the green river canyon.

Here's a vid clip of going down into the canyon.

After you start the videos, you can hit the resolution button to change it to a lower resolution, faster download.. but if you have a fast connection, it's nice to see them in hd.

The road was pretty easy for the first 30 miles or so.. There was a total of about 100 miles of dirt on the white rim trail, with another 50 miles back & forth to town. So we needed a range of 150 miles, which is why i brought the rotopax. If IMS comes out with a reasonably priced 4.5 g. tank, i'll be all over that.

We had some fairly new riders in the group, & somehow i ended up riding sweep at the end. But this way i could drop way back, let the dust settle, & enjoy the scenery.. i could also stop & take a few pics & still catch up. It was overcast, not too hot, & very scenic along the river.

We had 2 Marks.. both on KLR's. Treeman Mark was a racer, & rode the camo klr. We called him 'fast' Mark.. But my homie Mark was no slouch on his big KLR, either. Mark & i were putting along the river, enjoying the view & the ride when we came upon a fork in the road. Fresh tracks were on both roads. Fast Mark had the gps tracks, & took us to the right fork, where we caught up with Mike on the super sherpa, and another of my homies Wolfgang on the other wrx. But there was some pretty deep sand washes we had to cross first..

So across the sand wash, there were now 5 of us. We waited for about 1/2 hr, then fast Mark went back to check on the others. They must have taken the other fork, which was a dead end.

Pretty soon Mark returned, saying they were on the way.. they had gotten into some pretty deep sand & had some trouble.. losing a camelback along the way. We waited about another 1/2 hr, & voted for Mark to go back across the sand again to see what was going on. He did, & found that a couple of the guys were pretty hammered fighting the sand, & were ready to call it a day.

Now there were 5 of us, & off we went. I stopped to tweak my helmet cam, & the other guys were long gone.. no waiting in this group..

We got into some pretty gnarly, loose & steep terrain toward the end of the above video. Homie Mark stalled part way up, & i helpfully passed & left him to fend for himself. Not much later, he finished the climb.. not an easy task when stalled on a steep uphill in loose powder & rocks on a big bike. Fast Mark & i waited until he caught up..

Now we rode along a rim wall above the river.. very nice!

I'm following Mike on the super sherpa & Wolfgang on the wrx.. Mike & i went on down the steep downhill toward the end, but homie Mark hit a big rock & went down on his KLR.. he got it on video! Maybe he can post it here.. This was the only drop of the day for our group, & we would get into much more technical terrain before the day was over.

We were starting to get to some 'rim' parts of the white rim trail.. but we had a few spots of winding around, up & down, rocks & powder, steps & drops.

We weren't to the halfway part of the ride.. maybe about 1/4 to here..

This part of the white rim trail was how it got it's name. The white rocks along the rim of the canyon was the road in some sections.

Sometimes the road went right up to the edge..

I'll embed the vids in a smaller, lower resolution.. if you want to see them in HD, push the resolution button after you start them & it will switch to 720p.

This is a very short one that ends on one of the canyon overlooks.. the road winds along these canyons for miles. Most of it is pretty easy riding.. some rocky parts.. a little loose in spots, but nothing too technical.

Here's another longer clip with some bumpier sections..

We stopped at a lot of the overlooks.. took lots of pics, ate & drank all our supplies. The views were stunning & the riding was fun & challenging. This is Mike coming up a pretty gnarly hill on his super sherpa.. he just rode it up the tough sections like a mountain goat.

Sometimes the road was tricky to find.. along this section i wasn't sure where the road was.. it followed along the canyon rim.

Now we were about halfway.. the road started to climb again, & we came upon some pretty steep, rocky steps. Mike & Mark were ahead of me, with fast Mark & Wolfgang bringing up the rear. Toward the top, i came upon this:

Mark had dropped the KLR earlier, & wasn't too keen on riding it up this stepped, rough part. A couple of Nat. Park ranger/employees were watching above, hoping, i guess, for a fiery crash. There were also a couple of guys on bikes going the other way.. coming down the hill. They were waiting for us to clear.

I surveyed it for a bit, after i caught Mark, then went on up.. it's on this video toward the end.

Mark decided to wait for fast Mark to come & ride his KLR up.. better to be safe than sorry.. He was pretty hammered from all the riding in the day, & didn't want to risk going over the edge.

After a while, Wolfgang & Mark caught up with us.. they cruised up the hill without a problem.

Wolfgang on the wrx.

The view from the top:

We rode along the top for a while, then it turned into a long, powdery downhill section.. there weren't any sharp turns going down, so gravity does most of the work.

Here's one of all the riders: From left to right, Mike, Mark, Wolfgang, Scotty, & (fast) Mark kneeling.

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

..a short clip riding along one of the rims.

One of the guys took my pic with this nice view.. i'll probably use this for my blog front page..

This is my last video of the trip.. i forgot to empty the vids from my last ride, so there wasn't much room on the camera. I also didn't bring an extra microsd card i could use in the camera.. too bad. There were some nice spots the next day i could have gotten on video.

We continued along the rim.. it was still the white rim trail, after all.

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

We rode on for several hours uneventfully.. lots of rocky, rough roads.. some windy ups & downs.. we didn't stop a lot after we got away from the rims. There were a lot of wildflowers blooming, so i had to stop & get a few pics of them since they were so purty..

Finally we came out to the pavement, & rode along a very scenic road back to moab.. it followed the colorado river, & had tall bluffs along the river road.

That's it for Day 2, the white rim trail.

Day 3. Gemini Bridges & more.

This ride was supposed to be a real easy, novice ride. One of our housemates had tweaked his knee, & didn't want to get into anything too technical. A couple of others hadn't been riding long & were still getting used to riding in rocks.

But this was an historic ride... there were 3.. yes, THREE wrx's with knobbies going on this ride.. 3 supermoto 250's fitted with dirt tires.

So we met at the camground where all the klr guys were meeting. There were 11 of us. Eventually everyone got their helmets on & bikes started, & off we went, terrorizing the town of moab as we passed through.

We rode out of town, then climbed up into the high country..

I'm not usually too fond of riding in big groups.. & somehow i got to ride 'sweep' again this day. My 2 homies who were fairly new to riding were at the back, & usually a more experienced rider is assigned to ride sweep.. but usually they are the ride organizers.. not some yahoo off the street who just showed up for the ride. I wasn't asked to ride at the end, but wanted to take care of our newbies. I didn't mind.. except we crept along like a giant slinky because the ride leaders were worried that the guys in the back would miss a turn or get lost. With all the riders, there was a lot of dust kicked up. I dropped way back to avoid it, which made the 'slinky effect' even worse.

Still, there were great views, & some pretty tough riding sections..

We made it to the top, & got on some pavement for a few miles before turning off into the dirt again.

No secret why i wanted to drop back.. also no problem following the groups.. just look for the cloud.

Then we came to a very cool down hill section, with lots of switchbacks & turns. I got to stop a lot & take pics, enjoy the view, & still catch up with the group. You can see Ron on one of the wrx's on the road down.

We were going down to the road you see below.

Here's Ron again cruising down the switchbacks..

Caught up with the group at the bottom of the canyon.. we'd follow the green river & ride along it for a bit.

The canyon walls rose above the river. This road got pretty rough for some of our newbies.. some tricky, rocky sections gave them quite a challenge. Most of the road was pretty easy, but it had it's moments..

