In Search Of Water In The Desert: Photos And Ride Report

[WoodsChick]

Eric and I spent some time in southeastern Oregon and northwestern Nevada last summer on our way home from Idaho. I had a busted up ankle so we were in the van, but we really wanted to go back and do some exploring on the bikes after I healed up. This Memorial Day seemed like the best time to do it so we packed up for a week and headed out of town in the Pleasure Palace in search of water...mostly hot, with Eric's LC4 and my Husky 610 and KTM 450 in tow.


We camped on a creek in far northwestern NV. Now, it may look like your average, run of the mill, garden variety desert creek, but no...this crystal-clear creek just happened to run about 104 degrees at night, a bit warmer during the day...

We decided to load up the bikes with all our camping gear and take a little spin in the hills, just to make sure everything was secure and working the way we wanted it to, as we had a few overnight bike-camping trips planned. We headed south towards the Pine Forest range, hoping the snow up top would not impede our progress...

Ooh! Look! Hot water!

The 102-degree water was bubbling up from the bottom...

Heading off to the east. Anyone notice anything new on my bike?

Over the rise, down across the valley and up into the hills. Can you see the road climbing up into the rocks on the other side?

The road we came in on is visible way in the center background, as is the white dry lakebed near the warm pool...

Ride it while you can, folks, as most of this stuff is a Wilderness Study Area now...

My first attempt at "stitching" a panoramic shot together was performed on this scenic little lake we found...

Up above the lake the road turned pretty rocky and even more scenic. No tracks could be seen at all, only ours. The road ended here at about 8000'. I wanted to camp here but Eric was afraid we'd freeze our butts off at night. Besides, this was just a test run with the different camping equipment. We had lunch and then headed back down to the lake instead...

Camera Disclaimer: We bought a new camera before we left...like the very day before we left, and I couldn't see it very well without my glasses. The photos probably could have been better, but at least Eric had our old camera so there will actually be some photos of me on this trip


To be continued...


WoodsChick

 

[WoodsChick]

I forgot to show you the shrine we saw as we headed out of camp down the valley...

Ok, back down to the lake and down out of the mountains...

We skirted the lake and then went looking for a different route up the other side. We found it, but I guess we had some climbing to do before we headed back down...

We dropped off the mountain and headed through a canyon filled with wildflowers...

We ended up near the marshy end of yet another dry lake bed. We poked around a bit and this is what we found...

We high-tailed it back to camp in order to make it before sunset. What started out as a quick warm-up ride to test out our loading prowess turned out to be an all-day 120-mile adventure.

This is how the day ended...

More to come...




WoodsChick

 

[WoodsChick]

Day 2 had us heading up into Oregon for an overnight camping trip. We headed north through this small valley and headed up into the Pueblo Range and over Domingo Pass...

The road through the valley pictured above pretty much consisted of 2 silty and sandy ruts with a high grassy crown in the middle. We were trying to ride side by side most of the time so I wouldn't be getting dusted out too bad and I gotta say, it was pretty exciting at times! I think my 610 handles better than Eric's LC4 in this stuff, as he was all over the place while I rode in defensive mode right next to him. It was a lot of fun!


Climbing up off the plateau into Domingo Pass...

A view showing a bit of the switchbacky descent on the eastern side of the pass..

We hadn't seen another human being besides ourselves in 2 days, til we got behind a rancher with a horse trailer down below. He never even knew we were there (probably wasn't expecting to see anyone so wasn't looking) so we ultimately ended up passing him in the weeds.

We headed north up the valley towards Fields, which consists of a gas station/store/cafe, a telephone booth, and the cleanest port-a-potties you'll ever find...

The last time we were here there was an airplane parked at the telephone booth. I guess they just land on the "highway" out front. There would be more planes in our future before too long...


We'd been looking forward to their burgers for a long time...

Mine...

His...

We left right as the Harleys showed up. I guess they were heading to Run-a-Mucca, an annual event in Winnemucca that culminates in something called "Burning Bike" (how original...) where they set a bike on fire, probably a Honda. They used to do something similar at the San Jose Mile in the 70's...

We wanted to do the loop through the Steens but there was too much snow this time of year. We settled on a circumnavigation of the Alvord Desert instead, still in search of water...

Look! More hot water!

108 degrees...too hot for me! Besides, we had desert to ride...

Oh, what's this? More hot water?

It was blazing hot out here. I un-velcro'd the bottoms of my Klim mesh pants (perfect for this trip! I wore them every day) and folded them up over my thighs. What a nice feature!

