dt and Ged's excellent baja adventure ride...Day 1

Strangers before today two adventurous Nomads meet in the middle of the Baja Peninsula drawn by a common desire to test their strength and endurance, navigating hundreds of miles of harsh, unforgiving trails on horses of steel. One a desert rat from the desert Southwest the other a mountain man from the cold Canadian North the daring Nomads came together to endure 10 days and nights of self sufficient, self reliant travel through the Baja wilderness.

Ged is already doing a trip report of our adventure on the advrider web site. He is a much better writer than I and has a better memory for detail so my story will just hit the highlights (and lowlights) as I remember them and let Ged's post tell "the rest of the story".

This trip started a couple of months ago when Ged mentioned in a Baja Nomad post that he was planning a Baja ride with a group of his Canadian buddies. It sounded like it would be a lot of fun and I asked him if I could join them for a day or two of riding. As I would be self sufficient I could join the group or leave it anywhere along the adventure without causing any problems for the rest of the group. Ged was nice enough to invite me to join them with the caveat that I could join but not hijack his ride.....in other words follow me and STFU.....OK by me, I can accept those terms.....

I loaded my bike into a small enclosed trailer and headed South from San Diego a couple of weeks before I was to meet Ged to spend some time at our place in Buena Vista. I got a late morning start and crossed the SY border at noon. I was directed to secondary and told to stand in line and wait my turn to be inspected. When my turn finally came the inspector asked for the registration to the bike then started trying to find the VIN number. I knew it wasn't going to be easy so I pointed to the license plant and the corresponding number on the registration. He seemed satisfied and sent me on my way. Total time at the border, 30 minutes.

I wasn't in a big hurry so I took it easy on my way to San Quintin. At the first military inspection I found that my motorcycle had tried (unsuccessfully)to escape the confines of the trailer. This was a scenario that would be repeated a couple of more times before I was able to trace the problem to my tire changing stand bouncing against the release lever on the left side tie down.....I'm not the only one who carries a tire changing stand around with me am I?

I arrived in San Ignacio the afternoon of day 2 and checked in to the Ignacio Springs B&B. Had a great dinner, wonderful night's sleep and a fabulous breakfast the next morning. Gary and Terry are outstanding hosts and run a great operation. If there are any of you out there that haven't stayed with them yet you really should put it on your list of things to do. They were nice enough to let me leave my trailer there for a couple of weeks so that I wouldn't have to haul it all the way to BV and back....great people....

There wasn't anything noteworthy about my trip to BV so I will fast forward 2 weeks to my return to San Ignacio.

I picked up the trailer and headed over to Rice and Beans where the Canadians were scheduled to be that evening. They were driving a converted 40ft diesel pusher school bus with 8 bikes and 8 guys inside non stop from Kamloops BC.

I doubted that they would be there that evening but sure enough they rolled in an hour or so after dark.

Introductions were made, the bus was unloaded, food and copious amounts of alcohol were consumed and the Baja night air was heavy with tall tails and lies. Some turned in early, some didn't, some were sorry the next day.....Let the adventure begin!!!

To be continued......

Day one, San Ignacio to Mulege. 135 miles

Everyone was up fairly early, ate breakfast and began loading stuff for a 10 day ride. The plan was to bring everything that we would need as we wouldn't be coming back to San Ignacio till the end of the ride.





Ged had told me that the majority of the guys would be heading South to Cabo and back while he and maybe 1 or 2 more guys would ride around the middle of the peninsula from the SOC to the Pacific and back a time or two. Before we headed out I found out that all of the rest of the group were headed South and leaving me and Ged to fend for ourselves. I was beginning to think that Ged was the social outcast of the group....time would tell..

Ged and I were both riding 690 KTM dual sport bikes, the rest of the guys were on modified dirt bikes. Ged and I packed a lot of stuff while the rest of the group traveled pretty light. I actually packed more than I thought I would need just so that my saddle bags would have enough shape to tie them down. Ged, on the other hand packed more crap than I have ever seen carried on a motorcycle. He had a helmet cam, GPS, Spot tracker, spare parts, tools, enough extra stuff to build another motorcycle as well as enough tools to open a mechanic shop.....I felt a bit more secure knowing that if I didn't have something I needed he would have it...or 10 of them.