Then we came upon a nice deep water crossing. My 2 homies felt that was a good time for them to turn back. It was about 2' deep, with pretty steep sides. I didn't get to see anyone cross it, so hit it with some momentum. It drenched me pretty well.. a nice cooling bath, but i got across with no trouble, & caught up with the rest of the group. They had gone another mile or so, then got into even more technical sections, so decided to turn back. I was now behind fast Mark & Wolfgang, so could open it up a bit running along the river trail.

We crossed the water again, then waited for the rest under a cottonwood. We all had some fluids & snacks, then were ready to go again. Since my beginner homies had gone back, i didn't feel i needed to ride sweep again. So i took off with Mark & Wolfgang & we motored up the switchbacks. I caught them at the top & passed them while they were admiring the views. I was now on the long gravel section, so opened it up so the followers wouldn't have to eat my dust.. That's a good justification, isn't it? I made the pavement in about an hour, & waited for the rest to show.

I saw more purty flars with lots of spring blooms from the winter rains..

there were still plenty of nice views.. even if the flowers weren't blooming.

After about 45 mins, i got bored snapping flowers & decided to head back. This was all the ride was supposed to go, anyway, so i meandered on down the hill, enjoying the views & the nice twisties!

By the time i got to hwy 191, Wolfgang had caught up to me. We stopped to fill the tanks in Moab, grabbed a 6 pack of polygamy porters, & went back to the condo. Ride over.

End of Day 3.

Day 4. Back to Sedona

When i got up in the morning, i was going to join the guys on another big klr ride. But our 2 newbies didn't really want to get into tough riding again, & Wolfgang wasn't too keen on riding with the big group again. I wasn't either, plus i should really get back & work, so i reluctantly decided to go home.

It's still a great ride, the 360 miles back to Sedona. Both my tanks were full, so i decided to see how far i could go with both of them. There was a horrific headwind all the way back.. my mileage suffered & was mostly in the low 60's.. one tank where i pushed it was ~ 58mpg.. the worst of the whole ride. Mostly i resigned myself to riding easier & just taking the wind.. i tucked down & stayed behind the screen.. it really helps for long road rides.

Here's where i ran out of gas.. past monument valley, but short of Kayenta. I filled it up with my rotopax, & after a break looking at flowers, i hit the road again.

Here the cactus's were blooming in fuschia..

I also really liked the blue fields of wildflowers with monument valley in the background.

The winds kicked up dust & made a haze in the distance.

The red rock vistas never get old..

I had to fill up again outside of Tuba city.. the wind knocked my mpg's down. There's a dirt shortcut past tuba city that comes out near Cameron. It's a little rough, but that's what dirt bikes are for!

It was still windy all the way through Flagstaff & down the canyon to sedona. I had left Moab about 10 am az time, & got home a little after 6pm. But i rode easy, & except for the wind, it was a nice road ride. The little wrx handled it fine, too.

Sheepsbridge, 5/18/10

2010-05-19T21:05:00.003-07:00

I haven't been on a ride in a couple of months.. too much going on, but i talked to Tom last week, & he was game for a ride on the little bikes. Tom & i are riding yamaha wr250's.. his an R & mine an X. He has a larger tank, & mine is stock with about a 100 mile range.. hopefully.. it's 80+ miles from Cordes to Carefree, the nearest fuel.

The weather has been unseasonably cool in Az this year.. ordinarily we wouldn't consider going to the low desert mid may, but it was cool, & this was a ride we wanted to do.

We met at Cordes Jct. off I-17 in central Az about 9 am, yesterday, 5/18/10. We found a back way from Cordes to Bloody basin road, & hit the road. It was about 42 miles to sheepsbridge, & the road was decent. ..washed out in a few places, some rocks, but mostly pretty easy. The views were spectacular.. i'd have never thought we could ride this area in mid May. The cactus & ocotillo were blooming, white waxy flowers on the saguaro's, & wildflowers everywhere.

The video clips are in High Definition.. none are real long.. nothing over 3 minutes, but they take a while. You can click on the resolution button to make them smaller & faster.

We had a few water crossings, but nothing too deep. My first one covered me with water, though, & left a spot on my helmet cam lens. But we got down to sheeps bridge in good time.. not a lot of stops, no problems.

Sheepsbridge is a fantastic spot.. even without the cool bridge to cross. It was very narrow, but our little bikes made it across without a problem.

The riders: Scotty & Tom

But after crossing, we had a tricky little section to get down to the trail. It was very narrow, with big steps & rocks littering the way down. The only thing worse with this trail would be having to go up it.

We walked down it, first, to pick out a good line or see if we needed to call for helicopters.

But with sheer determination, tremendous skill, gravity, & dumb luck, we managed to get down. Now we were back on the trail, though we did have some boulders & sand to fight through, first.

Notice on this video the red packet that is on the ground toward the end, before we get out of the boulders. We would come back for that packet.

We had an easy 5-10 miles of up & down, nice low desert scenery, & good weather. It was windy but cool.. mostly that kept the dust down.. except when it blew straight back. Now we were coming up on the gnarliest, nastiest, roughest, toughest section of trail this side of the pecos... & maybe even the other side. This is deadman's creek. We got off our bikes & walked about a bit.. many big boulders.. some pretty big steps.. some drops over 4'.. we wandered around in dead man's creek for quite a while before deciding on a line. We went upstream (no water anywhere) for about 80 yards, then dropped down to the narrower 'streambed'.

The view across dead man's creek..

We didn't seen any dead men, but thought it was aptly named.

..only dropped it once.. :( going up over a boulder, stalled, & too high on the right side, so down i went. I stayed on my feet.. just let the poor bike fall.

We got to the other side after a bit more ripping & roaring. We were glad we were doing a loop.. wouldn't want to have to come back this way!

We got into view of the lake.. well, it's a reservoir, & with the winter rains, it was nice & full. This is horseshoe lake, named, we assumed, after the dam.. horseshoe dam.. but it could have been the other way around.

We stopped at a nice view spot & took some pics.. resting & relieved that we made it across dead man's creek alive, & that we didn't have to go back that way. I then noticed Tom's rear fender bag was open.. the bungee had come loose, the zipper on the bag was open, & the contents were gone. We lost his spare tube... oh well, we can get another.. but wait.. Tom let out a despairing 'oh, sh**'. His wallet was in it, as well. All his cash, credit cards, ID, baby pictures, marriage license, immigration papers.. anything & everything of value was in that wallet. We had to go back & get it. We would be coming out in maricopa county, & knew that sheriff joe would be there to haul Tom off if he didn't have his proof of citizenship.

We rode slowly, hoping we'd get lucky & find it before dead man's creek. But we got back to the rocky crossing & started across. I closed my eyes, twisted the throttle, & somehow got across without stopping. Tom made a turn into some bigger boulders, & was stuck. We wrestled the bike a bit, then i suggested that i go on with the search, while he rested under a tree sipping on some ice water, or order a long island iced tea from the concierge.

It was nearly 2pm by now, & we were back tracking 10+ miles, which would make my gas situation very sketchy.

I finally made it back to sheepsbridge, & saw this:

I searched around a bit, found his bike registration in the red packet, the spare tube, ..everything that was in that fender bag. It had fallen out right after the downhill from the bridge. I had taken a different line & had not noticed things flying out of the bag, plus i'm sure i was watching the boulders i had to maneuver through. I packed everything up, then turned back. I no sooner crossed the sandy part after the river boulders, then Tom pulled up. He figured if we had to go all the way back, i'd run out of gas, so he wrangled his bike across & caught me.

Relieved & flush with money & credit once again, we cheerfully headed back to dead man's creek. By now we were practised at this crossing. We mostly yawned & almost nodded off when crossing this for the 3rd time today.

