DEVEAU
Nomad
Posts: 104
Registered: 11-29-2005
Member Is Offline
Mood: "WFO"
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Deveau and the DirtDogs, Day 3, Motorcycles w/ videos
Day three started out with breakfast at the hotel and then across the street for gasoline and an interview with Gottapeso. http://youtu.be/TEsvPlLzlIg We had more of the interview, but it somehow got erased, I guess we need more aluminum foil protection! We already had
two of our six gas jugs spring leaks so we would be packing less fuel than yesterday, but it should be a shorter day in mileage.
Today is my Brother Dave’s 49th birthday and he planned most if it on Google Earth, I had my doubts. I had loaded the waypoints in my Garmin, but they
were just waypoints, not a route or track. And I can’t ride and look at a GPS. It actually worked pretty good. We just went out behind the hotel ,
crossed the creek and followed some old two-track. But most would just cross back and forth across the highway.
http://youtu.be/0F2smbxGFSE
About 15 miles South we got on a real nice old two-track that made a loop West and then South. Real fun stuff to ride side by side on. http://youtu.be/FpjdN89l2pY http://youtu.be/lguejnQK8i8
The main road then headed back East toward the highway so we followed some faint stuff South. We lost the trail but could see that rock pile across
from Fred’s off in the distance and started bushwhacking toward it. After a few miles we were back on the old two-track.
http://youtu.be/qKlXuVV6oHc
http://youtu.be/ur4SWkWQ7O4
My brother and I were leading when we stopped for a second, David took off but I did not see Lago and Froman behind us so I waited for them. After
about 5 minutes I started wondering if they had gotten by me and I missed them I started walking around and looking at the tracks, I could only see
our two tracks so I just kept waiting. I figured they probably got a flat with the bushwhacking, but where was David? I could see the highway only a
mile or so away and figured he would hit it and come back to me. It felt pretty stupid just sitting there by myself for 35 minutes, but knew better
then to take off.
After the 35 minutes I could see dust coming from both directions, they would get to me 30 seconds apart. Lago had a flat they fixed, but David had a
front flat also. He had pulled the wheel off and found he had everything he needed but a valve core remover, had waited quite a while for us and then
put the flat back on and came looking for us. We found a good prop rock and fixed his also.
We had hoped to bypass Chapala and cut across to Cocos, but everything seemed to loop back to the highway. We realized we had burned more time than
we thought and needed to get to Window Rock and skip the other single track. When we stopped at Chapala looking for Gas I noticed I had a flat front
also, but I could get a cold beer to help with the project, brilliant! But no Gas.
As much fun as we had had on the two-track I have to admit that Window Rock is awesome. I had not ridden a dirtbike since last Thanksgiving and at 55
my conditioning was pretty poor. When we stopped at Window Rock I said I would just keep moving to try to keep the overall pace moving. Check out the
three of them working at catching me!
http://youtu.be/DpQmWR3qK_c
When we crossed the whoops and hit the main road we had to make a decision. We had heard that Bill’s trail actually did not go to the pavement and
into town, but continued across the mountain and right into town. David swore he found it on Google Earth and could get us across. I was really having
my doubts. Again I had some waypoints in the GPS but they were pretty far apart. We had enough gas to make it to BofLa, but I told them we would not
have enough to try David’s route and if we failed to find it come back and into town. The decision was to follow David.
We were following lots of MC tracks and felt pretty good, it looked like with as many tracks as there were we would just follow the wash right into
town. By now it was dark, but we had good lights and the weather was great. I was getting pretty thrashed by now, between being out of shape and
carrying a big pack the soft sand was killing me. All of a sudden the tracks all seemed to do u-turns. In the dark we had a little trouble just
finding each other, we had each followed a different set of tracks, I was trying to stay up on the hard stuff. We were pretty nervous at this point,
we had checked our fuel and knew we would not make it back, maybe if we dumped it all in one bike he might make it. I pulled out the GPS and told
David one of his waypoints was about 50 yards Southeast of where we were and not in the wash. This jogged his memory of what he had seen and said he
would go explore and come back. But we had to keep a bike running so he could see our headlight and get back to us.
He came back in about 10 minutes and said all was good, he found one of Bill’s Cairns. We realized we had to ask “What would Bill do”. It was classic,
the wash we were in did not go through, we had to climb the ridge into the next wash. Sorry but the Video camera’s batteries were dead by now. This
scenario would repeat it’s self for about 4 ridges. At one point I Bonked, was just worn-out. I asked Froman to ride my bike up the last couple steep
pitches. In return he was taking fuel from me for his bike. It hurt my pride, but I knew if I did something stupid and broke me or my bike we would
have a hell of a time getting us out of here. It was a beautiful evening and the stars were awesome, no moon. I rested for about 15 minutes and
started getting some energy back. Now I was worried about finding a cold beer, we were out of food and most of our water.
The ride down the South side was an old mining two-track and much easier than the climb up. Just about where we hit the pavement David ran out of Gas.
Lago said he would tow him. It was about 9:00 PM and we were worried about how late we could get that cold beer and some food. A room with a bed would
be nice also. When we pulled into Casa Del Sol Victoria was waving us in and Froman and I were on fumes, the filter on my petc-ck was moist, no
visible gas. Lago had maybe a quart left. Our motto has been “it’s a good day when we use all the gas and all the daylight”. This had been a really
good day. Damn, I love Baja!
Chase Trucks? ??
We don\'t need no stinking chase trucks!
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David K
Honored Nomad
Posts: 64741
Registered: 8-30-2002
Location: San Diego County
Member Is Offline
Mood: Have Baja Fever
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EPIC... Baja is the greatest! Thank you!
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