JMD

Member
Jul 11, 2001
1,402
0
Every year since spring of 2000, I have taken my sons and some friends to New Mexico to ride the desert for a week during their spring break. We always camp out in an abandoned rock quarry we found by accident the first year. This year, two of my three sons couldn’t make it; only Mark, my middle son, 21, would be going. Also going along for the first time would be Rick, my doctor friend from Mckinney, and Gene (TX246). We hoped to meet up with Matt from this board and another New Mexico friend from Las Cruces, Jim M. Rick brought his ’95 CR250 with a Gnarly pipe and a 14-oz. flywheel weight, a large tank, and woods gearing. He also brought an XR200 as a backup. Gene brought his ’00 CR250, recently rebuilt, all black plastic and shiny aluminum. Mark would be riding the ’05 Gas Gas 300, and I brought both ’02 KTM 400s, to have a spare bike. My main bike is an SX with E/XC ignition, e-start, big tank, other stuff. Rick drove his F350 towing an enclosed trailer with 28 feet of cargo area and 20 feet of living quarters; nice.

We left town Wednesday evening, and drove until about 10 p.m. We stayed in a motel overnight and continued on Thursday morning, arriving in New Mexico about 3 p.m. Thursday afternoon. We parked at our quarry, off Highway 54 between Orogrande and Alamogordo. (At milepost 38.5 take AO11 west 1.5 miles up to the quarry.) It’s about a 12-hour drive from McKinney and Denton. We unloaded the bikes quickly and went for an evening ride of about 20 miles. We rode north, paralleling Hwy. 54, over sandy whoops and jumps, through sage and mesquite that attack your arms, and although bark busters and hand guards help, you’re still going to come away with some bloody forearms. We hadn’t gone two miles before I ran over a good sized rattlesnake on the trail, and we all went back to mess with him and take pictures. He didn’t seem any worse for wear having been run over in the soft sand, though he was pretty unhappy with us. We poked at him and posed with him, all coiled and rattling like crazy, then Rick picked him up with a piece of wire and placed him off the trail, and we continued on. As the sun began to get low on the horizon, we headed back toward camp, taking the first of what would be many “overland” routes on this long weekend. We just struck out through the brush, dodging the sage, mesquite, and prickly pear if at all possible. We had slimed all the tires and were running about 19 pounds of pressure, and we had our fingers crossed. I hate fixing flats on the trail, though we were prepared if the need arose.

Rick is a bit of a newbie, though he learns fast and will try anything; still, he wasn’t crazy about going overland. It’s first- and second-gear stuff in the soft sand, weaving in and out and up and over hummocks of sage. Slow going, and hard work for a beginner. But he did very well, and impressed us all. Gene, of course, had no problem, and my son seemed to get along with the GG well. He’s an advanced beginner, but he rode like a veteran. I think the Gasser was a large part of his newfound proficiency. We hit camp just before pitch dark.

The long trailer has two 20-foot awnings, and we unloaded a folding picnic table. Rick had brought a propane-powered burner and a big wok, and I cooked beef stir-fry under the awning. We ate at the table almost like human beings, with paper plates and plastic forks. We watched On Any Sunday in the trailer—Rick had never seen it—and hit the sack. Two slept in the living quarters, and two threw air mattresses and sleeping bags in the cargo area of the trailer. I slept inside the house the first night, but got thrown out thereafter because of some slanderous libel about snoring and keeping Rick awake all night. From then on, Gene and I, the two snoring specialists, were consigned to the back of the trailer, the cargo area. It was still pretty nice, with diamond-plate flooring and white vinyl on the walls, with lots of indoor lighting.

On Friday, we got an early start. We rode first to the north and hit the Red Sands riding area, a little dune area with some jumps and bowls, about 10 miles from camp. We played around a while there, and rode on some of the fast, sandy trails used in the Tarantula 100 desert race every year. We rode the pipeline trail that I enjoy so much, with some fast, smooth sand jumps and bermed turns. In the afternoon, Rick wanted a nap (something about a headache and not enough sleep the night before; somehow I got the blame), so Gene, Mark, and I took an afternoon ride toward the Jarilla Mountains to the south of camp, looping to the west and back south again. Nice, fast loop, mixing in some rocky mountain trails with the sandy stuff on the desert floor. We hit camp at about 3 p.m. and Rick got up feeling a bit better. We took an afternoon ride to the top of a peak in the Jarillas with an abandoned microwave tower. It was a steep, rocky climb up the switchbacks to get there. It’s driveable in a jeep, but it’s slippery and nasty in spots. Nobody fell, though there was a stall or two. At the top there was a beautiful view. You could see our quarry to the north, with that gigantic trailer, and beyond it, Alamogordo. You could see the Sacramento Mountains, with snow on the high peaks. To the west you could see the White Sands National Monument and the missile range, and the Andres Mountains. You could see the Iron Queen Mine in the Jarillas to the south, and behind them the (almost) ghost town of Orogrande. It was very windy on top of the mountain, and we were getting cold. We took some pictures, did some talking and pointing, which is amply captured on my helmet cam footage, and headed down the mountain. We took a long way back to camp, and when we got there, Gene, Mark, and I all showed nearly a hundred miles on our odometers. I was very tired and slept well that night, though I was on the verge of getting leg cramps all night.