I had come without my gps mounted. I left in a rush, & couldn't find my adapter for the cig lighter. I had the gps in my pocket, but could not refer to it while riding. No problem, the roads had been fairly well labelled, & it was obvious which way we needed to go. Tom had a gps, too, but only for decoration.

We crossed a sign on the right that had a ranch name on it, so kept going south. We got into Davenport wash, which was starting to look a lot like deadman's wash, with more stretches of deep, loose sand. We kept going until we came to a *deep* river crossing.. no way. I got out my gps to check our position. We had gone too far south & missed the turn by several miles. But as i was waiting for the gps to boot up, as luck would have it, we found a horseshoe.. named after the lake, no doubt. I stuffed it into Tom's lucky fender bag, & we headed back north to look for the road we missed. We made it all the way back to where the lake started.. no roads going this way. We must have gone too far back.. it must be the ranch road, so we went back that way, hoping my skimpy fuel tank would hold out.

It was the ranch road.. & it went straight to the Dam.

This Dam crossing is very cool, too. You ride along a narrow walkway under the water.

Another nice thing about the little 250's.. no trouble turning them under the dam. We rode them along the walkway, enjoying the cool mist & the roar of the spillway.

Unfortunately, on the other side was a very steep, stepped rocky path we had to climb. I employed my usual 'close eyes & twist throttle' technique & got on top without dying in a fiery crash on the rocks below. Tom started up, but stalled in a deep hole. We had to dig out some rockes & get him rocked back so he could make the first steep step, then he climbed out without incident.

The ride under the spillway..

The climb after the spillway..

Tom's climb up..

Safely on the other side.

Now we were home free. ..nothing but easy, washboarded, wide sandy roads to take for the next 20 miles or so, until we hit pavement & got into Carefree. We gassed up then made a beeline for The Horny Toad, a landmark BBQ place in Cave Creek. Tom generously bought my dinner, so me unhooking the bungee & letting out the zipper on his fender bag really paid off!

By now it was after 6 pm. We were still a long way from home. Tom had about 100 miles to prescott, about the same for me to sedona. The only road north is I-17. Could the little bikes do it? Would they be able to cruise for 100 miles on the freeway? Duh.. yeah.. these are wr250r's.. they're made to handle pavement. I was home a little past 7:30.. the sun was dropping along with the temps, but i got home, doing the mid to upper 70's most of the way. It was well over 250 miles for me, though almost 150 of that was freeway. The other 100+ was definitely worth it, though. This is a very cool ride, & one we usually think of in the winter. Maybe late next fall we'll do this one again..

Jerome to Laughlin, Day 3.

2010-02-21T05:44:00.000-07:00

Day 3. The ride home. The end of the ride?

These blogs posts are listed in the order i post them. So to get this ride report in the right order, you should scroll down & read the start of the ride, then this one. I suppose i should post the last day first, in reverse chronology, but it's easier for me to just post them in the order i write them.

Also, if your connection isn't very fast, or if you want to speed up the viewing of the video clips, you can pick 320p from the tool icon by the video window.

We left the hotel & took pavement for about 50 miles south. We went past Needles to a dirt road that came out by Parker, Az & crossed at the dam. That was another 40-50 miles of some pretty challenging riding. The road was pretty easy most of the way, but it was rutted out in several places, with many wash crossings & a lot of ups & downs.

Notice how green everything is from the winter rains.. well, it's green for this part of the country, anyway.

This was really a powerline road. It was fairly well maintained, but had a lot of damage from the previous weeks' rains.

This was just a big hole in the rocks.

Occasionally you can see glimpses of Lake Havasu in the distance. In this clip we caught up with the road grading crew.. a little over halfway through the road. The first part was pretty fun with all the washouts, but the second part had it's own challenges with all the loose rock & gravel.

This was a very scenic road.. it curved around the hills & went up & down a lot. And with the distant mountains & the lake views, it was a fun & pretty ride.

This is the last video clip of the ride. There is still plenty of great scenery, & we pass the only vehicle we saw on this road, other than the road crew.

At long last we came to Parker Dam. We crossed it & went into Parker for gas.

After Parker, we had planned to ride dirt over to Bagdad, then back the way we came along the Camp Wood road. But the more everyone thought about it, the less enthused we were about riding another 200+ miles through mud, water crossings, ice & snow. So after a brief discussion, we opted for pavement home.. still about 250 miles.. no simple ride. But we got into Prescott about 6pm, & Kim & i got to sedona by 7.. pretty dark & cool.

All together we rode nearly 700 miles, about half & half dirt & pavement. It was probably too long of an offroad ride to go from jerome to Laughlin in one day. It would probably have been better to split it up & stay in Bagdad or even Parker. But it was fun & an adventure.. although i haven't heard from Kim or Tom since. You should probably hear their side before planning a ride like this. I'll let you know if any of us are still friends...

3 days in the desert.. Jerome to Laughlin. Snow, mud, rocks & sand. 2/15/2010

2010-02-20T16:56:00.000-07:00

2/15/10 Jerome to Laughlin

Kim, Tom & i met in Jerome at 9am Monday morning. The destination was Laughlin, Nv. We took the perkinsville road & followed it out fr 318a to Chino Valley.

Leaving Jerome, by the fire house.

There were a few patches of snow, & it was pretty chilly.. we were at over 5000' in elevation. The San Francisco Peaks in the distance..

This was only the beginning of the wildlife we were to encounter.. they were brazen & unafraid. We could only conclude that Tom's calming presence soothed the savage beasts.

Here we are in the wide open spaces before Chino Valley. Tom & I were on wr250's, Kim on a klx 250.

Here you can see the antelope running from me as i went by.. of course they came back to the fence to see Tom.

After Chino Valley, we were heading down toward camp wood.. we'd be nearing 6k' in elevation & weren't sure how clear the roads would be, or if the previous weeks' storms might have damaged them. But we were heading to Bagdad & would find out soon enough!

Here's a clip along the camp wood road..

A little more snow, ice, mud, & water on the road..

The road was a bit tricky in spots.. there was ice under some of the mud, & it could get slippery very quickly.

It was pretty chilly, too.. we had to stop & warm ourselves every so often.

We got up into the pines.. but only for about 20 miles or so.

As we got lower, there was more water on the road, more water running across the road, & more water covering us as we went through it.

Here's a long clip of the 'Road to Bagdad'.

In this stretch we came upon more wild animals.. But Tom was in the lead, & when they saw it was him, they had to get a closer look. His reputation as a 'deer whisperer' is well known in the animal kingdom.

They even checked out Kim.. a known meat eater. He tried to offer some trail mix, but they weren't interested. This one let Kim pet her, though..

But enough of this.. Bambi will have to make some new friends. We had a ride to do. We continued along camp wood road until it reached Bagdad, a mining town. We crossed Burro Creek before we got into town.

We stopped in Bagdad, refueled, & had burritos for lunch.

The road we wanted to take out of Bagdad went north, but when we got to it, it was gated shut.. part of the mine road. We circled around some looking for a way through, but were unsucessful. Kim & Tom stopped & talked to a couple of guys who had bikes in their driveway, & they said we needed to go south about 20 miles, then connect to the burro creet trail which went back north. It was about 3pm by now, & we had over 100 miles to go. So we headed south & got on the burro creek trail. We had decided that we should take the most direct route from here on, since it was late. My gps showed a connecting road from the burro creek trail to hwy 93 about 5 miles into the trail, so i planned to turn there. Tom & Kim were in the lead, but missed the turn.. it was a challenging trail with a lot of sand washes, & they were having fun riding it & staying upright. I stopped at the turn & waited for a bit.. hoping they would notice i was no longer behind them.. but alas, assumptions almost always are wrong & they continued up another 20 miles to another turn off to hwy 93. After about 1/2 hr, i continued up the trail & finally met them at the highway. But we were further behind, now, & would have to take pavement the rest of the way to get to Laughlin by dark.