My stuff:


Ged's stuff:


So we finally got everybody ready to head out a little before the butt crack of noon and hit the trail. Our route would take us out toward SI lagoon, El Patrocino, Los Pilares, El Datil and San Tadeo over to the Guadalupe ruins and eventually Mulege. After riding a while and getting loosened up on some basic Baja washboard we turned off the main road and headed for the mountains. I came to our first water crossing of the day and waited for Ged so that I could get a picture of him playing battle ship commander.....



Of course I was secretly hoping he was going to play U-boat commander...no such luck.

We stopped up the road a bit and I noticed that my mirror had broken off....no big deal, I didn't like that thing anyway. I was also missing a bolt from my luggage rack....at this rate I would need some of Ged's stuff sooner rather than later. We crossed several rocky stream beds and went through some pretty cool canyons before climbing out of the valley on a fairly rutted, rocky and nasty switchbacky trail to the top of the mesa where we stopped to regroup.
This is Ged coming up the hill and where we came from in the background


And where we are headed...


We soon realized that we had lost 3 of our riding partners. We spent some time considering where they might have gone and what our options were. We looked at maps and GPS displays and finally decided that they were big boys and they would just have to fend for themselves.

We pressed on, down into the next canyon and eventually on to another nasty, rocky, rutted, switchbacky (is that a word?) uphill. I had run out of water about an hour earlier and I was starting to feel the effects of dehydration. It didn't help that I was wearing a jacket on a hot day. I was reluctant to take it off as it contained protective padding and I didn't want to risk crashing in the rocks without it. I was close to the top of the hill when I slid into a rut and fell down. I actually stayed on my feet and the bike fell over. I picked it up right away but used what little energy I had left doing it. I was pretty tired and was hoping for a clean run the rest of the way up the hill.....but that's not what happened. I took off and hadn't gone 50 feet when I got into another rocky rut only this time I was pitched off the bike landing on my side in the rocks. It hurt and probably would have knocked the wind out of me if I had had any left. The bike was cross-ways in the trail facing down hill. I knew it would be difficult to pick up a heavily loaded bike from this position even if I was fresh, an assumption soon to be proven correct. I grabbed the bars and luggage rack and gave a mighty heave while screaming out like a karate master.....no luck, that pig wasn't going anywhere, not until I got some help anyway.

I sat down on a nearby rock to catch my breath and assess the situation. I could unload the bike, take off my gear, drag the bike to a better vantage point, wait till I could build up a little strength and give it another try or I could sit on this rock gasping like a guppy and wait for someone to come along and help me pick it up.....I chose option "B". After a bit I heard a bike coming, it was Wayne. I did my best to look injured and helpless hoping he would have pity on me and thankfully it worked. Wayne rode past me a bit, parked his bike, took a picture of my pitiful situation and helped me pick up the bike....thanks again Wayne.

I proceeded on without further incident, I was later able to give Wayne my extra fuel so that he could make it back to Mulege. Lucky for me he was behind me when I ran out of gas a few miles short of town and we drained a liter back out of his bike so I could get to town....that's team work right there.....or poor planning, I'm not sure which...

The lost amigos were able to find their way to Mulege and by dark everyone was accounted for. mulegemichael was nice enough to arrange accommodations for me and Ged so we got settled in, showered and met the rest of the group in town for food, alcohol, comradery and tall tales about our adventurous first days ride......

To be continued.......





[Edited on 3-17-2011 by dtbushpilot]

[Edited on 3-19-2011 by dtbushpilot]

[Edited on 3-19-2011 by dtbushpilot]

Geez. Eight guys in that bus all the way from BC, and you stayed at Ignacio Springs! Hope you didn't let them know that!

x2