There was lots of room to ride. After a while Eric the park Ranger drove in and we chatted for about an hour. He gave me some good ideas of where to go and he also gave me a map of the place. He told me some horror stories of weekends when it is crowded and they spend a good amount of the summer hauling people out of the desert. He called it the 10,000 dollar helicopter ride. He told me about the alien immigrants that sometimes make it that far from the border only to collapse in the desert, and some of the smugglers they have tracked with the border patrol.
He left and I jumped back on teh bike and headed into Borrego Springs for some groceries.
I got back about 4:30 and made some grub and at 5:30 someone turned off the sun. It just got dark. There was no dusk, just light, then dark. I wandered around for about an hour and eventually went to bed.





My humble abode.
I woke up about midnight thinking about the illegal alien smugglers scratching at the windows of my truck, but I finally fell asleep and woke up raring to go.



Breakfast of Chimpanzees.

I punched a few waypoints from the map that Eric had given me into my GPS and got into my riding gear, packed a bunch of water, and food and headed out.
The plan was to make as wide a loop through the desert as possible trying to hit some of the waypoints and get back with as little fuel left as possible. I figured two hunderd and fifty kilometers. It is hard to stop out there to take pictures because it is so much fun to just crank it and go. There is nothing to really stop at because there is no trail to speak of. Just washes, hundreds of big hills and gullys and canyons to tear through.
It is easy to get going way to fast but that is what I was there for. I just stopped at some of the points on the map and tried to make my loop as big as possible.


I came to this main crossing and got my bearings after about an hour of tearing around. I left a canadian quarter jammed intot he post of the sign. If you get there first you can have it.







This is an Artesian well that still produces a bit of water.



Lots of nothing.
I rode until my arms were so pumped I could hardly hold onto the grips. I had to stop and rest and swill down water. The washes were great to get lots of speed in, they were pretty muddy and that made them more interesting. That mud is like cement, when it dries on your bike.
I finally stopped and checked out the fuel situation and I was surprised how much gas I had gone through. I gues the throttle had been wide open a lot of the time. I was a bit panicked about running out of fuel and becoming a dried up mummy out there, so I started looking for the pole line that Eric had told me was a short cut out to the highway and gas.



I was relieved to find it, and after making sure that I was headed in the right direction I motored straight for a very long time. This part of the ride was like a straight line motocross track. I blitzed along and eventually got to the little town at the highway turn off to Borrego Springs. I gassed up and ripped up the road to my campsite.
I was getting very sore so I loaded up the bike and drove into Borrego Springs for a bite to eat.



I think that if I was to go again I would want to ride with someone else just because it is more fun. It would have been really cool if I could have hooked up with Epunk, but it jsut wasn't in the cards.
I was planning on heading home through arizona, utah montana etc but the weather that wasy was very bad. In Alberta it was 48 below so I figured I would skulk back up the I5 like a ***** and get myself home for Xmas, I still had a week off but I had been away long enough.
Next August I would like to ride the continental divide route from Montana down. Anybody interested?

 

A nice write up. I am jealous

 

This is too cool! Thanks for letting us live vicariously through your post.

 

Good stuff. Looks pretty desolate out there, a riding buddy would be a good thing.
Thanks for the pics.
Dan

 

"I came to this main crossing and got my bearings after about an hour of tearing around. I left a canadian quarter jammed intot he post of the sign. If you get there first you can have it."


dude you cheapo..... should have left a Toney no one would know what it was!

 

That's frickin awesome. Ever since visiting the deserts in Nevada and Cali, I want to ride in them so bad.. I got friends over there, but would be tough to get a bike out there..

Awesome.

 

Yes, you pretty much have to be able to trailer a bike out that way. It is FUN though!!

 

if you do something like this again let us know....if some of us don't go with ya'...... I at least have a place to let you rest and clean-up.

 

Looked like a great time, would like to ride out there some day.

 

Thanks, I appreciate it!!