Monday 3/23/2009. Riders: Ted & Fred. 5 hours, 86 miles.

Dad's ankle is doing much better, probably partly due to keeping it elevated and partly because he knows he isn't doing damage to a broken foot. So we figured we'd have a fun day of dirt road riding- not quite as strenuous as going fully offroad, but still fun.

We've really needed to change oil on both DRZs. We warmed them up, then started draining the oil. I only got about 1.2 total quarts out of both bikes. That's way too low- we should have almost 4 quarts. Tamara's theory was that keeping the oil filler caps on created a vacuum; that didn't sound right to me, because it should at least trickle out with a small vacuum.

I went and looked more closely. Sure enough, it's a dry sump, so there's a second drain bolt on the frame. We drained the remaining oil from both bikes, then poured the dirty oil together: a very full gallon jug. Perfect!

The rest of the procedure went without incident. I tightened the chain on the older DRZ (we'll call it "The Tractor", the new one is "The Doctor"). After that, we headed down the road to get gas.

It's worth having a little discussion of St. George weather. While St. George has seasons (winter and warmer than hell), the spring is generally very mild: about 50 and 70. A windstorm blew through yesterday, and today was about 45 and 60. That's a lot colder when it comes to choosing riding gear!

So we got gas, then went back home to dress more warmly. We added our winter Buffs (which are windblocking), and I changed into my winter jacket. We then headed south onto Washington Dam Road. We found a huge dirt riding area back there with a sign saying it was maintained by a 4 wheeler club. There was probably about 5 square miles of terrain- how cool is that?

We rode through there for a while, and I tried climbing a very steep hill. The dirt turned into silt and became deep- probably 6 inches of the stuff. It was so fluffy that I couldn't get forward traction. Once the bike came to a stop, I worked on turning it around. The fesh-fesh had worn down into a "tub" shape, so I couldn't back the bike around. After dropping the bike, I figured out a way to get it turned down, then rolled down the hill.

Once I got to the bottom, I talked to Dad. He was surprised I didn't take the flatter and lower route. So I did the trip again, taking that road until it became impossibly steep. It gave me a great vantage point for pictures.

Dad loved the terrain park, but I missed riding trails and paths. We continued south, finding the opening in the gate and going through it. There was a wide road at the gate opening, so we rode that for a little while. I saw a path going up onto the hill, so I figured I'd take that while Dad was riding down on the "easy" road, since it's easier on his foot.

Well, Dad followed me up on the hill. We ended up riding a fairly narrow path for many miles. It was fairly bumpy, like a rhythm section of a motocross course. I was having fun because I learned how to pump the bars to hold the front wheel in the air for a little while, allowing me to clear the next bump. Pretty fun skill!

One of the things we encountered back there was a large slickrock style outcrop. We enjoyed looking at it, and then I decided to ride up it. The DRZ is a little large to really have fun on slickrock, but I had fun until I painted myself into a corner: an 8ft cliff, and a motorcycle-sized fissure in the rock. I dropped the front tire into the fissure, then worked for a couple minutes to get the bike out and turned around.

We kept riding on the narrow trail as it crossed over a wash several times. We were headed towards a county road, but we weren't going entirely perpendicular to it, so I decided we'd better cut through a wash to get back to the road.

The wash was difficult at first, then became very easy, then became difficult again. We had to skirt a fenced-in range, but eventually made it back to the road.

We decided to head west to two buttes that were nearby. Dad rode up a short one, then I decided to ride up a steep and sloping path across to the north. It was a steep climb, but the main thing is that it followed the ridge, which was shale and sloping. So it is like riding across a hill- the left side of the bike was close to the ground, and the right side was way up in the air. While the rock was very bumpy, it had good traction, so it wasn't as difficult as it looked- though it certainly wasn't easy. The view from the top was certainly worthwhile.

We then went to the third and final path, which was on the south ridge. It was pretty clear that it would be too difficult on Dad's ankle, so he stayed at the bottom while I rode up the hill. It was relatively steep and very rocky- but the road kept going at the top, so I went along it until I reached a T. I'd love to follow both of those roads sometime, but couldn't do it while alone or while Dad is injured.

We then went east. Way east. We followed an unknown road through Warner Valley for almost 14 miles. It was spectacular curving around Sand Mountain and watching the color change from the desert red into gray and back to red. The dirt road was mostly fast, with some silty sections thrown in for good measure.

The road eventually intersected with the Temple Trail and Honeymoon Trails. They are called "trails", but actually now just a wide and recently graded dirt road. We could easily run it at 65mph, though we did stop occasionally for the views: we were just on the west side of some impressively large cliffs, and there was a beautiful canyon (Fort Pierce Wash) cutting through it. Dad got going again; while I was gearing up, I realized the UFO taillight on the DRZ was missing. I didn't know how long it'd been gone. More on that later.

We continued riding south on the county road. The ultimate goal was to see how close to the Day1 location that we could get. In other words, how long is the nasty section of trail?

We got within about two miles of the target location when the road suddenly deteriorated. Dad decided it was a good spot for him to rest his ankle. I wanted to go ahead to see how close I could get, so we set up a meeting time and I continued south.

The road immediately turned bad. It crossed a creek and started to climb the side of a small hill, and it was very rocky. I did quite well, except for dropping the bike once during my climb. Still, it was a lot of work to negotiate over softball to bowling ball sized rocks for several miles.

I reached a ranch gate, let myself through, then dropped down a somewhat steep descent that was much more difficult than what I'd been on. Once I got about halfway down I could see the wash and trail where we'd been- they were only separated by 0.2 miles (I measured it!), though it was impossible to get from one to the other due to house-sized rocks.

Since I found my objective, I turned around and backtracked up the hill, letting myself through the ranch gate. I went north, back towards Dad, but took the only turnoff there had been in the whole road. It was a small T to the east. I knew what it would be. On Day1, we decided to turn around in the trail because it got so difficult. So this was where the trail intersected back with the "county road" (though it was hardly even a goat path). It was a very easy 1/2 mile jaunt, except for about 30 feet of a loose descent. It's too bad- the only thing that separated us from finishing that trail was the 30 foot ascent and two very steep switchback climbs. So close!

Dad and I had plans for me to be back within 30 minutes of when I left. I was starting to get close to that time- I had 12 minutes to turn around and go back, and I had two miles of difficult terrain to cover. Thankfully, I covered it fairly quickly, since I was getting used to that terrain and had already gone the other way on it. I got back right on time (the GPS says I was there 3 minutes early, but I think the clock on The Tractor is a little ahead).

We then rode 8 miles north to the canyon view. I knew the UFO taillight had come off previous to this location, so there was no reason for us to look for it until then. We then rode relatively slowly (20-30mph), looking in the gravel for it. Unbelievably, I found the taillight only 1.5 miles later (at an average speed of 25mph). How crazy is that?

The taillight was missing a small chunk but otherwise was in perfect condition. It was off to the side of the road, but still on the road. I was happy to find it, since it would keep the bike legal for riding on the road. I put it in my Camelbak backpack, since we were missing the mounting screws. Time for another trip to the hardware store.

We continued north on the county road towards Hurricane. As before, the road was wide and recently graded, so it was incredibly fast. The ripples were hurting Dad's dislocated rib more than his very sprained ankle.. poor guy.

The rest of the trip was uneventful. The road is paved going into Hurricane, and we just took the highway from there home. Not a bad day, especially considering how injured Dad still is!