WYBDR: All Hell Breaks Loose

The mystery and joy of “adventures” is that time becomes malleable. It was mid-afternoon and I’d already lived a year’s fun. I’d been through regret and uncertainty as my little bike struggled over a high altitude pass on smooth pavement. I’d been justly pleased with my choices as the rugged little bike climbed over a remote pass on its native habitat of dirt. And now I had settled into a deep feeling of contentment. All concerns of the outside world were irrelevant.

Eating beef jerky and drinking lukewarm water at the more or less unpopulated and completely service free “town” of Hyattville might have been the most mellow moment I’d had in months. All was well with the world.

But of course, that was just part of the story. The rest of the story is that a dark cloud was rumbling in the distance, I was behind “schedule”, and my leg was aching something fierce.

The leg wasn’t a mystery. Normally I swing my leg over the bike like a cowboy getting into a saddle but now that I’d loaded the rear of the bike with all sorts of bulky shit I had to “high kick” to get my right leg over the seat. It was an unnatural use of muscles long neglected. Each time I winced a bit.

As for being behind schedule, I shrugged. There was a campsite at Ten Sleep (and a microbrew with good food it was said). If I got there a little after dark so be it.

As for the cloud, it was what it was. Hopefully I’d make the canyon. Beyond that I had no plans.

The route climbed up onto a long desert flat. From there it looked like it dove into a canyon, squiggled around in the canyon for a while, and then popped out on pavement a scant few miles from Ten Sleep.

I rolled out of town, got up on the exposed flat and happily puttered through the desert. The cloud chased me alarmingly. Nothing I could do about it though. I hoped to get to the canyon before the storm hit. I wasn’t too worried because this isn’t my first rodeo (at least with deserts). In a deep canyon I could hunker down in some nook or cranny. I’d munch on snacks, wait out the storm, and then emerge a little muddy. No big deal.

WRONG!

The empty flat desert got higher, flatter, more exposed, and sandy. It became the textbook definition of a place you don’t want to be when a storm hits and there was nothing I could do about it. The trail’s twists and turns meandered in the general direction but didn’t seem to make much progress. You can’t go faster than you can go and this trail wasn’t smooth enough to let me “hustle”.

The front edge of the storm hit with gusts of wind. Dust devils sprang up at random intervals. The trail wound back and forth. Sometimes I was cross to the wind. Other times I was parallel and it was at my back. Crosswind was hard work but manageable. A gritty stream blasted across my view so intensely I wondered if it would sandblast the paint right off my bike! That seemed unlikely but you had to be there. Even so I could keep the stout little bike upright and chugging along. Whenever I was parallel to the wind it was much worse. Airborne dirt had a chance to build up and it went full “white out”. Maybe that’s the wrong word. I’m a northern guy and “white out” is when blowing snow obscures all vision. I’ve no idea what a “dirt out” is called.

I sought in vain for shelter. Anything, even a rock where I could huddle in the lee away from the wind, would be better than exposed. But there was nothing. Finally the white out completely obscured all vision and there was nothing left to do. I was near a shabby pine. It was bent and scraggly and about as tall as a Christmas tree. That would have to do.

I put down the kickstand right there in the middle of the trail. If a truck came by it might flatten my bike… but I couldn’t see to do anything else. Most likely any truck would be blinded and stopped by the storm too. Plus I had seen a grand total of two motorcycles all day anyway.

I staggered off the bike, pulling my “high kick” muscles mightily in the effort, and stumbled into the tree. Literally… I fell into it’s branches. I have an Aerostich jacket and pants. They’re tough like a fireman’s jacket. I zipped every pocket and closure tight. I left on my helmet. I sat on the dirt.

All hell broke loose!

The leading edge winds had been intense, the ensuing rain was far worse. It was a maelstrom.

Rain fell hard. Giant icy drops the size of marbles. The wind hit like a train and grew with intensity at every gust. The rain landed like shotgun blasts. The planet’s atmosphere seemed focused on my little piece of desert; concentrated into a great flood tide rolling over the human gnat caught in the endless plain!

I expected my Aerostich jacket to handle the rain. It didn’t. It was instantly soaked through. My gloves turned to mush. I was chilled to the bone. The only part of me that stayed dry was the back of my head, where my helmet (which I hadn’t removed) bore the brunt. My face was soaked and windburned.

Well… shit!

I wanted to grab a tarp to wrap around me. Unfortunately, I’d made a mistake when packing. I had a small tarp that packs to about the size of a sandwich. In order to “lighten the load” I’d left it behind. My tent had a suitable ground tarp (that for marketing purposes also has SOS printed on one side… better not let that side show!) but it was rolled with the tent itself. If I opened the tent bag my tent would be instantly soaked. Better to preserve the dryness… that’s where I was going to sleep in a few hours!

Shivering, I thought about the warmer clothes I’d packed. However, I decided to NOT open my waterproof saddlebags. If I opened them while getting blasted by God’s pressure washer, all the contents would be soaked. My sweatshirt, tied to the outside of the mess, was a sponge.

I hunkered down, jerking involuntarily every time lightning struck, and waited. It was a longer wait than I expected. And colder and more miserable too. But it was what it was.

I thought about modern humans. So very few of us have ever been anywhere in nature. Of those that have, most travel in cars or trucks. I thought about sitting in the cab of a Toyota; heater on, windshield taking blasts instead of my face, maybe the radio burbling in the background. Sitting in a chair… with a roof. Damn that sounded nice.

Not for me. I was getting an experience entirely unlike that. Maybe most modern people have no experience with what I endured. To them, it’s a cartoonish camping trip. To me, with the bike almost invisible not 10 feet away, my clothes soaked, my body cold, and no shelter… I fretted that I should have made better choices. I might as well be a caveman shivering under a pelt. Except a caveman would probably be smart enough to arrange shelter better than I had.

But… did I die?

Nah. I ate shit for a while and then the rain let up. Am I not a strong tough biker dude? Is not suffering, at least a little, good for you? As my Grandma used to say “you’re not going to melt!”

Though beaten, demoralized, and soaked, I was still there after the storm. I stood up, shook it off, and high kicked my ass back onto my soaking motorcycle. I was still a long way from town.

Adventure indeed!