Saturday we half expected Matt or Jim M. from Las Cruces to show up, so we waited around camp until about eleven. Nobody showed up. We took some time to clean air filters, install some filter skins, check the tires and spokes, and tighten all nuts and bolts. Desert riding vibrates things loose. Regarding tools and stuff, here’s what we carried with us: I had a fender bag with a spare tube, two tire irons, and a CO2 inflator and five 12-oz. bottles of CO2. Mark carried the small tool belt with an MSR six-way tool and the optional tire iron, allen wrenches, sockets, wrenches, plug wrench, axle tool, etc. In our Camelbaks we carried a spare radiator hose, safety wire, zip ties, spark plugs, chain links and small chain breaker, vise grips, spare nuts and bolts, a spare KTM axle nut that would fit all the bikes in a pinch. I had a tow rope on the fender bag, and I carried the camcorder in a fanny pack and the helmet cam on my helmet. We never needed most of the tools and stuff, but we had a couple of minor mechanical problems, as I’ll relate.

We left camp about 11 a.m., intending to ride the back way to Orogrande, to the south, to check out the old gold mines, and the giant Iron Queen Mine in particular. We went across the Jarilla foothills and hit a power line trail on the edge of the White Sands Missile Range. The trail was fast fifth-gear stuff with intermittent washouts that tested the suspension. Mark and Gene were riding like maniacs, and I couldn’t get through the dust to catch them to tell them that if they looked to the left they could see the Iron Queen Mine up on the mountain. The power line road ran into the White Sands Missile Range, but our way was blocked by a locked gate and a barbed wire fence. We considered dragging the bikes under the fence and continuing on, but the sign on the fence forbade entry, and warned of artillery practice. We decided to go overland again.

We rode essentially along the fence line on the foot of the mountains. There was nothing but the hint of a game trail, and we had to doge a lot of cactus and mesquite, some of which we didn’t dodge. I got stabbed in the leg by a big yucca needle (damn sneaky cactus). The trail went down some nasty washes and over some big rocks. It kept getting rockier and nastier, and at one point I remember thinking that if it got much worse we were going to be trapped on the side of that hill between the boulders and the fence. But just as we went over some big rock stair steps, the trail opened up, and we were able to hook up with a dirt road on the other side of the mountains. We connected with the road system west of Orogrande, and rode among the hills, dotted with abandoned gold mines to explore. We looked down some deep holes, did more talking and pointing, took pictures, worked on my kickstand (eventually just zip-tying it up), and headed into Orogrande for lunch. On the way, Mark was flying down a gravel road behind Rick and Gene. He was going to go around Gene on the right, when Gene drifted over and began to slow to a stop. Mark laid it down like John Hately in On Any Sunday, (laying it down and checking for traffic behind). No harm done to body or bike, though the brand-new GG was starting to look a bit worse for wear.

There’s not much in Orogrande except two gas stations, a few houses, and lots of derelict buildings. But we were hungry and needed gas. So we made our way into town and filled up my thumper with straight gas, and poured two-stroke oil into the smokers as we filled them at the pump. Gene forgot to shake his tank up, which had bad consequences later. We ate fried burritos and other convenience-store fare at the gas station and took a nap in the sun outside the building.

After lunch, I hooked up my helmet cam battery, and it promptly fried the power cord. Shorted out, I guess. And Gene’s two-stroke oil went to the bottom of his tank, through the carb and into the cylinder and fouled a plug. A quick plug change and a few smoky minutes, and he was going again. We went back into the hills and worked our way up to the big mine, the Iron Queen. We rode a steep, winding, rocky trail near the top, left the bikes on a ledge, and climbed the rest of the way on foot. It was pretty impressive. The mine goes all the way through the top of the mountain in two or three places, and the big cave is large enough to drive a truck into, if you could get it up there. The road used to go all the way up, but they have blocked it with rock slides to keep the public out, I guess. A trials rider probably could have ridden all the way up the hills and switchbacks, but it was too much for us, so we walked. Anyway, more talking and pointing caught on film, as I held the camcorder by hand, the helmet cam being out of commission.