Cue the theme from Jaws...

So what do we do? We go in and take the temperature of the water!

Can't remember what the temp was, but Eric had to pull his hand away before the digital thermometer finished rising. This pool was a frighteningly deep bottomless pit. Neat-o! The snow-covered Steens can be seen in the background.

This one was a tad warm...



As was this one...(remember folks, new camera, no glasses, didn't read the instructions...doh!)




This one looked about right, though...hee-hee!

Check out my glamorous pants...

We headed up the valley, taking a very circuitous route to our final destination. Don't blame me if your postcards are late...

No one was home...

WoodsChick

 

[WoodsChick]

We were a bit concerned about gas and daylight so we decided to take a shortcut through a small dry lake. We figured we could cut across and maybe find a track through the sagebrush that would take us in the general direction we needed to go. We could always cross-country it if we had to...

Some of this stuff was quite moist, adding to the level of apprehension in regards to our new short-cut. I've been on the playas before when they were wet and believe me when I say it is not the place to be if you don't feel like slipping and falling every 3 feet.


Our fears were totally unfounded...the playa was sweet!

While riding along the shoreline, foolishly looking for non-existent tracks that would show us the way off the playa, we found a cairn that pointed us in the right direction. This place doesn't get much use, apparently. We followed this main road til it turned into a not-so-main road...

I thought all dogs slowly walked around in circles before lying down? Apparently the Husky breed does not do this...

Note the sand on my front tire:busted:

This area was pretty neat and we ended up doing some creative route-finding out here. This was kinda my favorite part of the ride on this day. It was exciting, it was sometimes fast and sometimes technical, we had to use the GPS and a compass, and I managed to get both wheels off the ground at the same time:applause: Knowing I'd be carrying more fuel and camping gear, I had gotten some stiffer springs (front and rear) from Les at LT-Racing before leaving. I must say, the touchdown was much more pleasant and drama-free than I thought it would be. It is a bit more exciting getting a gear-laden 610 airborne than, say, my 125 MX'er, that's for sure:lol: I actively looked for opportunity to do it again and again


We made it to camp about 5:30pm with 132 miles on the clock. We were quite pleased to see that someone had left us a nice stack of firewood:thumbsup: As I always say, leap and the net will appear

Check out our fancy clothesline...

As soon as we got camp set up and our clothes hung up, we went for a dip in the cool side of the pool...

The warm side...

The smaller side was 104 degrees, the larger side was a very pleasant 94 degrees...

Eric likes playing with fire...

We soaked the night away and just had a grand ol' time at our little oasis in the desert. Did you know you can fit 2 bottles of wine into a leather bota bag? Well, take it from me...you can!



WoodsChick

 

[WoodsChick]

We slept well in our tent. Our breakfast of eggs with ham and bell peppers was really tasty, especially considering it was freeze-dried:laughing
We had a steaming cup of coffee (sippy cup with a French press) and 2 juicy oranges. Great way to have fresh juice while camping and they travel well in a backpack:thumbup Here's a bit of early morning camping/riding/soaking glamour for y'all...

Eric really was having a good time even though he doesn't look like it...:laughing

We soaked one last time, got suited up and headed south outta Dodge...

Our route followed a really nice creek...

Well, it was nice and all right up until it crossed our path...

Had there been more than 2 of us, or if we'd been on the smaller bikes we probably would have gone for it. As it was, though, it was about 4 or 5 feet deep with a really silty bottom. No thanks! We turned around and looked for an alternative route to where we wanted to go. We found some fun stuff but we had used half our fuel and wanted to make sure we didn't have any issues out here...

The creek crossing that thwarted our progress is clearly visible at the bottom of the hill...

We decided to head back the way we came and take a different route back to camp. We were bombing along about 50mph on a gravel road and I ran over a snake. I was bummed, thinking I'd killed him for sure, but couldn't resist the urge to go back and look at him. I caught up to Eric and we turned around. Much to my surprise, he was slithering out of the road when we got there, his tongue flickering back and forth and just looking pretty pissed off in general. He probably wasn't happy about the 5" wide dusty mark that was left on his back (middle?) by my rear tire:laughing

We were headed into some rain and the winds were picking up. We knew we had some road riding to do so we stopped to put our jackets on...

Good thing we weren't screwing around trying to find a way out of the desert on the routes we were on earlier, as about 40 miles before we got back to camp Eric was draining fuel out of my supertanker for his
LC4...