Here's an early clip of the burro creek trail.. the sandy parts got deeper & narrower as we went along, but i didn't get the tougher parts on video.

We continued north on 93 toward Kingman, going between 60 & 70mph most of the way. Right before we got into Kingman, my fuel light came on & i needed to stop for gas. Tom had passed me on the freeway, but Kim saw me exit & he followed & we got gas. We continued into Kingman, then took the exit toward Laughlin. Tom was waiting at the exit, & i waved & continued on.. assuming he'd continue, too. But as assumptions go, he thought i needed gas, & began stopping at every station along the way looking for us. I went 5-10 miles under the limit, expecting Tom to catch up with us. He had made the reservations, so we needed him to get there & check us in.

But Kim & I got to Laughlin without Tom, & waited in front of the hotel.

We waited for about 1/2 hr, then i went in to check on the reservations. "We don't have any reservations for this guy', was all they could say. Murphy's law was in full swing by now, so i thought i'd call the riverside, in case we got the name confused.. we were supposed to stay at the river palms. The riverside hadn't heard of him, either. We left a few messages on Tom's cell phone, & decided we should go ahead & get a room.. it was dark, now & we were tired from the long ride, the pavement, the night cold through Kingman, & we were hungry.

The first time i went in to check on the reservations, there was no one there & i was able to ask about our alleged reservation. But now that i wanted to make one, there was a long line to a single reservationist. Another half hour of waiting in line & we secured a room. We were planning on putting our stuff in the room, parking the bikes, then continuing the search for Tom.

Then the phone rang. It was Tom. He had already checked into the hotel. He had parked in the parking garage instead of pulling in front of the hotel, & had come in another way so he didn't see us. To add to the perfect storm, his reservation was for the following week, not this day.. which explained why his reservation didn't show up. So i begin snapping at him, questioning why he didn't look for us out front, why he didn't turn back at burro creek trail, & any other real or imagined offenses i could remember. He was tired, hungry, & cranky, too, & returned the volleys. We stormed off to our respective rooms with Tom planning to have Paula come get him for the ride back.

Kim was tired & hungry, too, & wasn't interested in all the drama.. but it was keeping him from rest & food. After a few minutes, i realized i had come across too intensely & wanted to smooth things over. We did not know Tom's room #, & to add to the confusion, Tom's cell phone wasn't working right. We called & talked to Paula, & left a couple more messages on Tom's phone. We finally found Tom down by the buffet & patched things up. The drama over, we had a late meal & went to bed.

Day 2: Following Tim. Rocks, narrow gorges, sand washes, & Oatman.

We met at Tim's house & headed off into the desert. Another riding buddy of Tim's was there, Lyle. These guys are both terrific riders. Tim was riding a 2T ktm 200, & Lyle was on a ktm 520. Less then 5 minutes from Tim's house, we were into this:

More video following Tim through the desert..

This was a very challenging ride for me.. lots of rocks.. steep hills, loose sand washes. Tim was showing us some primo riding in the area. A couple of hours into the ride, we started up another wash.. it narrowed & the water flow increased. The winter rains had made it very interesting.

Following Kim..

More rocky riding..

We stopped right before we got into the tough section.. Tim wanted a smoke.. perhaps his last?

From right to left: Kim, Tim, Tom, Lyle. This is the beginning of the narrow wash & rocky creek section.

Lyle made it look easy..

There were a few more tough sections, but nothing that slowed us down much.

Me following the short climb section.

We continued following Tim all over the mountains, sand washes, & creeks around Bullhead City.

About halfway through this next clip, look for a blue & yellow flash go by.. that's Tom flying by both me & Tim.. he got tired of dawdling along in the sand & wanted to open it up a bit!

This next clip is a shorter on with mostly the sand washes.. you can see some of them are pretty deep.. the bike moves around a lot in these!

Finally, we got on pavement & went into Oatman for lunch.. Oatman is a colorful tourist town on old route 66. It's mostly a destination, now, & one of the main attractions is the 'wild' burros that wander the street.

We were 'escorting' Tim into Oatman.. not just because he is a famous celebrity, but also because he wasn't plated.

The story on the burros is this: They are fierce & vicious animals that terrorize the town most of the time. But we had in our company the famous 'burro whisperer'. Once Tom rolled into town, the burros calmed down, & some even took naps.

This one was the meanest, orneriest, & most ill tempered beast in the whole town.. see how Tom's soothing influence made him into a gentle pet.

We finished lunch, & narrowly escaped the burro infested town. Back in the desert, we rode up to some pretty views.

More of the typical terrain our fearless leader took us on.. or subjected us to!

Eventually we made it out of the canyons & washes, & were heading home.. down to the valley in Bullhead City.

We made it uneventfully back to Tim's house, then stood around & talked for another hour. We finally decided to meet at one of the casino's buffets & have dinner. Tim & his lovely wife Tara made it, but Lyle & his wife missed us.. they came early & decided to take off when they saw the crowd at the buffet. We also couldn't take the long wait in line at the buffet, & headed to a pizza bar for dinner. Before meeting for dinner, Tom got his long island iced teas, & i knocked off a couple of fat tires. Kim, who is the hard core party animal in our group, decided to nap in the room until dinner.

But this was a day of challenging riding.. the most i've been on in a single day for a long time. Tim was his usual great & gracious self, & meeting & riding with Lyle was a priviledge. His riding & tales of injury were classic! We got to bed late, with plans for an early departure & ride on the california side into Parker, then across the dam & back home to Az.

End of Day 2.

The ride to ruins.. Clarkdale to Sedona with emt's

2010-01-07T21:45:00.002-07:00

Almost every ride we do is a little different, has new experiences, or teaches us something. This last ride we did had some good riding trails, plus some sobering philosophical thoughts to ponder after our ride.

This last tuesday, Kim & I met in Sedona, & rode out to Clarkdale to meet Tom for the start of our ride. We were doing a loop in the verde valley, starting in clarkdale & going up to sedona. Tom came over mingus mountain & down into the verde valley through jerome.. over a chilly 8k' mountain pass.

From Clarkdale. The bikes: Kim's klx250, my wr250x, & Tom's wr250r. All of these bikes are highly modded & most are very clean & scratch free.

Here's a video clip of me following Kim up sycamore pass toward the sedona red rocks.

More video.. We did some bike swapping here. I'm on Kim's klx, Tom is on my wrx, & Kim is on Tom's wrr.

A nice rocky section of trail toward loy butte..

We got to an overlook of loy butte.. there were some ruins along this mountain, & we were going to check them out.

Everyone decked out in their matching riding gear.. Kim, Tom, Scotty. We were planning on having a vote for the best dressed rider.. cast yours now!

Tom flexing his muscles to look like a body builder.. good thing there's some nice scenery to distract our view from Tom & his monster bike.

Kim double checking my gps readings with his trusty paper map.. but he thought we were about 30 miles west of where we actually were..

The ride to the ruins parking. This is the Honanki ruins.

We decided that it would be cool to see the ruins. I've lived in sedona for 25 years & haven't seen these ruins.. i guess they weren't going anywhere. Anyway, we saw them this day. They were pretty cool.. you could get much closer than with many other ruin sites. So we hiked the loop to the ruins.. about 3/4 mile, with some climbs up.

