Stooges Eat Baja Surf and Turf

[Blakebird]

The road south thru the Parque Nacional Constitucion de 1857 sure didn't look like much as you left La Rumorosa to the south, but it was fun to be in the dirt finally.
A couple of wrong forks in the road taken, we found ourselves on the doorstep of an old trailer, where an older guy stepped out and told us this was the road that went through, and it took about two hours to get somewhere....either through or to the park.

As long as it was the right road, that was all we needed to know. It branched off a couple of times along the way, and as it climbed big granite rock formations into piney forest, we were having a good ride.



We stopped to regroup here, and like he says.... no Arno. There was some sand and a bit of a rocky climb we thought might have slowed him up some - but after a reasonable wait and he still wasn't there, Eric headed back.

While we waited, a couple of 4x4 trucks came bashing thru, just getting pounded on the rough rocky road in a hurry - or at least not caring about beating the piss out of their trucks.

Shaun and I waited a while ourselves....then figured it was time to backtrack and see if there was a problem. We backtracked quite a bit, to a big fork in the road we'd seen on the way up and hesitated at to make sure it wasn't the way to go.

Shaun waited there and I took the fork a few miles west... and there was a pair of knobby tracks I was following, so at this point I was pretty sure Eric had seen Arno tracks and went after Arno, who must have turned there. That was my deduction at least...

I came back to the fork in the road, and heard voices...the group was coming and not far away at all. The tire tracks I saw were from some other pair of bikes, glad I didn't stay with them longer.

Reunited, we continued back up the road, seeing the occasional camping park along the way off either side of the road. With shadows getting long, we still had plenty of daylight, but figured we were probably only going to make it partially down this road and would end up looking for a campsite before too long.

There was a nice mud bog here, but you can't see much of it, and I went kinda far past it to get any pictures of anyone that might have issues getting across.



Just after it, we came across another spot that looked like it might be a place to stop for the night, so we pulled in to find out more. I'll stop here in case anyone has good pics of the ride to this point that needs to get caught up.

This was a remote place, and we were the only ones there... they had basic rooms, food and beer on site - sounds good so far!

[drrags]

Little did I know that even though I was full from an excellent meal, I would eat some dirt a little later:


Nice weather, nice road, what more could you ask for?


I didn't expect to find this altitude and a pine forest. We are all happy to be here like kids getting off the short bus.


I'm in last place, merrily going down the sandy road, hugging the right side to avoid getting all squirrelly with the big bike in the heavy sand. I usually don't care about bushes and tree limbs and stuff. I'd rather plow through them than change my line. In this case I hit a tree limb that didn't budge, but knocked me, my bike and my bars stupid. The next thing I know, I'm crossing the track at about 30 mph heading for a bush. Nothing to do but go for the ride.


I tried everything I could think of to un-wedge the bike out from under the bush, but it was stuck. Even after removing all of the luggage I couldn't budge it. Eric came up after awhile and manhandled the bike back on two wheels for me.


The offending tree branch. Talk about a sudden course change!


Ok, that was one of the turf parts of the Surf-n-Turf.

After we climbed out of the sand road we got to a plateau where all the water was collecting. It really wasn't too bad, but one particular puddle (lake?) had a hidden rut in it that I got crossed up on. At least that's how I'm tellin' it The surf part of the Surf-n-Turf:


It was a real mess here. Eric having fun in the slop:


What a great area though.




We stop just past the muck and consider where we're going to call it a day, when lo and behold, someone says "is that a hotel?" Indeed it was, and just as we're wondering if they were open, a pickup comes up to us. It turns out they are the owners/workers and indeed confirm that it's open for business.





It's beautiful up here and reminds me a lot of Alpine, Arizona:








Next stop; The Lake of Rocks.

[Sheep Shagger]

So after Eric retrieved Arno we were back on our way, I can say enough about how much fun this road was. Here are some other pic's of Eric and Arno getting through the slop just before we stopped for the night.
Eric was having so much fun, he went through about 5 or 6 times trying to find a nice line for Arno to follow, who was very dubious about getting through all the mud.





And where we stayed that night. This place is well worth a visit, and the ride to and from is great.

[joenuclear]

Looking good!

[MortimerSickle]

Good to see you got your crashing out of the way early.

Now you can concentrate on the ride.

[edeslaur]

Yes, but don't forget Arno is an overachiever.

Here's the branch he ripped off that poor, defenseless bush.
It's a good inch thick, and hard like iron.


Another view - see the poor branch hanging out?