We hit the bright lights of the big city...

They do things a little differently in Nevada, as evidenced by the corner of Rodeo Drive and Sunset Boulevard...:laughing

We got back to camp with a little over 200 miles logged. We'd only had the one extra gallon of fuel on my bike and Eric wasn't getting the mileage he should have been getting. He was jetted too rich and so he did a bit of rejetting when we got back. We unloaded the camping gear, topped the bikes off and headed back out in search of some more water, this time a little cooler as it was hot out.

More to come...


WoodsChick

 

[WoodsChick]

We entered Sheldon National Wildlife Refuge and made a beeline for the warm springs. There is a showerhouse there that was built by the WPA in the 30's. It's made of a really neat pink limestone quarried on the refuge. I don't know why I didn't take any photos of the pool this time.These photos were taken last summer...

The water is about 5-6 feet deep, nice and warm like a warm swimming pool, and is crystal clear with big fish swimming in it...

<Sesame Street singing voice on> One of these is not like the other! <Semsame Street singing voice off>

The showers run warm springs water all the time non-stop, and there is a book exchange in it, too...

We showered up with soap and shampoo and headed out for more fun and adventure...in the rain, as it turned out.

Wild burros run rampant in this part of Nevada...

Nice view on the way back to camp...

We pulled into camp with an additional 75 miles under our belts. These big bikes sure are fun :thumbup


WoodsChick

 

[WoodsChick]

As we were nearing camp on our way back from the warm springs at the wildlife refuge, we saw a bunch of glistening vehicles in the distance. I was bumming and thinking the worst, that a bunch of RV's had pulled in with a ton of people to ruin our desert solitude (and put the kibosh on soaking au natural...dammit!) Well, that was not the case. As we neared camp, we realized it was a row of really nice small planes that had somehow gotten into the area we were camped in. A few of them had tents set up under the wings. We realized the next morning, when a few planes came buzzing the camp, that they were coming in and landing on the dirt road not too far from where we were camped! It was fun watching them doing low-altitude fly-bys to check the place out, and then line up with the road and gracefully touch down. They kicked up a ton of dust taxiing to their campspot, but it was so much fun watching them that I decided to let them live. Most folks don't know it but I was destined for a flying career until I failed the FAA physical (deaf in one ear) and was told I'd never hold a commercial license. I'd still like to have a license some day so I can fly Eric into places like this on a regular basis. I'd need a plane big enough to carry a few bikes and some gas cans, of course...


This is a beautiful 1947 Cessna flown by a woman...

They buzzed us a few times after taking off, much to the delight of those on the ground...

A fellow ADV rider on a GS got a really nice photo of the planes lined up.
He gave me permission to use it so here it is...Thanks, Hootowl:thumbsup:

We had a big ride planned on this day, fully loaded up with camping gear and a few extra gallons of gas. We were going down to the Black Rock Desert, and wanted to make it through the mountains to Soldier Meadows. About 20 miles into the ride, Eric comes to a screeching halt, and as I pull up to him I hear his motor revving to the moon. His fuel screw had fallen out. There was no way we were going to find it in the fuel-screw-colored rocks and gravel and it wasn't sitting precariously on top of the motor anywhere, so our only alternative was to head back to camp and cannibalize my 450 that we'd brought for a spare. My 450 saved our ride last May when we were in central NV and Eric broke an oil line bolt, and it came galloping to the rescue once again. We got back to camp, Eric started pulling the 450 and his 640 apart while I drained the fuel from the 450's 3.2gal tank. We quickly realized our day was shot so we changed our clothes and settled into a very relaxing day. It started raining pretty good, with major thunder and lightening up the valley where we were going to be riding anyway, so it all worked out. We started drinking wine in the afternoon and soaking in the hot springs while the rain fell, all the while plotting the next day's ride.

We ditched the idea of camping, as this was going to be our last day here, but that just meant that we could carry more fuel. We got up before sunrise and pulled out of camp very early, me with 1.5 gals of extra fuel and Eric with 2.5gals. We wanted to make it down to the Black Rock, and we weren't sure if our route through the Black Rock Range was going to be open so we had to be prepared for some re-routing and extra mileage. It was cold that early in the morning but the pelicans didn't mind...

That was a dry lake bed the day before, by the way.


Now the ride gets interesting as we head through the southern end of the Pine Forest Range...

Water is everywhere in Nevada, it just doesn't appear in vast amounts. There was a spring right across the road that was ringed by cows. It was big enough to swim laps in...