There was a tour group there, & Kim thought they might ask Tom if he was there during the construction of the houses here..

Tom claimed he didn't work on this job.. or maybe he just couldn't remember.. memory is a funny thing.

The hike back to the bikes.

It was now about 2pm.. we hadn't had lunch, which is always the highlight of any of our rides. We still had a couple of hours of riding to do, so we thought we'd better get geared up & go. Kim was fiddling with something in his tank bag. He kept pulling out his cell phone & looking at it. It was off. Finally, i went over & asked him about it. I admired the new phone, then put it back in the bag. He reached in & pulled it out again, asking if it was mine. I said no & put it back. He got it out again. Then he started asking what was going on.. he felt very loopy, like he was dreaming. Tom & I decided to take our helmets off & sit for a while with Kim. We got some trail mix & some water for him to drink. He didn't know where we were, & repeated himself several times. We chit chatted for a bit, then Tom suggested i ride home, get my truck & come back. I left, telling Tom not to take any chances & call 911 if he didn't improve.

I called Gail, Kim's wife when i got into town & left a message on their machine. It took me over an hour to get home, get my truck & start back. Gail called me when i was going down the dirt road to where the bikes were. Tom had called 911 & the emt's had come & gotten Kim. Tom was waiting at the bikes. When i got there, it was after 4pm & the sun was hanging low. We loaded up both bikes & got off the dirt roads. Gail called again & let me know they were at the sedona medical center, so we decided to stop there & visit. Kim was still loopy, but knew everyone. He wondered if he crashed & kept asking questions to try to put everything back together. The docs did some tests & ruled out stroke & other more serious possibilities. They concluded it was 'transient global amnesia'. I had never heard of it, & evidently it is a rare condition. They sent Kim home that night, with his memory the same.

It's been a couple of days, now, & it appears that's what it was. He has some more testing to do with the neurologists, but they seem convinced it was just a short term memory glitch. He remembers previous events, now, & everything from today & yesterday, but everything from the ride day is fragmented & dreamlike.

Kim seems normal now, & we're all optimistic that it is over.

Except for the medical emergency, it was a great ride. The verde valley has some nice winter riding, with some great views. We'll have to do it again, soon, so Kim can remember it.

Hart Prairie, 11/11/09

2009-11-13T17:53:00.000-07:00

Kim & I left sedona about 9:30 & headed up oak creek canyon.

I was on the wr250x, Kim on his klx250.

The weather was a little overcast, which made the temps a little warmer. We were climbing into the 8500' range, & it would be colder as the day wore on. But if we were going to get up to hart prairie this year, time was running out, unless we went on snowmobiles.

We turned onto fr 535, a nice dirt road that finishes the climb into the coconino nat forest. From here we went north, gassed up at park, crossed i-40, & went down an old section of rt. 66 that's unpaved.

this is in the pines on 535.

Here's some open prairie, with the san francisco mountains in the background.. our destination.

Hart Prairie road.. heading for the aspens. We're approaching the mountains from the west & going around them to the north.

This is along hart prairie road.. the aspens have dropped all leaves. We're about a month late for color, but the look going through them is still pretty cool.. no leaves, very stark.. it went well with the overcast day.

A partial view to the north.

Coming out of the aspens, into hart prairie & the northern meadows.

On the north side of the mountains, viewing north. These are the foothills going toward the grand canyon.

The san francisco peaks from the north, into hart prairie.

We followed the north mountain road until we almost came to hwy89a, then turned toward the south & southwest heading back to flagstaff.. this was along shultz pass road. I took some pics & vids of this on our 4 day utah ride early last month, so i did't take any more.. not much had changed.

We came into flag off shultz pass road & went back down oak creek canyon. No lunch. No more dirt. But it was a fine ride, & no doubt our last one in the high country this year. Snow will be covering everything & the roads will close.

We did a total of about 150 miles, with maybe 50 paved. We were in the 8500' range on most of the loop around the mountains. It's an easy ride.. a nice followup to the gnarly casner mt ride we did last week. This will probably be my last ride of the year.. after thanksgiving, i'm heading to oahu for 3 weeks.. we'll be back before christmas, but might not get a ride in. My poor little wr will be whimpering in the garage, wanting to get out for a nice ride.

Casner Mt. trail, Williams, Perkinsville road, 11/5/09

2009-11-06T17:12:00.002-07:00

11/5/09
Casner Mountain trail. Clarkdale to Williams, Az

Tom, Kim & i met in Clarkdale at 9am. We followed the verde river for a while, then took sycamore pass up to the powerline road at the base of Casner mountain. The powerline road is Casner Mtn trail. It goes between 2 wilderness areas. It is open to hikers, bicycles, horses & motorcycles! No 4x4 jeeps, etc.

The riders.. Scotty, Kim, Tom.

If you watch the video clips, you might as well mute the sound. All you'll get is motor & wind noise.. a few words might get through every now & then, but on this ride, they should probably be muted too! I tried to see if i could get some audio to come through in some slower, quieter parts, but it didn't do very well.. there is a mod i can do on my helmet cam to bring a tiny microphone to the inside of my helmet.. but then i'd be yakking all the time & miss a turn or go over a cliff.. probably better to just have the video. A helmet cam is worse than a cell phone..

Also, if you have a fast connection, you can click on the 'HD' button at the bottom of the video. You'll get to see it in full hd resolution! I try to keep them around 2 minutes, but a couple are longer. The stills are still the best!

The road up sycamore pass.

This is open range.. we found the local hangout for the natives. Some of them were pretty well armed.. don't mess with them! I rode through very slowly.

The Mountain.. Casner mountain. Our climb for the day. We'll start at about 3k ft, & go up to about 8k.

If you look closely, you can see the swath cut up the mountain for the powerlines, & the switchbacks.

Heading toward the trail.. we come to the gate which keeps 4 wheeled vehicles out, but allows our dainty little motorcycles!

Beginning the climb..

Part way up.. this is a steep hill.. where i am now is where the switchbacks start. Look how far we've climbed already!

The climb was pretty long.. i broke the video up so it wouldn't be so boring, & so anyone can just watch part if they want. This is part 2 of the climb.

Stopping at another switchback for a photo opp. The turns were pretty gnarly.. you had to slow a lot coming into the turns, & the surface was pretty loose, but it was still very steep. I think had i been on my drz i would have dumped it a couple of times on this hill.

Sedona red rocks in the distance.. The forest service was doing a prescribed burn & there was a lot of distant haze.. later we would get right into the smoke.

..and of course, part 3. The last section had the toughest parts.. the steps were bigger, the rocks were looser, & the turns tighter.. it might have been steeper, too.

Up on the first mesa. We thought we'd reach the top & it would be mostly level.. but the road went up & down.. steep both ways. We were still between the wilderness areas & not on a real road.

Up & down on Casner mt. Ridge roads, steep drops. I've put this & a couple of other in HD.. i think you can change it to standard def so it loads faster. I'm still figuring out how these embedded videos play.

On the ups & downs, we went along a ridge that fell off both sides..
This side was to the west & sycamore canyon.

Here's Tom flying by with a view to the east side of the ridge.

More along the Casner ridges..

Too bad the smoke made the more distant shots hazy.. you could have seen all the way to bell rock in sedona.

Once we got past the ridge, we started another steep, rocky climb. We thought it couldn't get worse than the first part we went up, but we were wrong! The boulders were bigger, the steps were higher, & the loose rock was deeper. But once we got on top, we were rewarded with some fantastic views.. this was the view of sycamore canyon to the southwest.

Kim gets tired of me always taking pictures, so he wrestled my camera away & took one with me in it.. You could bring your own camera, Kim..