We headed down the mountain toward Highway 54, traveling a good trail north until we came up to a ranch gate and a “No Trespassing” sign. We didn’t want to press our luck, as I’ve met the rancher before, and he always travels strapped, with a little .38 handgun, and while he’s a nice guy, why take chances? We tried to go around the fence, going overland again (Rick’s favorite), until we came up against another fence near the highway. We had to take some clips off the barbed wire, lift the wires up on two ends, and drag the bikes underneath. It was hard work for everybody except Mark, who didn’t have to hold wire or drag bikes. How did that happen, Mark? Hmmmm? Anyway, we fixed the fence and rode the highway back to camp, about 10 miles. There is a wide dirt median, and we just bopped along in that until we hit AO11, our access road to the west. Up to the quarry, dinner outside, a movie (Kung Pow) and bed, with about 50 hard miles under our belts, some of them overland. Gene and I continued our competition in the snoring Olympics, and I’m not sure who was winning; we’re both very good.

Sunday we rested, and just did some tourist stuff. We went to the White Sands, and, yes, they are white, and very sandy. Nice to see, but a little of that goes a long way. Then we drove up to Cloudcroft and Ruidoso just for kicks. We ate supper at a Mexican place in Alamogordo and got back to camp after dark. More movies, snoring, etc.

By the way, a note about the, ahem, facilities. Rick’s camper has a bathroom, but we didn’t want to use it for anything substantial, so we used The Rock. A conveniently formed crevice in the cliffs on the other side of the quarry provided a semi-comfortable seat, with a drop zone on a ledge some six feet below. Poop Rock, if you will. It was OK in the daylight, but at night it was a scary climb up the cliff. Still, we all used it, day and night. Of course, less substantial jobs could be taken care of at the relatively closer Urine Flats, but for the important jobs, it was all the way up The Rock.

I wanted to ride a hundred miles again Monday, so we got a fairly early start. We rode north about 20 miles to a couple of interesting buttes that I had never visited, because they are far enough to tax most bikes’ fuel capacity. But we all had big tanks this year, and we were averaging 23 mpg, so I thought we could make it. Fun, fast riding, none of it overland, dropped us off at the buttes, and we found a switchback road to the top. On the peak there was evidence of an abandoned structure, probably a telephone tower, and a USGS marker naming the place Two Buttes, elevation 5,536 feet or thereabouts. Rick took a nap on a rock while Gene and Mark explored. They saw a number of old tires and barrels out on the desert floor a thousand feet below. It looked like kids had brought them up to roll them off the top. Some of the tires went a long way down and across the desert. More camcorder footage at the top, more talking and pointing, planning our route back, and then we headed down. We did a bit more overland riding, then hit the fence line trail, a nice 40-mph run with good jumps, and connected with the trails back to camp. Rick took another nap (can’t blame that one on me, though; I was completely enclosed in a sound-proof cargo compartment all night, trapped in there with Gene the Amazing Snoring Man). While he napped, Gene, Mark, and I rode back to the Iron Queen on some different trails. Gene had spent the previous evening studying his topo software on his laptop and producing some maps with GPS coordinates. We were able to make a great loop through the canyons, over some beautiful rocky trails. On one rocky uphill, I followed Gene, worrying that any moment his spinning rear tire would throw a big rock at me, but unwilling to back off for fear of stalling. We made it, but Mark wasn’t behind us. I was worried that he might have hurt himself badly, and I rode back down, skating over the rocks in full pucker mode. Mark was halfway up the hill, standing up, which was good. He had fallen and bent the bark buster into the throttle tube, making the throttle stick. We took it off, re-bent it, and put it back on. I thought Mark would have to go back to the bottom of the hill and start again, but he just clicked into gear and rode right up that loose shale. That’s my boy.

Gene, Mark, and I got back to camp at 4:15. Rick got his gear on, and we headed back in to the hills for a rocky ride. Rick rode his XR200 this time, a good choice for the rocks. He just tooled right up some nasty, rocky hills where the CR250 would have been spitting rocks and sliding. We followed Gene’s hand-made maps until I got us a bit lost, and we wound up going overland again. (Sorry, Rick.) We had to go across a steep ravine, about three feet wide at the bottom, so just as your front wheel dropped in, you had to start powering up the other side. It was a bit gnarly, and while Gene rode around to find a better spot, Rick tried to follow me, and took a nosedive. The chain popped off the XR200, and we had to get out the tools to un-tangle the chain and get it back on. No harm done, but it was getting toward sundown, and the light was fading. Mark still had to traverse the ravine, but he just gassed it and lofted the front end over the gap at the bottom like a pro. We headed overland a bit more, hit a trail, and made our way to the gravel road that would take us to the quarry, about five miles away. More talking and pointing, pictures of the beautiful red sunset, and we headed for camp. Though it was almost dark, Gene, Mark, and I took a detour to make up a few more miles, being a bit short of a hundred. Gene took a slightly different route. Back at camp, my odometer showed just under a hundred miles, while Gene’s showed 103, so accounting for variations, we all made about a hundred miles that day. After four days of hard riding, we were all tough as nails. We weren’t even tired after Monday’s 100-miler. I was ready for fifty more, if we had had the daylight.