Lo! What's this? More hot water? Yep!

Apparently, it's really hot water...

This was a pool downstream from the bubbling source. Our digital thermometer told us it was 108 degrees...totally soakable but we had a big day ahead of us...

This little guy wasn't afraid of the heat...

The water at the source looked like a giant aquamarine glistening in the intense desert sun...

I took a video of the water bubbling but after the last video debacle I was gun-shy and it only lasted about 2 seconds :lol:

Anyway, we had lunch here (dry salami, cheddar with horseradish, crackers, semi-frozen 100% Juice Capri Sun) and motored on up the road to see what we could see...

Mostly what we saw were WSA markers standing in our way...

We moseyed on down the western edge of the extreme northern portion of the Black Rock Desert, in search of Lassen's grave and our route through the Black Rock Range. We found a neat accessory for the 610, and I remembered Rajo's words about my 610 looking like it could eat the world...

This whole portion of the Black Rock is mostly wilderness, so we didn't get to venture too far out onto it, but we did get to see some neat stuff. This is a spring that was filled with flowers. This wild rose smelled heavenly...

This corral must have taken a lot of effort to build...

WoodsChick

 

[WoodsChick]

We ran into a bit of a roadblock and had to take a detour. Kind of a funny thing, since these roads are kinda funky anyway, but I guess the original road had washed out so a bulldozer just flattened out a path through the sage brush and voila' ... a new road! This is kind of backwards, as we didn't take photos of the road til we were headed back the other direction, our road through the mountains being impassible.

The regular road, heading for the detour up ahead...

Eric on the detour...

Can you spot me in the middle riding up the hill where Eric just was?

Looking back down at what we had just come up...

This road went on for miles at the top of the plateau...

Back to where the detour started...

Instead of retracing our steps around the mountains, we found a tiny ribbon of dirt that would, theoretically, take us over the mountains. Can you see the smile?...

The road we came in on and decided to avoid on the way back can be seen down below and to the left...

Stunning scenery up here, and tons of wildflowers everywhere! The wildflower photos are all bunched up and will be posted all at once, but in the meantime, here is some of the scenery...

Lunch at 7000'. The Black Rock can be seen in the distance...

Wild irises in the road...

Wild horses are everywhere in Nevada...

More to come as we head down to Soldier Meadows!



WoodsChick

 

[WoodsChick]

The road over the mountains took us through the Lahontan Cutthroat Trout Natural Area, and it was beautiful. Mostly high elevation plateau and canyons with lots of water and aspens and some snow. Lots of pronghorn antelope, too!

We dropped down off the plateau and onto the Summit Lake Indian Reservation...

We blasted past Summit Lake and headed down south towards Soldier Meadows. The road to Soldier Meadows was in worse shape than the road south of Puertocitos in Baja...if you can believe that. Slicker than snot for the first few miles, nothing but slidey mud, then rocks and rocks and more rocks. Not too many photos of this section...

We were cruising down this one dirt road, sort of intending on finding a hot springs, when the road dead ended...

As we pulled out the map in order to look for the springs, I noticed some reeds off to our left, and it looked sort of round-like, as if it could be a pond. Guess what? More hot water!! Yippee!!

Here's another one of those attempts at a stitched-together panorama...

The water was a perfect 102 degrees, and the pond was deeper than I was tall...

We fired up the stove, had a nice hot dinner, and hightailed it back to camp, stopping only for a few more photos, putting on our jackets and engaging in some fancy route-finding.

Summit Lake...

The very rare thing in this part of the state...a road sign!

The sun goes down in a hurry when you're a long way from home...

We were in a bit of a hurry to get back, as daylight was waning and Eric's headlight had long since quit working, not to mention we ran into some map strangeness somewhere south of the Sheldon National Wildlife Refuge. We rode back non-stop and made it back to camp just as the sun was setting. As we got to camp, Eric nodded to me and we kept going right by the Pleasure Palace, riding out into the ever-increasing darkness in order to see what was out beyond our home for the last week. I think we were both reluctant to stop and get off the bikes, as we both knew this was the end of the trip. We'd been gone 13 hours, had ridden 200 miles, and hadn't seen one other human being all day, but it wasn't enough. It's never enough. Before we even had our helmets off we were wondering when we'd have the opportunity to get back here again.