Climbs & rocks.. & through the north gate. We also start getting into a lot more pines in this section.

We went up & down a few more times, but the terrain got easier. Then we got into some burned sections.. we were planning on going up here earlier this summer, but the fire made us change to another ride. It was pretty burned up.. lots of fallen trees, & cleared sections to protect the powerlines.

Into the pines..

Remnants from the fire last summer..

Now we got out of the pines, the fire, the powerlines, & into the open meadow of Garland Prairie. We were able to open it up on this graded gravel road.. don't look at my speedo..

Finally we made it to our primary destination.. Lunch!! The is the old 'Route 66 cafe'. It's ok.. kinda pricey.. but the food was fine. Here you can also see all our trusty steeds lined up: Tom & I on wr250r/x, Kim on klx250. We've all changed recently from a bigger bore bike, & don't see any reason to go back. The 250's took all we could throw at them, & on this ride, we gave them a workout!

On the road back.. old perkinsville road.

This road connects to perkinsville road.. it gets pretty gnarly..

The old perkinsville road has some pretty rough sections in it. It was all downhill, but some of the steps were pretty high, & there were still a lot of rocks. We didn't really get a break from what we had in the morning.

Vids on the rocks..

But we finally cleared all the downhill rocky stuff, & were in chaparral.. lots of junipers, pinons, & high desert flora. This is near the bridge over sycamore creek. The cottonwood trees along the river are changing colors.

The road to jerome..

Crossing the bridge.. the road is graded from here on..

Tom ran into some road construction between jerome & prescott, so he wanted to take another route back home. Kim & i were heading toward sedona, so wouldn't have to deal with the stoppage. I will let him describe in gruesome detail all he encountered on the trail.

One last shot looking back from where we'd come..

I had over 170miles on my gps when we got back. Kim said this was the roughest ride he'd been on since Martin Canyon, which was a lot shorter, just bigger boulders. The sun was pretty much gone when we got back to Sedona.. it would be past dark by the time Tom got home..

I'll definitely want to do this one every year.. maybe incorporate it into the grand canyon ride in early summer.

strawberry, fossil springs road, 9/16/09

2009-11-02T19:49:00.001-07:00

This last wednesday, Tom Kim & I decided to try out Kim's new klx 250 & my wr250 & ride up to strawberry.. it's an easy ride on dirt roads, but they wind around a lot, have lots of switchbacks & slippery gravel, & are good roads for testing out a new bike.

We met in Camp Verde & started down Fossil Springs road. Kim was taking it easy.. trying to get to know the new bike.. an '07 klx.. first time he's taken it on a real ride.

I didn't take a lot of stills, because i was also testing out my new helmet cam.. the contour hd. A small camcorder that writes to an 8g. card. It's pretty cool, & i'm real impressed with the picture quality I'll post a few i uploaded to youtube.

We didn't stop much.. nothing much to see or do along this road. ..just twist the throttle & head up the hill.

wr going up video.. 46 seconds

If you've got a fast computer &/or a good video card, you can watch it in High Definition.. let me know how it looks.. i only have my feeble netbook.

Kim on wr, Tom on klx, me on xrl vid. 2:32

I read that it takes the shadows to bright sun very well, & the colors are much brighter than my old one. Now if i can get a computer that can edit the videos so i don't just have to take short clips all the time...

Me on Honda, catching Kim on wr. 1:42

Once we got on top, we stopped for lunch.. Tom was looking very closely at Kim's klx.. He was the one who started talking about this bike.. Weeks & weeks we've listened to him wanting a lighter bike.. don't need the power of the honda.. too old to go fast.. time for a change.. Kim must have agreed, because he went out & bought one. However i beat them to it with the wr by a week.

The old strawberry lodge for lunch! We had a nice lunch & talked about the merits of the bikes.

But now it was time to go. I wasn't sure how the videos would turn out, so didn't bother taking any others on the way back.

We got back to Camp Verde, & Tom turned toward prescott. Kim & i headed down fr618 toward sedona. We crossed beaver creek at the ranger station/campground & i got a couple more stills.

I had used my camera to take some pics of stuff i was selling & forgot to raise the resolution.. so all these were 640x480.

Kim on his new KLX.. he's going to have to get all new riding gear!

It was a good ride.. only about 100 miles for me & Kim.. probably double for Tom. My bike needs some suspension tweaks, i found out.. very stiff. Both the honda & the klx were softer.

Now we're gearing up for the Big One. 4 days in N. Az & S. Ut. Probably leave around the 28th. monument valley, navajo reservation, burr trail, halls crossing, smokey mountain trail, hell's backbone.. & more. I should get lots of nice videos, & plenty of stills. I've been looking forward to this ride all year, & we decided today to just do it.

Tom, still thinking about that KLX.. "Hi Paula.. Can i get a new bike?"

scotty

Clarkdale exploratory ride, 10/19/09

2009-11-02T19:13:00.001-07:00

Tom (AZTom) & i met in clarkdale for an exploratory ride. We were checking on a powerline road up to the rim from the verde valley. The only other way up on the west side is off the perkinsville road toward williams. I had seen this road a couple of years ago, & we thought we'd take a closer look... plus Tom needed to take his new wr out on it's maiden voyage.

We crossed the verde river at tuzugoot, went down sycamore pass road & started climbing.

We had a short staredown with this guy.. he was on the side of the road, but i didn't feel like passing until he gave way a bit more.

The riders: Me & Tom.

This was where we stopped for a hearty lunch.. : Tom had a powerbar & i had a banana...

Here's the road we wanted.. it's not on my citinav 2010 map, probably because it's closed to 4 wheel motorized vehicles.. that's right. 2 wheels are ok!

This is a really steep road.. loose rock, off camber.. sharp switchbacks.. lovely!

Tom had an electrical problem.. lost his headlight & blinkers.. so we decided we didn't have time to go up to williams this day. We'll go up in a week or so & test the climb. I'm planning on adding this to the grand canyon ride we do in early summer.. if it goes through, & it looks like it does.

Tom backtracked through sycamore pass road back to jerome & prescott, while i turned off before clarkdale & headed back toward sedona.

A very short ride, but fun & informative. Tom's new wr is great! His has the Fuel programmer, pipe & exhaust.. much more responsive than my stocker.

scotty

cedar flats. 10/30/09

2009-11-02T19:09:00.001-07:00

2 klx250's & 1 wr250x

The weather changed & got cold this week, but it warmed slightly toward the end of the week. Tom had to go to Boise, so Kim, Brian & i decided to take a short ride while the high country was open.

We were planning on going up cedar flats, which runs between the west clear creek & beaver creek wilderness areas, but they were paving some of the road that crossed the creek by the beaver creek campground, so we changed our route & went up the old blue grade toward stoneman lake, then past apache maid lookout & across to long valley.

Brian on his new klx.. he's been riding very well! We had to climb through some rutted & steep sections past apache maid, & there were no problems with anyone.

After passing the apache maid lookout, we got on fr229. It was very rocky at first, but later it smoothed out. We had about 10 miles of pavement on lake mary road to get to this primo destination.

We got a fairly late start.. since it was pretty cold.. it was nearly 11am when we got on the road. We left the cafe about 1:30, & decided we'd go back to cedar flats & cut across the other way, then come back to sedona.

Out of the pines, & into the juniper & cedars..

We had some fall colors in the washes & spots where some hardy deciduous trees could find water. It was elk season, so they were all hiding, but i did see a fox run across the road & some deer bounding away. Of course they never stop & pose. This area has a lot of magnificent alligator junipers.. some are more than a hundred years old.

