Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

~ DUAL SPORT Kidin Califomia'sMo'aveRoad e • One can follow in the footsteps and wagon tracks of the pioneers by traveling the 138.8 miles of the Mojave Road across southern California's Mojave Desert. By Paul Golde Photos by Kinney Jones ew Year's Day, 1993 dawned clear and cold in Landers, California, the quiet, little homestead community made infamous by the earthquakes of the previous summer. Photographer Kinney Jones and I strapped our backpacks on and warmed up our dual sport machines with solemn excitement, knowing full well that this first ride of the new year could possibly be our last ride on the Mojave Road. To describe the adventure of crossing the entire Mojave Desert in words is almost impossible, for you really must experience the area firsthand to truly appreciate its wonders. Riding from horizon to horizon to horizon in one day is relatively easy on modem motorcycles, yet the settlers of the American West that bounced along in their mule-drawn covered wagons during the 1860-1880's would barely cover 20 miles in the same period of time. Seeking natural springs to water the livestock teams meant that the route did not always follow the easy way. Oftentimes the Mojave Road N followed the Indian paths into steep canyons which hid oases that provided the potable water and shade trees that helped ensure survival from the intense heat of the desert summers. Numerous passages of heavily laden Conestoga wagons cut deep into the red rock near Piute Creek as the desert travellers labored up and over Piute Hill, one of the worst climbs on the wagon roads of the West. Today's travelers of the Mojave Road can see the welI-worn wagon wheel ruts by taking a short, yet strenuous hike from Fort Piute, which back in the time of the pioneers was a day's ride by wagon from the Colorado River. We started our ride from giant rock "Intergallactic" airport on the western edge of the Mojave, following the boundary of the sprawling Twentynine Palms Marine Corps base, where Desert Storm troops trained. Up over the Sheephole Mountains and across the lonely Cadiz Valley we rode, skirting the northern edge of the Old Woman Mountains and the Little Piutes, across Ward Valley to the rugged Sacramento Mountains which stood between us and a hot supper in the town of Needles, situated on the banks of the Colorado River. Darkness had already closed around us, so we rode the final 15 miles over Eagle Pass by headlight. Tall rock walls rose up on both sides of the canyon, walls that channeled the floodwaters of recent storms down the wash and into the open desert. Natural debris hung four to five-feet high on the Tamarisk trees and sturdier bushes that were not completely swept away by the torrent. The incredible power of this na tural erosion makes the impacts of man and his vehicles on the landscape seem insignificant, if not nonexistent. Wildlife was everywhere we looked. Squirrels, jackrabbits and lizards darted across the trail and into the darkness. Above us, hawks and huge owls swooped like ghosts through the edges of our darting headlights. The desert was alive, refreshed with the rare blessing of rain. The next morning, we left Needles and followed the river north towards the historic site of Fort Mojave, slarting point of the Mojave Road. We zeroed our tripometers next to the first rock cairn placed on the side of the levee road only a stone's throw from the river. There are no direction signs to show the way across the 138.8 miles of the Mojave Road, only triangular shaped piles of rocks cairns - placed a t major intersections by the Friends of the Mojave Road, a dedicated group of OHV recreationists and desert rats led by Dennis Casebier, author of the Mojave Road Guide (available from Tales of the Mojave Road Publishing Company, P.O. Box 7, Essex, CA 92332). The Mojave Road Guide is an essential source for traversing the desert safely and in full awareness of all the national scenic area has to offer. (Also available for a $15.00 yearly subscription fee is the Mojave Road Report, a monthly newsletter which announces upcoming activities and entitles you to be an official friend of the Mojave Road. Write to Casebeir at the above address and join over 2000 friends in helping to keep the road open.) Anyone unfamiliar with the desert might think that the climate is always a blazing inferno four seasons a year. H was not intense heat that confronted us on this January crossing, but bone-chilling cold and a sudden snowstorm that quickly covered the

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