Right about here is when some locals came hammering down the road. I've raced BITD and SCORE races in a truck, I know hammering. In stock trucks. One of 'em was pretty new. I draw no conclusions.

When in Baja, in the middle of nowhere, if you're smoking, your cigarettes are generally considered public property. When folks ask out here, it's recommended you hand 'em out and smile while you're doing it.

They offered us some locally grown products, which we cheerfully turned down, and they hammered down the track on their merry way, everyone of 'em with a new cigarette in hand.

Arno did quite a number on that poor, defenseless dirt berm too. I love crashing in the desert after a rain, it's always so much softer!


From the previous thread, you can see I enjoyed the mud. I ended up going through it about 4 times before we left the area.

Just around the corner from here, we found our camping for the night. Yaay!

Looks cowboy, eh?



Lookit those thoroughbreds. Mine's in the back, being shy.





Here's the room. The walls are concrete and the only heating is that stove. Which was fine!

[MortimerSickle]

Originally Posted by edeslaur

I love crashing in the desert after a rain, it's always so much softer!

Quoting only because some things just need to be quoted.

[Blakebird]

Originally Posted by edeslaur

For reference, look how far back in the distance the climb thru the rocks is.
We backtracked a bit, but we were sure glad there were no spiral fracture tib-fib things goin' on


The place we stayed was a good find, and we were glad to find it. It wasn't cheap as Baja lodgings go... but it's remote enough that it was worth what we paid.
You tend to savor beers more when a couple six packs costs $25 USD.
They wanted to know if we were going to want more beer, because they'd send the truck out for more - and that's a seriously long haul from any direction.
The sure sign of a good host, and the folks were great hosts indeed. They stayed late to feed us that night, and were there early in the morning to send us on our way with a full belly.

The next morning we'd pass Laguna Hanson, which we were later told usually doesn't have much water in it. It's been a wet year down there, and one of the reasons we were glad to find that place was that the ground was soaked everywhere.

[Blakebird]

One thing I wish I'd gotten a picture of, was the large framed photograph they had in the cafe....of a bunch of dirtbikes covered in snow. They had quite a bit of snow this year, and recently had gotten 14". That would have been something to wake up to.

Originally Posted by drrags

Next stop; The Lake of Rocks.

Strange place, and it reminded me a little of the lake just south of Creel as you head south out of town

[edeslaur]

Before we made it to the lake, we had to find a passenger gone missing from Shaun's 950SE. Feel free to lead off, S-man.

Before that, the evening before, several of us rode Arno's bike.

I managed to lay it down. And I mean, lay it down very gently at 0 mph. Good grief it was top heavy. I made the mistake of treating it like my 610 and instead of doing a 2 point turn, drove through the berm on the side of the road. Driving back through it, the front dug in and I couldn't quite reach the ground on that side (the berm was higher than the road).

I think the horn was going off for about 30 seconds while I grappled with it, trying to make it go up instead of hold stead. I put my gorilla strength into holding it up and all I got for my troubles was a hickey on my left thumb, the horn beeping madly several times for extended periods as I shifted, slowly losing the fight with gravity, and Shaun showing up thinking I needed help (due to the horn beeps, which was nice of him to do).

By the time he'd shown up, I'd lost the battle to gravity, had placed the bike on the ground, hopped over to the left side, and had hucked it up, extremely angry at myself, and was on my way back. It ended up on the same side it had already fallen earlier and if anything, I just added more dirt.

Arno was very cool about it and blew it off, but I was mad at myself until well into the next morning.

I didn't get any picture, and the video was unfortunately corrupted (not uncommon due to some intermittent connection, probably in the aftermarket powerpack) because, now that some time has passed, it would be darn funny.

The next morning, Shaun and I went back to find his missing passenger. We made it to Arno's crash site, the last place he knew he had it, without finding it. Not unexpectedly, since we were going the other direction. We did find it after we turned around...

See if you can find the missing passenger in this picture. If not, Shaun'll surely post the story.

[edeslaur]

And I has lots of return-ride pics. It was a beautiful area.

[Watercat]

[lionsroaar]

You guys rock...I've been reading your earlier Baja trip over the last few days and just discovered this one...Keep it up and see if you can keep Arno un-injured this time ok??

[Mr. Fisherman]

Mas, poor favour

[drrags]

The Mighty BMW being pestered by those little bikes


Eric testing if the rocks were real


This:


Is here:


The lake was stunning and quite unexpected. We need to go back when we have more time and do some camping and exploring there.