We were heading almost due southwest.. right into the setting sun.

Cedar flats is fr 214 between apache maid mtn & west clear creek. It is a pretty rugged road, with a lot of washed out parts, miles of jagged rocks, & a few spots with steep rocky climbs & descents. There were some pretty big steps we went up & down on this road. Some you can maneuver through, some you just close your eyes & give it throttle! (don't really close your eyes..)

I didn't get any pictures of the gnarlier spots.. too busy hanging onto the bike. No video, either. I didn't even bring the helmet cam this time. Too bad. There would have been some good spots for video on this ride.

..Kim demonstrating how to climb a cobby section on a 250.

By now, it was past 4pm & the sun was starting to set low in the sky. We were still approaching the west clear creek wilderness, & you could see some of the canyons of that area in the distance.

We followed the edge of west clear creek canyon back down to fr618, which went back toward sedona.

The sun behind us & the moon before us, we made good time back to the pavement.

I had about 110 on my odo, with about 30 of that pavement. We had climbed into the 7k ft range. Not many more days of riding at this altitude until next spring. I'm still hoping next week the weather will permit us to climb casner mtn between clarkdale & sedona.. we'll see!

All of us have been most impressed with the 250's. They have plenty of power for any offroad venture we get into, are much easier to manage & maneuver through the tight places, & are fine on pavement. Everyone went the speed limit (at least!) on the highway, & we could keep a pretty good pace in the rocks, too. The last time i had ridden cedear flats i was on the drz. It was much more difficult on it, with the higher profile & added weight. It seems like the suspension is better on the wr, but it's probably just because it's easier to handle, being lower & lighter. I'm still quite pleased with the change.. & am very impressed with the wr's performance.

scotty

9/28/09-10/1/09. Fall Ride.. N. Az, S. Ut.

2009-10-14T18:12:00.002-07:00

Northern Az, Southern Utah. 9/28-10/1/09

Bikes & Riders:
Tom, Honda xr650L
Corky, Honda xr650L
Kim, Kawasaki klx250
Me, Yamaha wr250x

Day 1.
Wynona ranch road, Navajo sand roads, monument valley, mexican hat.

It was after 8 when we left sedona. Corky trucked his & Tom's bikes over from prescott & chino valley. We started heading north & east toward mormon lake. To make up for a little lost time, we cut off some of the dirt around mormon lake, & went up lake mary road to the wynona ranch road turnoff.

Tom & Corky suiting up for the ride from my house.

The wynona ranch road is a great mix of terrain.. it starts right off with some baby head sized boulders in the road/wash. Then it mixes in some flat hardpan (when dry), plenty of ruts, & a bit of graded gravel.

I got a new helmet cam a few weeks ago, & was wanting to use it for this ride. It worked pretty good, & the colors & resolution are much better than my old one. Here's a clip of the wynona ranch road:

The new camera records in high definition, so on the youtube vids, you can select higher resolution.. as long as you have a fast connection & computer. I have more vid clips on my youtube page of this ride.. i just didn't want to link them all to this report. Also, i turn the camera on, then off. Then i upload the clips. I don't edit them or polish them up.. my computer won't even display them very well in HD, let alone edit them! I've been getting along fine with my netbook, but might have to get some real computing power if i'm going to edit video..

Looking toward our faithful reference point.. the san francisco peaks.

Here is along a graded section.. a couple of elk cross the road toward the end of the clip. It's easier to see them in hd.

Most of this day had a lot of dust.. it hadn't rained in a while, & everything was pretty dry. On the sandy reservation roads the dust was very bad. We had to spread out or eat a lot of dust.

We crossed the highway, & headed up into the Navajo reservation. We took a road that crossed the little colorado river at grand falls.

This time of year crossing at grand falls is easy. During spring snow melt, grand falls is very grand. Now it's pretty tame.

you can see the mighty grand falls at the left side of this picture.

..from the other side, where we stopped for lunch.

We left grand falls, & continued north. The roads from here were very sandy, & got deeper & sandier as we neared monument valley.

..our mountains getting more distant. Corky was almost always ahead & didn't care to stop for photo opportunities. Kim & Tom had more patience, or were glad to have a rest break!

Most of the rez roads were right on with the gps... Some forest roads in the nat. forest aren't as accurate as the bia roads. We did have one setback.. this was one of the roads we were supposed to take. Tom said we could have ridden it, anyway, but it's probably good that we didn't.

We had a communication mixup.. i told Corky our next turn was about 5 miles ahead, & he went ahead because he liked to go fast on the sandy roads. I thought i *was* going fast! But Corky is an old baja rider, & has a different definition of 'fast'. Anyway, he ended up going about 20 miles, so we skipped the road we were planning on riding & took pavement to the next waypoint. Kim had an extra gallon of gas, but on the sand roads, his mileage was worse than expected. It would be a while before we came to the next known gas station, but then we came upon this.

It is the rocky ridge general store.. gas, drinks, snacks.. an oasis in the desert.

Corky enjoying a soda with his new friend.

Tom was so happy he broke out dancing while Corky & the cat watched. Kim tried to get Tom under control, but neither Corky nor i would try to stop him. I think the locals were somewhat amused. Entertainment in these parts is pretty scarce. Plus, he was pretty good.. :)

With full tanks, we made our way through the rez & toward monument valley. The sun was hanging low, & daylight was coming to an end. By now we were on pavement, & would be to mexican hat. The shadows on the rocks in monument valley were spectacular.. it was still a good time to view the scenery.

One last stop for gas.. Kim found someone to watch his bike while he went in for an icecream... but he didn't bring us one.. :(

This helmet cam handles the shadows better than my old one, but lighting is always an issue with video..

We rolled into mexican hat, ut at dusk. We stayed at the san juan inn, which is right on the san juan river. It has a very nice restaurant right on the premises, so we got our gear put away & went out for dinner. Morning would come early, at the usual time, so we wanted to be rested for the next day.

All the bikes happily resting outside our rooms.

The san juan bridge.

We did a total of about 300 miles the first day.. more than we routed, but a few detours added some miles. The first dirt section on the wynona ranch road had the toughest technical sections, but the deep sandy roads on the rez were challenging, too. No mechanical issues.. it was hotter than we expected, but everyone was ok. Everyone's luggage stayed attached, we had plenty of gas, & enough food & water. a good ride.

end of day 1.

9/29/09,Day 2. Mexican Hat to Escalante

2009-10-14T16:39:00.001-07:00

Day 2. Mexican Hat to Escalante

Goosenecks, valley of the gods, seafaring swabs, moqui dugway & burr trail.

Everyone got up pretty early, since now we were on utah time, which was on daylight savings time. Az stays on mountain standard time year round. But we don't go on a ride like this to sleep, so it's early to get ready, eat & ride! Our trusty steeds were well rested & raring to go. Kim & I had washed our bikes the night before.. the front desk guy said we could, so we did. Tom & Corky were too tired or too macho to wash theirs.. they think hondas look cooler with some mud & dirt on them. But our dainty little 250's can't be saddled with any extra weight, so we washed them off.. it streamlines them while riding, too.

The restaurant at the san juan inn is probably the best one in town, it opened at 7, & we could walk to it. The wait staff were friendly, & must have been really funny, judging from this picture.

Maybe it was a joke at Tom's expense.. he wasn't laughing as much as the rest of us. From near left & clockwise: Tom, Corky, Kim, me.

There was a path down to the river, but no one wanted to look for a water crossing.

After breakfast, we gassed up & headed out.. & saw the rock that was the namesake of the town.