We soaked into the night, talking about what a great time we'd had, and began plotting our next trip. It's never too early to get started on the next adventure :thumbup


Thanks for allowing me to share our ride with you all :wave



WoodsChick

 

[navy8ret]

:hail :hail :applause :applause :ride

OUTSTANDING - Great pics of some real fun times!!!

 

[grumpyman]

cool ... thanx 4 the pics

 

[WoodsChick]

:hail :hail :applause :applause :ride

OUTSTANDING - Great pics of some real fun times!!!

Thanks! It really was a great time! Not exactly dirt riding per se, but great scenery and solitude. On the last day's ride we were gone from camp for 13 hours while logging 200 miles, yet we never saw another human being the entire day...not one! My kinda place :thumbup

cool ... thanx 4 the pics

The pleasure was all mine. Thanks for taking the time to wade through them all :laughing



WoodsChick

 

[Map8]

Really loved the report and pics. Great write up. :thumbup

 

[slydrite]

Sooooper cool, as always!!!

"fuel-screw-colored rocks " :laughing:laughing

So the solution to bits falling off of orange/Euro bikes, is to keep an enitre spare bike at base camp to cannibalize parts from?!?!? :laughing :applause

Oh, and is the new thing on the 610, an even larger front tire???

 

[WoodsChick]

Sooooper cool, as always!!!

Thanks! We had a grand time. The solitude is hard to beat. We hardly saw anyone while we were there.

"fuel-screw-colored rocks " :laughing:laughing

Well, it was uncanny how all the rocks started to look exactly like brass once we started looking around for that damned thing

So the solution to bits falling off of orange/Euro bikes, is to keep an enitre spare bike at base camp to cannibalize parts from?!?!? :laughing :applause

Uh, only the orange-flavored ones :x I've yet to lose anything off the Husky, although I've only had it a year so give it time :laughing I'm leaving tomorrow for 3 days on the Lost Coast so maybe I'll be singing a different tune when I get back.

Oh, and is the new thing on the 610, an even larger front tire???

Ha-ha! No. It's my license plate :cool

WoodsChick

 

[WoodsChick]

:hail :hail :applause :applause :ride

OUTSTANDING - Great pics of some real fun times!!!

Thanks, navy8ret :ride I really dig it out there.

cool ... thanx 4 the pics

The pleasure was all mine, grumpyman. I love taking photos, even though I'm not real good at it. Hey, I think Eric needs to steal your name...maybe
GrumpyLookingMan

Really loved the report and pics. Great write up. :thumbup

Thanks, DogBoy :thumbup If you ever get the chance to ride Nevada, take it!
Hey, did you ever read the DogBoy comics that were coming out here in the Bay Area in the 80's?


WoodsChick

 

[boney]

Awesome, as usual.

I hope you got a milkshake in Fields. That's what they're known for.

 

[WoodsChick]

Awesome, as usual.

I hope you got a milkshake in Fields. That's what they're known for.

Thanks, boney!

And, of course I got a milkshake in Fields...duh :rolleyes :laughing
Chocolate, served with a spoon and one useless straw :thumbup

After that burger, the shake and an iced tea I was good to go for the rest of the day. I don't even think we ate dinner at camp that night...unless 2 bottles of zinfandel count :teeth



WoodsChick

 

[grumpyman]

"The pleasure was all mine, grumpyman. I love taking photos, even though I'm not real good at it. Hey, I think Eric needs to steal your name...maybe
GrumpyLookingMan"

nah too long to be a proper n/name .... would only make him grumpier

on the plus side all those photos of hot springs got my wife interested in riding dirt, or at least riding dirt well enough to get to the hot springs

 

[WoodsChick]

"The pleasure was all mine, grumpyman. I love taking photos, even though I'm not real good at it. Hey, I think Eric needs to steal your name...maybe
GrumpyLookingMan"

nah too long to be a proper n/name .... would only make him grumpier

on the plus side all those photos of hot springs got my wife interested in riding dirt, or at least riding dirt well enough to get to the hot springs

Right on! Two of my riding buddies showed this to their wives at almost the exact same time and they called each other and said "Let's get bikes!!" They were both saying the same thing to themselves as they read it..."That doesn't look so tough...I could do that..." One of them bought a WR250X a week later:ride There was nothing technical at all on this ride. There was some sand and ruts and stuff, and the road to one of the hot springs was an extremely rutted-up road on a dry lakebed, but I could have ridden all of it on my SV650 with street tires.

The funny thing about Eric is he's the most happy and mellow guy I know; he just scrunches up his face when a camera is pointed at him :laughing



WoodsChick