We drove home Tuesday morning, hardly stopping for anything but gas—no lunch, no dinner, just what we got at the gas station convenience stores -- and we arrived home at about 9 p.m. Adjusting for the change from Mountain Time to Central Time, we made it in under 13 hours, including many gas stops to fill the truck, which needed gas every 200 miles.

It was a great trip. We rode just about everything out there. There may be some trails we missed in the mountains, and I’d like to ride them next time, but we hit every major area and rode the best of them all. Miraculously, we had no flat tires the whole trip, though we all had a few cactus needles visible in the tires. We just broke them off and left them in. Let the slime do its job, I say. No real mechanical problems, no injuries.

It was comfortable staying in the trailer, and it was much nicer cooking over propane stoves rather than using an open fire as we usually do. And the trailer was convenient, as it kept everything inside, out of the wind and dust. Everybody got along well, and no personality problems of any kind, which can be a concern when four guys spend seven days together. No prima donas, no drama queens, just a lot of good riding. We didn’t have any visitors, though. It turned out that Matt had to work, and Jim had banged up his knee and will be out of commission for six months. (Tough luck, Jimbo. Get well soon. Matt, we’ll catch you next time.) We’re all toughened up and in better shape, and we improved our riding skills, especially in the sand washes. Gene is heading for Moab with Tony in May, and I’m trying to wangle a way to go. I love the desert. As Howard Dean once said, “Yeeeeehhhhhhaaaaawwww!”
 
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Proxy

N. Texas SP
Member
Mar 14, 2005
267
0
Very nice :cool:

Will you be posting up any pics/video?
 

YZ165

YZabian
May 4, 2004
2,431
0
:bang: Real sorry I missed it.......
 

JMD

Member
Jul 11, 2001
1,402
0
No flats. And we ran over a lot of cactus, so the slime worked. It's a pain to get in, though, without plugging up your valve stem. The secret, I think, is to use the compressed air to clear out the valve stem before re-inserting the core. Then it seats better and doesn't get gummed up.

Anyway, my video is all analog, but I'm converting it to digital and may be able to post some a bit later.

Would love to see more friends go along next year. Let's do it.
 

JMD

Member
Jul 11, 2001
1,402
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By overland I just mean heading out with no trail, through the brush. We could see where we wanted to be, and there were no trails heading that way, so we just struck out overland. It's slow, because the sage grow close together out there, and the hummocks are bigger than in the Mojave, so you really have to dodge them. And the sand is pretty deep and soft. The trick is to go fast enough to stay on top of it--I found it took about 22 mph to get my KTM 400 on top of the sand. And that's pretty fast going overland. So we wallowed a lot in the sandbox.
 

JMD

Member
Jul 11, 2001
1,402
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I do too, and when we got onto a game trail that ran along the fence bordering the missile range, I found my new favorite trail. It was true single-track; more like no-track. Between big chollas and yuccas, up and down rocky little ravines, over some big boulder fields with steps and fun obstacles.
 

jeffd

Naïve Texan
N. Texas SP
Jun 9, 2000
1,610
0
Sounds like you guys had a blast! Camping in style too in that huge trailer. :cool:
 

JMD

Member
Jul 11, 2001
1,402
0
It was pretty nice in the big big trailer. But next time, I'd like to see if there's some way to take along a hot tub for soaking the sore, tired body. And maybe some dancing girls.
 

Mudd Slinger

N. Texas SP
Member
May 5, 2004
362
0
Do I really want to see something like that running through the desert or dancing around a camp fire. Something like that could be misidentified as a new species and shot it as a trophy.

Just kidding! I know I missed a good trip form the writeup. Does anyone want to plan a overnight trip to Banswell?
 

Mudd Slinger

N. Texas SP
Member
May 5, 2004
362
0
I like the area up there. Me and my boy made a trip to the top of Kiamichi Mountain (not the camping area - further south from the town) and rode across the top (east and west). There were trails insecting the main 2 track (north and south). The main trail went for miles and we never did find the end. Kind of rough and rocky but you could drive a truck down the main trail. It was a little rough getting up there but a nice ride.
 
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