Mexican hat rock.

Our first stop was the goosenecks.. a winding section of the san juan river. It's a very interesting geological formation. I had to combine the pictures to get a full view from this close range, even though my camera has a pretty wide angle lens.

Kim is a utah native, but had never been to the goosenecks.. Utah has a lot of sights to see.. it would take a lifetime to see it all.

This was all pavement, but then we went to the valley of the gods loop.. about 20 miles of dirt.

valley of gods video.. ~3.5m

I had seen this road on the maps, but did not know it was a dirt road.. pretty rough in spots, nor that it was so scenic. it was a definite highlight of the ride.

More valley of the gods video.

Corky taking a break while waiting for the other riders.

We no sooner get off the valley of the gods loop than we start heading up the moqui dugway switchbacks. This is a tremendous ride.. it has some dirt & some paved. It has hairpin curves with sheer cliff dropoffs. You can see colorado. It's an awesome ride.

Kim riding up the moki dugway switchbacks..

Moqui dugway video..

view from partway up.

The next part of the ride went to natural bridges nat. monument. We were going right by it, so decided to check it out.

The angle on this shot isn't good for seeing the 'bridge', but you can see a hole in the rock where the upper parts crosses as a bridge.

Now we had about an 80 mile ride on pavement to hall's crossing. It had been a while since we had a fuel stop, & going down to lake powell, Kim ran out.

The rotopax setup was pretty easy. Kim had to unload his tail bag to get to the gas, though.

As we headed down to powell, a park ranger stopped to make sure we weren't going to ride offroad. He was reaching for the shotgun until i turned on the camera.. :)

But he let us go.. & we continued down to lake powell.

We got lucky & only had to wait 10 minutes for the next ferry.. they run about every 2 hours during daylight.

Here are some real seafaring old salts.. Corky telling of the time he fought pirates off of key west.. or was he the pirate fighting a british frigate? i don't remember.

Now this is a water crossing!

We crossed lake powell at hall's crossing, got gas, & headed up the burr trail toward boulder, ut.

More of it had been paved since i had ridden it a couple of years ago, but the last time Kim had ridden it was with Mr. Burr in a covered wagon, so we had it pretty easy.

Corky rode on ahead, & the rest of us dawdled along, stopping every so often for pictures.

Here's some video of the first section of the burr trail, before getting to the red rock canyons:

Tom & Kim coming up the burr trail..

The first part of the burr trail had bigger views.. more distant & panoramic. There was a little more pavement, a few sandy roads, & some dry washes. The next part had the red rock canyons.. some very scenic climbs in the switchbacks.

We cut through the back side of capital reef park on the way up.

I mostly took videos of the canyons.. Here's one going toward long canyon.

This next one is pretty long.. & it's in long canyon. It is a beautiful scenic ride.

Next we came to boulder, ut. We had about a 50 mile ride through some terrific paved twisties, plus a lot of fierce crosswinds. This whole day had been pretty windy, but this section it was the strongest. I would hug the right side of the road, & a big gust would blow me almost to the centerline. But in the twisties we lost some of the effects of the wind, & could open it up a bit.. at least that's what i did! I pushed the little wr, shifting a lot to keep the revs up. Every turn i leaned a little more, went a little faster.. wondering how far this bike could go with knobbies. I never found out. It scared me more than i could go! I left the other guys in the twisties, but they caught me in the long straitaways. I was very impressed with how the little wrx cornered.

I thought i had the camera on a few times, but evidently it had turned itself off, so i have no record of my high speed exploits. It was fun for me, though!

We came into escalante, ut & checked in to the circle d motel.. fortunately i had made reservations, because it was filled. We unloaded our gear & headed over to the pizza place by escalante outfitters.

The 'Desert Doctor', a local escalante bike shop dude, came by & offered his services. Tom's mirror had broken off when unloading his bike at my house, & the guy had one, with an adapter he made up at his shop.. only $25, too. A good guy we can recommend.

I don't know if Kim & Corky weren't speaking, or what. Tom was very intent inspecting the bikes. Yamahas can double as a clothesline..

We got polygamy porters.. the wasach brewing company's dark beer.. it's good.. for 3.2 beer! It helped our reputation as hard core drinkers.. we each had at least 2 glasses! ..except Corky.. he really used to be a hard core drinker, & has given it up. Kim, Tom & i are really lightweights.. but on the ride reports we can drink anyone under the table!

But even after all those polygamy's, no one felt like getting more wives.. Maybe the beer was from an old batch?

Beer & pizza consumed, we returned to our rooms & went to bed.. we put in about 230 miles this day. It was the most scenic, imo, & we did a lot of ups & downs in elevation. There were miles of dirt roads, switchbacks, & paved twisties. A good days ride.

end of day 2..

9/30/09, Day 3. Escalante to Page

2009-10-14T16:10:00.002-07:00

Day 3.

Smokey Mountain trail, lake powell overlook, big water descent, page.

Very early in the morning, we heard a loud crash of thunder.. it was about 5 & woke everyone up. It started raining, & i began considering alternate routes to page. I got up & retrieved some of our laundry we had hung on the bikes. The rain was just starting. By dawn it had stopped. The roads were a little damp, but there was not enough to make mud. But Corky was getting a little tired, & decided to take pavement all the way to page. We got some breakfast at the motel, gassed up, & hit the trail.

The smokey mountain trail is a pretty cool trail with a lot of variety. The sand & mud washes you cross early on were dry, even with the rain we got. The only downside to this day was a fierce wind. It was blowing dust & us all over. We didn't stop for breaks much, as the wind was too unpleasant & blew dirt in our faces.. we might as well ride.

Kim & Tom on the smokey mountain trail.

Here's an early section of the smokey mtn trail:

The first part was fairly flat, with a lot of wash crossings. This day they were all pretty dry. Sometimes they are running & can be pretty muddy. We would have only 2 crossings with water.. the one right before the climb, & the big one at bigwater. They were both ahead.

We stopped a couple of times to check out some scenic canyon overlooks.

The middle section had a lot of winding, rocky roads, with lots of ups & downs.

Tom has been trying to decide which 250 to get. He's read the specs, the user reviews, & has ridden the bikes. He had it narrowed down to the klx, then thought about the wr, so we swapped bikes for a bit to help Tom decide.

Here's Tom coming up a rocky climb on the shiny new wrx.

Now you see me sitting on a bright red honda, trying in vain to catch Kim flying through the trail on a yamaha, who can't come close to catching Tom tearing it up on the kawasaki.

Fortunately, there was a steep sandy hill to slow Tom down.. We might not have seen him again. Kim thought that was enough bike swapping for now.

We got back on our own bikes, & this is where the road got rough.. it was steep, rocky, stepped, & curved around a lot. It was the big climb up.

Once on top, the road flatted out more & became sandy.

We followed it a few miles until we came to the big view.

The wind made it kind of hazy, but it was still spectacular, seeing lake powell & the grand canyon in the distance.

Now we were ready for the descent. We winded & curved our way along sheer cliffs, narrow,loose gravel roads, & endless views.

The big wash at bigwater.. it was almost 3" deep & a foot across!! Kim & Tom were so disappointed.

We got back on the pavement at bigwater, crossed the dam & went into page.

Tom & Kim crossing the dam.

Corky beat us back.. the wind blew him around some, but at least he didn't have to brave the bigwater crossing!

We put our toys away, & walked down the road for a mexican fast food dinner.

This was the short day.. we were in page by 2pm. We barely went 100 miles. But they were interesting miles. This was our last night.. we'd be heading home back through the navajo reservation.

end of day 3