Still Searching For That Water In The Desert

Hey, I've ridden with guys from Austria and Brazil and everywhere in between. Come on over and we'll go for a ride



WoodsChick

Day 4 saw us leaving camp pretty early. We wanted to find a lake we'd missed last time out here, and we wanted to find a route over the mountains that would take us to some warm water...

Hey, this looks like fun!








Nice little creek down there...




"Hey, Eric, I think we can cross down there, and the left side doesn't look as steep. I think we can summit this thing!"




"Don't be stupid; We got a long way to go today, we're turning around."




Water water everywhere...




Guess what Eric's looking at?



He's watching a fish eat a snake! It looked like a trout of some sort, maybe 10" long, and he had about 7" worth of black and yellow snake hanging out of his mouth! I've never seen such a thing. He was just kind of wiggling there in the water facing upstream, and every few minutes he'd wiggle a lot from side to side and take in a little bit more of the snake. It was pretty cool, a highlight for sure! We tried to take a photo of him but we scared him off. We hung around for a bit but he never made another appearance. Too cool for school!! I wanted to camp there but it was too early in the day.


This road makes me giggle like no other...




Dang, this is kind of a steep uphill...




Nope, cancel that; it's a steep downhill instead...




Well, whaddaya know...more water!

















More later...I gotta go to the vet...




WoodsChick

Day 4 continued...

We climbed up out of the rocky basin and headed for the hills...






The plateau was beautiful...



We did a lot of climbing and came to a mountain with some art thingy on top, the first of 3 we'd see...



Someone stored their firewood stash in a pile of quartz...



The Black Rock Desert down below...



Hey, look...more art!






We dropped off the southern end of the mountain and skirted the northern end of the Black Rock Desert. We were looking for water...






I've never seen so many goldfish, frogs and polliwogs...




The bathing opportunities were limited...




But the water was hot...




And the views were stellar...



We goofed around here so long we had to hightail it to camp in order to beat the setting sun. I took no more photos on this day, which ended with 140 miles showing on the trip meter


Day 5, our last, will be coming shortly.



WoodsChick

Day 5, and our last day of riding. Where does the time go??


We started the day with a soak at sunrise...




We unloaded all our camping gear and hit the road. Apparently early morning is the best time to move cattle...



It was fun watching the cowboys and cowgirls do their thing, but those cows really do a number on the terrain.


I never would have pegged God for a cruiser type of guy...




This lonely sheepdog was quite friendly! He was up on me before I ever came to a stop...




We never saw the shepherd, but we saw his quarters and his horse. I gave the dog some lovin' even though he peed on my front wheel...




Nevada looks like a barren wasteland when traversing it on the interstate, but beauty lies hidden in the canyons...




The map says this is a 4WD Only road. Pfft...doesn't look like it to me...




Shortly after scoffing at the proclaimed difficulty of the road, I got my comeuppance as it climbed up and up and up on very rocky rutted roads where 4WD would be very handy. I only ended up in the weeds once, but was able to get going with a minimum amount of fanfare. The view from half way to the top...




The road was really primitive, considering all this was at the top...




Nice views of the valleys on either side of the mountain range...






Heading back down. The road we came in on is visible down at the bottom...




We followed this cow trail as far as we could, but it ended in a wash-out with a fence at the end...




More to come...



WoodsChick

Day 5 continued, and the end of our trip



We rode around in circles on a bunch of 4WD roads, trying to find our way off the mountain and down into the next valley. We'd planned on hitting another hot springs on the playa to the north, but we spent so much time trying to get off the mountain that we had to revise our plans a bit. We'd left all our camping gear behind, so we couldn't just ride til it got dark today, although that is precisely what we did.

Anyway, we found our way down and into the silty valley. I'd taken notice of how trail features tended to disappear from view in the harsh desert sun, especially when the sun was directly overhead and there were no shadows to work with. Well, that wasn't the case when I hit the dirt for the first time all week, but it was still hard to discern the depth of the silt. Guess which side I landed on?


I had grit in my teeth, eyes, ears, belly button, bra...you name it. It was pretty funny, and the only damage was some good scratching on my ginormous tank, and some scratches on my glasses and faceshield.


More water in the desert. It just happens to be in the form of a gigantic alfalfa farm. Sure takes a lot of energy and water to produce food for cows...



...and pronghorn antelope...




Man, this place must have it all!



It was a pretty cool store, just a metal warehouse type of building with rows and rows of stuff! Everything you could possibly need! Their sign wasn't exaggerating, although I need a new 2-stroke and they didn't have any. I got a Mexican walnut ice cream bar. The wall around the complex was built of free-standing rock. All along the top were neat things like obsidian, geodes, petrified wood, bones, cystals, fossils, all kinds of cool stuff. Gee, too bad I didn't get any photos of it. Guess I was grooving on the ceamy walnut goodness...





We were riding along on a ridge top and it sounded all clinkey, like we were riding on broken tiles. We saw a few clumps of rock here and there and, upon further inspection, discovered this stuff...



It looked exactly like terra cotta tiles...


There sure is some neat stuff in the desert!




You'll never guess what we found...
That's right! More water!!




It's nice when the sun's going down...




Oh crap! Sunset? Already? Dang, these days are just too short. Guess we better head back. I knew I shoulda found that loose connection in my headlight...




Eric had a headlight, but it wasn't much help...




I rode back in the dark, and this is how our trip ended with 150 miles on the clock. We finished with about 750 miles in 5 excellent days of riding.




Once again, the desert provided us with a wealth of good times and good memories. Can't wait to go back and do it again




WoodsChick

As always that was a n excellent ride report. One to make most of us jealous. Glad you and Erick had a great time and thanks for sharing it with us. You two really exemplify what adventure touring is about,