Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

_0._ ChinoLake TOOlSIIIlion u.s. '\ Robbers'Roost Prowl the famous bandit's hideout aboard your trailbike By Don Lemaster "Hey Skip per , I recognize those pointy rocks in that picture there. That's near where we raced out in the Owens Valley last month. It's close to Inyokern and China Lake Naval Station. How come you 're taking pictures of that? I've been there lots of tim es but I don't see what you could find to write about up there, " 12 That statement came from one of my best friends who , incidentally, is a two-digit expert desert racer. His ma in concern out there is to find the fastest route between point A and point B. He 's not concerned with what happened in the wilds before he went charging up an obscure dirt road in _ pursuit of the leader of the pack. What I had found was something which has been misunderstood , or at least neglected , by many desert travelers : A perfect spot for ambushing a stagecoach or wagon train toiling its way up or down th e immense Owens Valley . Nobody ever said it was easy living on the fringe of ' the Sierra Nevadas , but by far the greatest terror facing the travelers in the gold and silver country was not the wild creatures, but the most vicious of all an imals ; the human pred ators. That's what I was researching ... . th e human predators .. . banditsl Some of the bandits of Cali fornia were considered " Robin Hoods of the West ," Forget it! They were a bunch of thieves and ne'er-do -wells and no goods . The only th ing we can find , at this later date, to interest us about th e bandits of old is the time and pla ce of their infamy. They weren 't supe rmen, nor were the y nice guys, but their story is interesting to the desert wanderer on a motorcycle. My racing friend misses much of the story when he rips across the desert at high speed. If he slowed up a little, he'd see the lore of the desert a lot better (of course, he wouldn't be winning any races). Many th ings happened out here in the West that have been misunderstood by most of us. We see movies of stagecoach holdups and robberies of small country towns , but we don't identify these events with th e so-called civilization we're living in . Look around and dig a bit; you'll find that things got a little bit wild in what my son calls the "olden days. " With a small amount of research and a good 01' trailbike you can discover these places for yourself. Like my racing friends says, "Wha t's so special about those pointy rocks? I see them every time I drive that way in the desert. " As the man said in the song, "That's my point precisely." We miss a lot of intnguing things in life because we whiz by it and don't ItOP to probe the history or importance of it . The rocks I've been referring to are piled at a Sierra Nevada spot called Robbers Roost on the slope of the Owens Valley , north and east of Los ' Angeles. They command a view of the broad valley for 50 miles in either direction on a clear day . The shallow caves of Robbers Roost provided shelter from the desert winds and a place for the early bandits to watch for wagon trains loaded with precious bullion going down the valley to Los Angeles Or returning with supplies for . the gold an d silver cam ps of the Sierras. T he frequent stagecoaches were a lso prey for the hum an predat ors that waited an d watched from Robbers Roost . I rode my trailbike up to the Roost around Christmas. The weather was superb and I was rally enjoying myself. Five tp.iles away I could see the little specks of cars driving north and south along the eastern slopes of the Sierra Nevadas. I wanted to get the feeling of looking down on the valley and watching for unsuspecting prey such as the oldtime bandits had done. The fact that the present highway follows the route of the old wagon road from the mining towns helped me visualize what the bandits saw from their vantage point up in the rocks . In my own mind I just imagined that the cars below me in the valley were some of Remi Nadeau's wagons carrying silver or supplies to and from the camps up the valley. Despite the increase in population, the Ownes Valley is still a good deal like it was in the last 1800's when outlaws stalked their victims from Robbers Roost . Instead of riding up the sandwash directly to Robbers Roost I elected to ride kind of a circle around the citadel to get the feeling of the terrain. I found fresh tracks and droppings from wild burros on a sort of jackass freewa y. You could ten the trail was used frequently by these critters. The