The Mobius Trip

I just read this weather update for the Death Valley Area. :eek1

A Wind Advisory remains in effect from 9 am PDT /9 am MST/ this
morning to 9 PM PDT /9 PM MST/ this evening for much of the Mojave
Desert and southern Great Basin.

* Winds: southwest to west winds 25 to 35 mph with gusts 40 to 50
mph. Winds above 7000 feet may gust to 65 mph.

Let's hope our fearless moto travelers are ok...

Q~

local weather report

blinding color storm on mobius thread

oh wait i doubt if anyones eyes can focus on this now

or i am just getting old?

Fine.... Fixed for the old guy.


Q~

Hope they be doing OK - those wind storms in the desert are brutal. Gives hating sand a whole new meaning.

Update:
We're holed up in escalate, ut for a day. Forecast today for thunderstorms, cold, & wind across the area. Raining now, (with the sun shining).

Disappointing, sure, but we have a saying here on mobius: "don't be stupid today if you were just stupid only yesterday."

So what about yesterday? Started innocently enough, a beautiful, if chilly, morning. A short side trip to see Grosvenor arch, and then a series of innocuous presumptions, oversights and decisions that resulted in n battling 55 hard miles over 9 exhausting and psychologically stressful hours.
The whole story will be told with full, unedited photo and video, (parental discretion advised). I will say right now that no one should EVER follow yesterday's track, regardless of the fact that Big Dog rode it 15 years ago and remembers it as being easy.

Back to the Death Valley sandstorm, yeah, that was hell too. Maybe Kelly, Tim, or Wayne can post an update to keep the peanut gallery entertained?

So today, laundry and hanging out. Weather should clear this afternoon, allowing trails overnight to dry out. Heading towards Wolverine loop, Henry mountains, Poison Spring / Dirty Devil crossing,
Flint trail, Arches, and 3-step.

450 miles routed to go. Looking forward to seeing some of you at the 3-Step Hideaway open house next Saturday!

PS: we'd intended to check in with the Hanksville BLM field station for intel regarding the Poison Spring road conditions, the Dirty Devil river crossing, and the Flint Trail condition. They're closed today & tomorrow, so if anyone has any info, please post. If not, no biggie. We're being smart today, so we can be stupid again tomorrow. We'll figure it out when we get there.

sent from the field; please excuse brevity & mispellings.

Dave,

There is a river flow monitoring station at poison springs crossing of the Muddy. Again, check intel in Hanksville either at Stans or across the street. One of those places will know dirty devil status.

Dirty Devil River flows here: http://nwis.waterdata.usgs.gov/ut/n...14-03-17&end_date=2014-04-26&site_no=09333500

sent you an email as well.

We took a break in the shade after one of the technical sections and shot this album cover.









...uploading pics to Smugmug now

.

Emerson, you avatar quit moving!

Yeah it did...how disappointing is that....?

Wasn't that Macadamia's bouncing avatar?

I thought EmersonBiguns was 1st.

Was this a RR?

After death valley, I thought I would never be cold again. But here we are below freezing. Ran into mud at elevation yesterday in the henry's and had to reroute after a solid day of mobius riding.

Today we'll check in with blm for poison spring road conditions, and if ok, try to cross the Dirty Devil.

See you soon, Emerson.

sent from the field; please excuse brevity & mispellings.

Need anything from the big city?

Ride safe, see y"all Wednesday evening.

Nada. We just arrived @ 3-Step. Life is good!

sent from the field; please excuse brevity & mispellings.

Say hi to Scott and Julie for me.

David

I don't think there is anyway to describe the wind we got ourselves into on Mobius 13. We started the day from Stella's Cabin on the west side of Death Valley. We rode a rocky two track east to the Westside Highway. I noticed there was some wind blowing bushes along the road, but there was no trouble. There was a dust cloud ahead. When we turned east we were in a crosswind. Kelly was ahead of me and I think she was at a 45 degree angle at times. Kelly, Tim and I made it to a paved road that runs north into Furnace Creek. I didn't get my kickstand down and a gust blew me and the bike over. While Kelly and Tim were getting the bike off me, Kelly's bike blew over. We didn't know it but LDF had been blown into the ditch. Dr. Rock put her on the back of his bike and pumped her to where we were stopped. Tim then pumped Doc back to LDF's bike and rode it to where we were all stopped.

The first plan was to wait out the wind. We found out that there was a wind advisory until 9:00PM, so we wouldn't be able to wait. Then Doc and Tim were going to pump the girls to Furnace Creek and ride double back and pick up their bikes. The wind was at our backs on the road and it was no problem riding.

We had a nice lunch at Furnace Creek and Doc and LDF continued their ride. Tim, Kelly and I started back to Las Vegas.

It was great riding with the group. I will treasure my Anti-Hassle Tassles.

Wayne

The game's afoot! #1 son Aaron, Johnny O'Show, and yours truly Rutsref are staged for an AM launch from SoCal 4/30...!!! Planning to stage in Vegas, and do a counterclockwise route to S rim, Monument Valley, and arrive 3 Step 5/1, we have tix for Supercross Final on Saturday so need to bail out before the official grand opening..(had we not already booked and paid mighta skipped Supercross! Ryan V has it sewn up, and James S prolly out with injury and it'll be basically an exhibition event, oh well)
Can't wait to see y'all

Me and Dingweeds met the Mobius crew in St. George and rode the rest of the way with them-----poor Dingweeds had to bail early tho---we missed him.

As the 3 of us rolled into 3-step it started snowing on us---the crazy weather continues on.
My new KTM 690 performed flawlessly and got the same gas mileage as Dingweeds WR250R to our amazement. But lacked 5 miles getting me to a gas station one day---the bigger tank I want is not available yet.

We rode yesterday a trail that went on the top 5 favorite trails we've ever ridden.

The Poison Spring trail (Southwest of Green River, Utah)-------then crossed the dirty devil river--the onto the flint trails--up the awesome switch backs onto Hans Flat road and to camp. It was a trail I will never forget.

I came to the dirty devil river first and my heart sank--------it looked deep, dirty and wide----you could not see the bottom.
I knew we'd have to go back------but......I was wrong.
Doc got almost naked and walked it. It was mostly 8"deep. I had to laugh at myself.
There was WaaaaaHoooooo's all around after we all got across.

The climb up the swithcbacks was sometimes 25%,, just dirt and rocks and very rough---about a 2 mile climb.

After a much needed bath and more wabbit chile back at 3-step-----------------I had to stop and realize what a lucky guy I am----to have such good friends---and to have done some really great riding with them.
So today---bike maintenance--maybe split some firewood-----maybe get a pesky Wabbit or two for some more Wabbit chile.
Then tonite we'll relax by the wood stove and I'll get my geetar out and pick out a few tunes.

Life and retirement is so gooooood !!!!!!!

3-Step open house this Saturday---Emmerson Biguns, and Ken Webb rolling in today..

BigDog

Looks like the weather and work may finally be cooperating... Fingers crossed, hope to see you all at 3 Step Saturday, or even Friday night!


Sounds like a great time!