10-24-06 Desert Ride

It was a quick trip up to Montana. I got into snow covered roads when I hit West Yellowstone and on and off all the way to Bob’s shop. Bob put the critical eye on those bikes. I did stop in Columbus on the way over to squirt off some of the ice that had built up on the bikes. The bastards put salt in the sand they spread on the roads and I sure wanted to get it off the bikes as soon as possible. There was a half inch of ice covering most of the bikes. Bob liked the R75/6 but couldn't bring himself to have that ugly R90/6 around the shop, even out back in a little tin shed. He is somewhat sensitive about appearances and sensitive about me yelling at him for putting my bike in the morgue, like he did with my little R50. I think he will make friends with that R75. 

After dropping off the R75 at Bob's I made a run for Miles City. I made it up to camp and dropped off the R90 and stopped by to visit Charlie and Jeanne. It is always nice to visit them and we ate high grade icecream and some great coffee that Charlie made. I had called Roger and asked if I might stay for the night at his place and he said that would be fine. I have no electricity up at camp since I had it turned off and there wasnt even a propane heater or stove as I have them loaded in the Pod. Roger has a big house and they made a good bed for me in the basement. I shook the snow off my tail and blasted on out of there in the morning headed for Nevada.

I stopped in at Warm Springs just outside of Tonopah to check out the pool. This was a great stop while traveling years ago when the bar was open. They have been closed for years and the gate locked with NO signs all over the place. I see some folks still go around to the back side and crawl through the fence like I used to do. There were a couple of nice little hot tub cabins too but they are gone. I wish someone would buy this place and open it up again. The problem is that there is such little traffic on this road it would be hard to make a go of it especially since gas is so expensive now. Gas aint cheap in Nevada, especially out in the lonely desert places. 

I rolled into Tonopah and caught up with this guy buying some oil at a auto parts store. This is a BMW R80 ST model that has been heavily modified. The PD tank and the homemade panniers being the main features. The guy is a computer geek of some sort but taught himself to weld aluminum and did all the welding.

He was loaded down pretty good and was heading for Tucson I think it was. He is from Quincy, CA. You might notice the Hippo hands that he has on the bike. They are nylon pockets over the ends of the handle bars that he puts his hands in to operate the controls. These are great for cold weather and since this was morning, I am sure they helped a lot  especially without heated grips.

He really did a nice job of making the mounts for the panniers. They are mounted directly to the main frame and don’t depend on the subframe to handle the weight.

The dude was a little strange to talk with so I went charging off headed for my Goldfield camp.

When I got to camp I was introduced to my new neighbors who bought a nice trailer near my place. Tom and Karen are from Bolder City, which is near Las Vegas. They both like to ride little desert bikes and when they came up to Goldfield they fell in love with the place. This is a great place to ride bikes as I can tell you that I did my share here before I went crazy and bought a farm and got married. Tom had his Honda CFR 250X (I think that is right) with him. Karen is recovering from knee surgery and was taking it easy for a few weeks. Tom and I fell right into talking ourselves into a ride, which we did the next day. We took little dirt/gravel roads on over to the sand dunes in Clayton Valley (Silver Peak) and then I headed on the road I remembered that went to Oasis, CA. It turned out that I got way screwed up and had no idea where in the hell we were. We fortunately found a bunch of young folks cutting wood that were from Silver Peak and they pointed us in the direction of Argentite Canyon which would take us to the Hot Well and then on to Dyer where Tom could get some gas. His little bike only has a two-gallon+ tank so his range is only a hundred miles.

Argentite Canyon turned out to be real hell for my old Bloodhound. It got its belly scratched several times but damn, that dog can run in the tough stuff. This stretch was nothing but big rock bolders just above where  I took this photo.

Tom’s little bike is made for this kind of road/trail and he was just having a ball bouncing around the rocks and scooting around throwing sand in my face. Where it wasn’t boulders it turned to soft sand or deep gravel. It was a fight all the way down for me and Tom had a blast.

When we got out on the main roads it was a different story. The Bloodhound loves these fast roads but I had to slow it way down so we could ride together.

This is coming into Fish Lake Valley looking at the White Mountains. This is the highest point in Nevada, something  over 14.000 ft.

We came to the Hot Well and I was totally disgusted with what it has turned into. I guess when the county took control of it, they had to put in bathrooms and fencing and now there were something like six or seven rigs parked around it. I still blame the destruction of these nice hot springs on the bastard that wrote the Hot Springs of the West book. It is too bad but I guess that is the way it is going everywhere.

We stopped at the Boonies in Dyer, NV for a late lunch after getting some gas across the street at the store. My odometer said 100.1 miles and I took 1.99 gallons. Tom took 1.89 I think so we came pretty close to the same mileage. He as 250cc and I have 800cc. That little motor of his really screams and I guess it needs its drinks when it does it. We had to wait a little for the bar/restaurant to open. I was amazed at the protective gear that Tom wears under his wind protection. I think he could roll down a mountain and not get hurt in all that gear. This may give you an idea of the extremes that he is used to riding in. I was really an anchor to him I think but I was pleased to learn that  the Bloodhound could make it though that rough stuff. That trail was much worse than anything I have ever gone through and much worse than crossing the Andes. I could never have done it with the Yellow Dog loaded.

We went back over the Silver Peak Range by way of my old farm and up over and down the White Wolf canyon. WOW!!! I think this is the prettiest Canyon I have ever been in, in Nevada. The road was pretty much ok as they used it in the Mint Desert race two years ago. Tom went on ahead so he could have fun going much faster than I could. He would wait every now  and then to see if I was still coming. When we were going down Argentite I told him to come back and help me if he saw blood running down the canyon while he waited for me. All I had to do was follow the trail he made. I didn’t follow it up on the side walls of  the canyon as he is want to do at times.

We got back to Silver Peak and stopped in at Kens place so I could introduce him to Ken. We couldn’t stay as it was getting late and Tom has only a little light, something like a flashlight bulb for a headlight on his bike. We got home just as it was getting dark and I am sure Karen was wondering if we were ok and if we were, why the hell weren’t we back yet?