Getting back on the pavement we took off for Jubilee and Salsberry Pass on our way to the Greenwater Valley road, which was another washboard road. About 19.5 miles in the guys peeled off to do this loop road. The loop itself is 6 miles and the dirt road getting to it was a smidge over 2. Now I had no idea where we were headed, but at one point on the loop Dave and I rounded a corner to find Dave Enos had dumped his KLR on a particularly nasty spot and had done so at least twice. We finally got him up, so Dave and the other guys went. Then it was my turn. I promptly ran my bike into a rock wall, smashing my left blinker.
Check out the top right picture for a "diagram" of the crash. Thank goodness for those handguards otherwise I'd have probably broken the fingers on my left hand! Getting my crash out of the way
I eventually got up the hill, after killing the bike 3 or 4 times and dropping it one more time. That was it for me. Huffing and puffing trying to get the bike upright and going I got to the top of the rise meeting the others. I taped up my broken blinker and got my right blinker tightened up again. Along with the other guys, we decided to turn around and head back the way we came. We eventually got caught up with everyone. It was pretty much lunchtime, so Dave and I just stopped in the road and ate lunch.
After that we made our way to the paved road that leads to Dante's View which is the spectacular overlook used in the first Star Wars movie (Episode Four). If you compare this picture (and the one on page 1) with the movie you can see where they were when shooting the scene. Of course being at about 5500 feet meant that we had cell coverage again so more phone calls ensued. It was 22 miles back to Furnace Creek and then another 25 back to Stovepipe Wells, but we doubled back a bit to take the Artist's Drive which was pretty cool looking. It's a 9 mile one-way loop through some pretty spectacularly colored rocks.
I've really never seen such green, red, and white on large hillsides. You can see how the rains continually erode the hills and fill the valley floor. This is another time when I wish I had a nice camera like Rob has to better capture the view. Along the way, Dave took a shot that turns out to be another place where the Star Wars crew used for a scene (R2 heading through just before getting captured by the jawas).
Tom Clark
I'm a Senior Software Engineer at Intellitect, living in Spokane, Washington. I also do a little development work on the side. And I love riding motorcycles all over the country with my friends.
