Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/126079
A 72- mile ride to see two old ghosts In the desert. By Donald E. L Betsworth I 38 n its heyday Bodie was a Sodom and Gomorrah type town. It's a quiet place now , a State Historic Park since 1962. On weekends and in the summer months the air is filled with the sounds of children and the oh 's and ah's of adults, a far cry from the guns~lOts, the diJ.l from the saloons, the VOICes of the miners, mule skin~ers, con men and the ladies of the evenmg. . The town of Bodle was named after William S. Body (Bodey). It was founded in 1859 and has been nearly . . . obliterated three nmes - once 10 1878 almost 30 feet of snow fell, twice by disastrous fires, 1892 and the one that . fi IIy did Bod' 10, J une 20 19°2 . ma I ie '" " About 1880 the town had reached its peak with 13,000 caIling this God. forsaken place home. Through the rth f 90 ill' d 11 0 years over . m Ion 0 ars wo gold and silver ,were extracted from . the mmes of Bodle. In 1878 there were r . 4 7 sa Ioons, SIX cares, one newspaper, four barber shops, three doctors, a postoffice, two daily stage lines , and 15 houses of ill fame . Aurora, the other ghost town , is even more quiet. Eighteen miles northeast of Bodie it is now just a jumble of widely scattered buildings. On a day when Bodie will be visited by 1000 people, Aurora may see only ten. Aurora was thought to be in California, so in March of 1861 it became the seat of Mono County. But Nevada also claimed it as the seat of Esmeralda County. This dispute lasted for about three years (a normal bureaucratic mess). A boundary survey was completed and the error discovered in 1864. The town of Bridgeport became the seat of Mono County, California , and Nevada received the pink slip on Aurora. Mark Twain once lived (mostly in a saloon) in this booming town and almost owned a gold mine in the early 1860's with a buddy named Cal Higbie. They did not file on the claim as each had thought the' other had done the required paperwork. The claim later became known -as the "Johnson Chamber" - a minor bonanza. Twain just missed becoming a millionaire. Aurora boomed for only about four years from 1860 to 1864, and then a . f 1913 1917 U lik mm?r one rom to . n I ,e Bodle whose wealth lay deep, Aurora s was all on the top. On the Del Monte I . h f d I 500 r c aim a sat went own o~ y teet, but so much water flowed 10 that. even the largest pump ~ould not keep It dry enough for the mmers to work. Many 'of the Bodie mines had the same ' probl em , an d to see th e area tada y WIth . . b arren hills an d sage b rus h one Its ' would hardly believe there was so much water underground. You can drive your family car to Bodie on 12 miles of good dirt road. It 's usually very dusty and in some spots a little washboardy. The road from Bodie to Aurora should be used only by pickups and fourwheelers, and of course all roads can be run on a bike . This section is signed "Use at your own risk." Try and visualize making this trip in a-four horse stage or a freight wagon loaded with 12 tons of equipment drawn by 12 to 16 mules. The skinners must have really been tough to have made this trip, summer and winter, with temperatures ranging from 30 below zero to 120 degrees above. Remember, the wagons or stages had no trick suspension, knobby tires, or the other goodies we are used to on our scooters. Our ride started (well almost) on Friday the 13th; we. should have known better than to start for Bodie on the bad luck day. Leaving Mammoth Lakes at seven a.m. in beautiful weather, we arrived by truck at highways 395 and 167 (on some maps it's 31). Three miles out I found the dirt road we wanted, but overshot it . Making a U tum. I was almost around when the shoulder, which was pure pumice and no bottom , disappeared from under the truck.