Death Valley Adventure - 2010
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Our Saturday ride could easily be known as the Long Way Around Death Valley.
A group of 9 of us (AVern, DSM8, his
buddy Dave, TravelToad (Aaron), TT's brother Ethan, RSCE, John, Jeff, and myself) took off
Saturday morning for Beatty to top off on gas for what we knew would be a long
loop.
From Beatty, we made our way to Titus Canyon. This time I remembered to stop at
the summit on the way up to take some pics.
Here's DSM8's buddy that he refers to as Evil Dave. I thought I was riding up
the canyon at a pretty good pace, but Dave was hounding on my rear tire the
whole way up - he rides that XR pretty damn well!
DSM8 on his KTM...
Looking back down from the summit...
Zooming in on the road up to Titus...
Jeff leading Ethan and AVern
Jeff nearing the summit...
The oldest Beemer of the bunch (Ethan on his PD)...
AVern on the 1150 Beemer
Our leader for today's ride (AVern) reaches the summit...
RSCE on his big KTM
TravelToad (Aaron) was kind enough to ride sweep most of the day!
Time for a break at a look at the incredible views...
Jeff gives a "Thumbs Up"
A panorama looking down on Titus Canyon...
Here I am following Evil Dave through Titus Canyon.
After riding down Titus, we hit the
highway towards Scotty's. We reached the fee station, and the attendant let our
group through with just a couple of yearly passes. Then we took the road west
towards Crankshaft Junction.
Ethan and the PD on the way to Crankshaft...
Jeff...
We arrive at Crankshaft Junction or Crossing (or whatever)...
John on his KTM 990 (they say he's a noob, but you wouldn't know it by his riding - and without knobbies)...
We left Crankshaft junction continuing east on Big Pine Death Valley Road until hitting the junction with South Eureka Road, then turned south to Eureka Dunes where we stopped for lunch. I thought I took some pics of the dunes here, but the camera yielded nothing - oh well.
Lunch Break...
After a brief eat and drink break, we continued on past the dunes to the steps
leading up to Steel Pass. There's some pretty soft sand between the dunes and
the steps, and apparently a few drops occurred with some in our group, but that
happened behind me so I didn't get any pics.
At the steps, we were contemplating whether to continue over Steel Pass, or
continue on the big loop east towards Big Pine. DSM8 and Evil Dave ended up
going up the steps and over Steel Pass, while the rest of us backtracked to the
Big Pine Death Valley
Road and continued east.
At the steps, TravelToad road his big KTM up and down the steps to show us how
easy it was - and he definitely made it look easy...
Here's Dave making his way up...and on his way to the Nudie Springs!
The rest of backtracked to head out to Big Pine (and more gas). I stopped at the Dunes, and this time my camera apparently worked and I got my pic of the big sand dune...
Here comes the other two GS's (Avern and Ethan) finishing up the sandy section back to the dunes
Avern is stylin'...
Jeff...
RSCE...
John on his non-knobby KTM...
TravelToad with a non-ADV wave...
We rode out east to Big Pine. It got
damn cold going over whatever pass you cross on the way to Big Pine. We filled
our thirsty tanks in Big Pine, and then headed south on 395. Just before Lone
Pine, we headed to the west side of 395 for some dirt that took us into the
Alabama Hills. Apparently this was a famous area for western movies to be made,
and it is stunning scenery!
My pics just don't do this area any justice at all, but it's really a pretty
area...
By this time, the light was getting thin and we slabbed it back to Panamint Springs.
I think we arrived back at camp at about 8pm. So it was a long (+300 miles) but thoroughly enjoyable ADV ride.