burros themselves are a leftover from the old mining days . When a miner' or prospector no longer had a use for his pack-toting bUTTO, he just turned it loose to fend for itself. There's still lots of bu rros ou there. While I'm on the subject of the ' burr os, I'm rem inded of being in a large motorcycle shop recently when I overheard a young man boasting that he had tested his new MX 360 by chasing wild burros in the Owens Valley . It's fools like this who will bring the wrath down upon all of us motorcyclists. Stupid! But back to bandits: My favorite Ca liforn ian bandit was Tiburcio Vasquez. Some of you have probably camped out at Vasquez Rocks Park along Hwy. 14 near Newhall in Los Angeles County. My son Larry and I rode out there on my street bike and camped among the trees . We took photos of the former bandit's lair and had a good old time. A word of caution though. Trailbikes are not allowed in the camp . The only way you're allowed to move among this 25 to 40 million-year-old outcropping of rocks is afoot . Vasquez himself was a petty and then a full time thief. Nothing about him suggested a "Robin Hood of the West ," especially to his victims. He was plainly and simply a crook, but he left his mark on California. A bla ck mark perhaps , but a ma rk nonetheless. I'd done my homework, researching the bandits who had used Robbers Roost, before I made the ride up the slope from the Owens Valley. That's something I reall y enjoy ; looking up the history of a place and then riding my bike there to look it over. Ralph Roske . in his excellent book , " Every m a n's Eden . a History of California," devotes a good section of his book to Vasquez. Roske supplies the information that Tib urcio Vasquez was born in Monterey . California on August 10, 1835. He was tall for a Californio, five feet. five inches, Dressing well in suit. tie and polished boots , he also sported a full beard and mustache. At the age of 17. V~uez and two others killed a constable In Monterey. This was the beginning of his ou tlaw career. Ne ar Los Angeles in 1857, he and a partner stole horses from a ranch, He was captured an d sen tenced to five years in prison. The ba ndit escaped fro m prison June 25. 1859. but was recaptured seven weeks later -in Amador County. He received an additional year on his San Quentin Prison sentence for escaping. Upon his release from prison, he returned once again to horse stealing, this time in Contra Costa, Sonoma and Mendocino Counties. Capture by a posse in 1867 brought another prison sentence, this time for three-and-a-half years . After release from 'prison in 1870 , Vasquez began a four year reign of terror. His gang robbed stages, stores and inns as he moved his operation southward to escape the pressing authorities. On August 26, 1873. at Tres Pinos near Los Angeles , the gang robbed Snyder's store. In ,the ensuing battle three persons were killed. The uproar caused by the killings caused the governor of California to place a price of $8,000 on the head ofthe bandit. Kingston, in Fresno County, received a visit from the gang in 1873. Thirty-five men were tied up d uring the robbery, while the gang looted two stores and a hotel. In the aftermath, two stages were also robbed . Vasquez took refuge in the rocks named for him . Partly because the approaches to the lair could be easily guarded. and especially because the Californios protected him there. The Californios, or Mexican-Californians, cons idered Vasquez and his gang heroes. In his publication, "A Guidebook to the Mojave Desert of California, " Russ Leadabrand writes about the February 25, 1874 raid by Tiburcio Vasquez and Cleovaro Chavez on the Cerro Gordo stagecoach at Freeman Raymond's station. Some of you will recognize the name , Freeman Junction . from trips you've made over Walker Pass to Lake Isabella. The junction stands down the grade from Robbers Roost . Vasquez laid up in the Roost and watched everything happening along the road below . includ ing Freeman's station (sometimes called Coyote Ho les). He merely waited and picked the right time to fall upon the hapless inhabitants of the stage stop and the coach itself. The ba ndit's career ended in May . 1874, when the husba nd of his mistress, one of hi s protecting . Californios, directed authorities to the outlaw's den. A small posse wounded and captured the bandit, who was taken to San Jose for trial. There were many other badmen who used this lookout. One pair I read about robbed a stagecoach going up to

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