Make Booty Your Favorite! A Death Valley Treasure Hunt with BigWan and LittleWan

Welcome!
Prepare yourself for hundreds of mediocre photos; outstanding dirt; some *slightly* (we hope) used porn; ADV amigurumi;
a sad amount of factual or otherwise useful information; fun linkies; and the same, lame, clapped out jokes from last time.
(Make stupid catchphrases your favorite!)
As always, the different colored text (usually white) indicates a clickable link.



If you clicked over here by accident because you saw "Death Valley" maybe this will entice you to come back...

Some of the places we hit (2up on a KTM 990):

Eureka Dunes
Ubehebe Crater
The Racetrack
Lippincott
Ballarat
Pleasant Canyon
Rogers Pass
Middle Park
South Park Canyon
Briggs Cabin
Titus Canyon
Swansea Grade
Salt Tram Summit Station
Cerro Gordo
Goler Wash (both directions)
Mengle Pass (both directions)
Geologist's Cabin
Charcoal Kilns
The Goldfish Pond



and, in the 2nd part of the report:
World Beater Cabin
Minietta Cabin
Osborne Cabin
Buckhorn Boxcar Cabin
Stone Cabin
the U2 shrine
Saline Valley Warm Springs
Steele Pass
Dedeckera Canyon



Not only will we be searching for Death Valley treasures, but there will be chances for you, the reader, to find some DV booty of your own!
(no, I'm not talking about the brothels )


I've got 1700 photos to sift through, plus some crappy video to edit, so I need to get cracking...
Put on your comfy pants and I'll see you back here tomorrow!



Gif creator




Edited to Add: We had so much fun, we did a follow up trip the next month...
...with a GoPro hero 2




Death Valley 2.0 starts HERE.


Links to HD video:
Up South Park Canyon
Steep hill climb Rogers Pass
Steele Pass - Dedeckera Cyn - Eureka Dunes
Swansea Grade steps
rocky ledge road to Cerro Gordo
Sandy wash/ S5 through Lee Flat

I'm in!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Booty

I'm ready.............

Awesome idea Kelly! Thanks for tagging onto the original, this should be interesting.....

Cool.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

You know I am in for some DV 2up.

N

Oh what the hell.

Hey, finally in at the start this time!!! I used your saying several times last year & am sure I will be needing it again.

Good to see you back!!

SO IN !

Sad you guys didn't visit the Saline Valley Hot Springs.. you were 30 miles from it at Racetrack !

We are going the end of this month.. get cracking on that RR so I can find some BOOTY ! I know how you guys roll !

Same here. Spill the beans!

Hey Guys!
Long time, no see.
Great to see some friendly, familiar names, and lots of new ones, too.
Thanks so much for checking in - it’s not going to be a long report, but I’m hoping that it’s gonna be a lot of fun.

pop the top pop the top pop the top!

thanks, Don - I'll do my best. No promises, though :)

Hi Pink Pillion!

live dangerously!

Thanks for joining in - the more people who get the jokes, the better!

Hi Paul,
Oh, we knew the hot springs were there. We talked about going.
But, I think I like the idea of hot springs better than actual hot springs.



Heh heh.


Hi Liebchen & Izzy - don't worry, you won't regret it. Much.

haha, you gotta sit through some nonsense first

I just about had that song out of my head! Now here we go again!

"Professor - What's another word for pirate treasure?"

"Why, I think it's booty. Booty. Booty. That's what it is."

- The Beastie Boys
"Professor Booty" (note: link is Not Safe for Work - it's just the song, but they use the f-word a lot)



OK.
For those of you who haven't read one of our reports before -


I'm LittleWan (Kelly) and that's BigWan (Matt)


This is our beautiful, wonderful bike


2007 KTM 990 adventure S
She's awesome and we love her.



When BigWan suggested a Death Valley ride, I have to admit I wasn't all that enthusiastic.
I mean, I really enjoy DV ride reports and I like the idea of riding in DV, but I wasn't in a big hurry to go back.

We had ridden 2up in Death Valley once before and it hadn't gone all that well.
Matt and I had been heading out to Colorado to start the TAT West and thought we would stop in DV for some practice dirt.
He had been going to DVDaze and was excited to show me some stuff that can't be seen by car.


Unfortunately, we were there on July 18, 2009. Death Valley was in the midst of a heat wave and hit 128°F that day.



Despite the heat, we rode 240 scorching miles.
We were staying in Beatty, so we did a nice loop.

Beatty --> Rhyolite --> Titus Canyon --> Ubehebe Crater --> the Racetrack --> Hidden Valley -->
Hunter Mountain (exploring some trails and mine stuff) --> Saline Valley Road --> Panamint Springs (where we had lunch and drank 3 pitchers of iced tea) --> Beatty.
The guy at the store in Beatty told us we were going to die.
He said it at least 4 times while we were buying snacks after the ride.


A couple pics from that ride...
the Racetrack was smokin' hot



the old sign at tea kettle junction




The ride was interesting, and we saw a lot that day, but I wouldn't really call it "fun."
Matt's pretty sure I was having heatstroke on hunter mountain.
Doing all that riding in the heat was pretty stupid, actually.
Surprise, surprise, surprise.

At least we didn't crash or anything. We had some deep gravel and some silt, but it wasn't bad.


Obviously, spring was going to be a lot cooler and more comfortable, but I was still concerned about the fun factor.
Matt had just done a boys trip to DV in January, and I knew he had enjoyed blasting around on the unloaded 990.
Would 2up be horrible after that?

I envisioned us slogging through the sand and gravel on our overloaded schoolbus, bogged down and hating life.

So, I dragged my feet when it came to agreeing to a ride.

That is, until I saw this ride report - 2 Day ride in Death Valley, find the Playboy magazine and win a prize.

OOooh.
I don't really care one way or another about naked women, but I love a good challenge.
It had been almost a year and no one had claimed the prize...
I. Want. That. Magazine!



Next, I saw that this guy, cjbiker, had lost his wallet in Death Valley. Poor cjbiker, that sucks.
Hmm. More treasure to be discovered...
I didn't want the reward, but wouldn't it be amazing to find a lost wallet in DV?
Nearly f-ing impossible, but still. A challenge.

Okay, BigWan - let's go to Death Valley!


Our objectives:
1. Find lots of ridable, interesting, dirt - and enjoy it, 2up
2. Find the Playboy magazine
3. Find cjbiker's lost wallet

http://cdn.hark.com/swfs/player_fb.swf?pid=tthwktjrqc <------ so that link is a sound clip. once it loads, just click on the arrow to play....

Our objectives:
1. Find lots of ridable, interesting, dirt - and enjoy it, 2up
2. Find the Playboy magazine - and enjoy it, 2up
3. Find cjbiker’s lost wallet - and enjoy it, 2up

Fixed.