The Lone Ranger-Arizona Adventure Pt 2

[raYzerman]

The GPS on my FJR a while back..........

[fontanaman]

Ha the drama is depending Garmin Zumo 550 for navigation.

He wasn't that stoopid....now THAT would be drama. As backup, he printed maps and oriented the maps with what he saw around him to get situational awareness. Plus, he had the sun's position, the stars and a sextant, and the moss on the north side of the cactus...

I purposely used the word "is depending" as click bait when I knew he was using his phone and had paper maps. Still having a 550 in the tool bag in the middle of the desert is "insert word(s)".

[Abercrombie FJR]

She quit writing reports and my 250 barely can carry my fat ass. Let alone her too. LOL

Ya, I'm throwing the bull shit flag on that one also. I know I'm old, fat, chicken and slow but even riding a 500, I never lost you in the Black Hills last year when I led, and I struggled to keep up when following you.

Maybe if I hadn't left before the side by side softened you up a little I would've faired better against a half crippled Cav.

[Bugnatr]

She quit writing reports and my 250 barely can carry my fat ass. Let alone her too. LOL

Ya, I'm throwing the bull shit flag on that one also. I know I'm old, fat, chicken and slow but even riding a 500, I never lost you in the Black Hills last year when I led, and I struggled to keep up when following you.

Maybe if I hadn't left before the side by side softened you up a little I would've faired better against a half crippled Cav.

I'm calling Bullshit on this one, I've seen you in Echo Canyon of Death Valley scaling sheer vertical dry falls....almost.

[Cav47]

Let me back up just a little. The route through the east side of the lake from a sheep Bridge to the bottom was anxiety producing. Yeah, the 550 was working, but no trial was showing up. The road was obviously there from traffic and I could use my phone to locate myself. But I knew I still had to get across the dam. When I talked to the Ranger the week before he asked with some skepticism what I was going to be doing after I crossed the Sheep Bridge. I got the feeling that some illegal activity has taken place back there before.

I tied to put him at ease by telling him I was a principal but he prob just heard I was a chemistry teacher in Breaking Bad.


My knight in shining armor. Remember those two white pickups?

This is Bill. He works for the Reclamation Department. He is biologist for Arizona. He was in one of the trucks. He was working the area with another guy who was working as a PHD guy. They were re-introducing some orange finned sucker fish back into the Verde River. The reason the gate was closed was because they had hundreds of thousands of dollars in monitoring equipment all along the east side of the river(over where I was) monitoring and tracking the dispersion of the fish they introduced by helicopter all the way up the Verde. They had tagged each fish with a special transmitter and set up multiple checkpoints for the fish.

Apparently the gate was locked to keep people out so they can’t steal their stuff. I asked him if he could open the gate. He said No, it was only operated by the University guy and he still had work to do. Bills job was to basically escort this guy around and provide oversight from the Reclamation Department. In his words, “his job was cake”. Notice the footwear. I believe him.

In my head, I am thinking ……….Cool story, all that is great……… how the Hell am I gonna get out of the jail that is this side. I asked him again about slipping through the gate. You don’t need to get through the gate if you are a good rider. Huh??

Bill showed me the path to freedom. Hell, he might as well been Andy Dufresne for all I know.

Bill said. “There is a path under the dam, but it’s tight.

Me: how tight??


Bill: real tight for a motorcycle.



He wasn’t kidding. Had I not cut my bars down, I would of had to pull it through.


I felt like the movie “Last of the Mohicans”. He said he has been below the damn with water going over. How cool would that be??


Just like Andy, I crawled through the newly half a mile and emerged out the other side a free man. There were two 90* corners I had to get the bike around but it was doable albeit with some scraping. And then I had to ride up the rocky assent.


If you notice in the pics from when I was below, guess who is going through the gate?? Bill said the guy was kinda stuck up.



I left the remoteness and started a long sandy trek back out to civilization. It was 20 miles to the north side of Cave Creek.

The views were still good, but the piles of deeps sand were. It.


The adventure was coming to a close. One last shot on the bike I had conquered both the terrain and my fears. I had ZERO drops. At least a half dozen dabs, and countless “whoa, that was a sweet move” as I made the whole route.


I finished the route without needing my 30oz MSR bottle. I I was gonna see how far I could really go on the 1.9 gal tank. She started gasping for fuel at exactly 92 miles so I switched over to reserve. I was still on dirt I rolled all the way to my BIL house. 21 miles later she was still getting gas out of the bottom of the tank. 113 miles round trip. 113/1.8 gallons come up to about 63 mpg. Zero issues after pounding the bike pretty good for 2 days.

I rolled in to my niece waiting on the porch. She was tracking me the last hour via “Find my iPhone ” First pic at 7:24 to this one at 3:46.




Not a dull moment. Completely awesome and so worth hauling the bike out.




How the KLX rides.


All I am thinking now is about the next destination. Thanks for coming along!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[gixxerjasen]

Great stuff, gotta love that power rear window!

[Festus]

Such a rookie. It's clear that there's plenty of room under the dam. Just needed to be in a wheelie all the way across to get those handlebars clear of the wall on the left.

Channel your inner Nitro Circus next time

[wheatonFJR]

That was a great tale Josh. Thanks for sharing...since I can't read, the photos were great!

[fontanaman]

Excellent adventure. Thanks for sharing it.

[bigjohnsd]

I think I could have hung with you on the GSA until we got to the



Then you found a way around it! Yay!

But, once you got to the locked gate at the damn dam I was surely screwed!

No way the Bovine Beast was fitting through that narrow opening.

I'm not sure you could get a KLR or a DR through there either.

[wheatonFJR]

You keep trending like this and you'll be lookin like Mr. Darlin of Mayberry fame in no time.

[wheatonFJR]

The GPS on my FJR a while back..........

You're doing it wrong.

[Cav47]

I got some pro taper bars that were basically given to me. The guy used them for a woods bike and he cut 1.5 inches off both sides to narrow it up in the trees. I never noticed except when I rode other peoples bikes. I think you all would be right. You would not be getting through there.

But John, your BMW has a fuel tank at least 3 times bigger, you could have just ran back the other way.

[fontanaman]

The large jugs on the Bravarian siren wouldn't fit through that narrow dam walkway.

I don't think my DR bush pig would either.

[wheatonFJR]

The large jugs on the Bravarian siren wouldn't fit through that narrow dam walkway.

I don't think my DR bush pig would either.

I think the nipples would be tickled all the way down that walkway.

[wheatonFJR]

So Cav, what did you take it at? 30? 40mph?

[Cav47]

So Cav, what did you take it at? 30? 40mph?

I railed that tunnel to the speed of at least 6 to 7mph. With only one foot down and stopping only 4 or 5 times per 100 feet. I was basically Evil Knievel for the day. Lol. I will sign autographs for anyone if they want.

[Hppants]

I purposely waited until I had time to read the whole thing. Glad I did, but I missed the suspense of waiting to see how the "Dam" issue ended.

This is incredible stuff. The sheep bridge is stupid cool. The lure of that is probably the ONLY thing that would have keep me going through some of those rocky areas. That whole ride looked very remote. I'm not sure I'm ready for that (physically or mentally). But I am intrigued and curious.

.. I imagine your choices might be slightly different if you had a companion rider along.....

I guarantee you if THIS FAT ASS was his companion, things would have been ENTIRELY different. Like.... uh.... no. I ain't going there.

So now I've got to add a hack saw to my tool kit for the Dual Sport. Just in case I need to cut my handlebars down so I can ride under a dam dam. Or perhaps cut my arm off if I need to eat it for some reason....

(yikes)

[gixxerjasen]

I bet a hacksaw could have gotten Cav through the gate...

[wheatonFJR]

I bet a hacksaw could have gotten Cav through the gate...

It also would have gotten him on Candid Camera.