After leaving the cooler better version of myself I’d like to become, I was ready for the upcoming challenge.
I made a few turns which (by luck or skill) allowed me to escape the vortex of the water cistern. I found a BLM sign in disrepair. It indicated I was somewhere near the right track… maybe. Later I saw another sign and was greatly relieved.
I began to climb on harder and harder roads. I could see the ridge long before I got there. I was definitely approaching a challenge.
Caption: Don’t get cocky, the party’s just getting started.
The trail changed dramatically. It was a two track. Nothing but ruts from the left and right tires of a truck. The trail had never ever been a road. It was probably a horse path until the Model T got cheap enough that ranchers started using them. Or maybe it was a two track from back when sheepherders or ranchers used horse drawn carriages?
I geared down and started working through rough stuff. As I rolled on I realized that the longbow hunter was the first human I’d met on my entire trip that didn’t comment on the risks of me going solo. Nor did I comment that he was also solo. It wasn’t mentioned because it was natural for both of us. Why wouldn’t we be out there on our own?
My attention distracted, I jammed a footpeg into the side of a deep rut I’d been following. Yikes! I’m still new at this and have a great fear of sandwiching my ankle between bike and terrain. Such a bad place to twist an ankle!
The ruts were deep; like narrow ditches. I don’t know how much clearance I’ve got but I’d run out of it. What’s worse is that the base was sand. The two ruts predictably had erosion, this particular ground condition meant that the lower rut acquired a floor of sand, some of which filtered in from the upper rut. Meanwhile the upper rut had all the small particles washed away and had a floor of cobblestones. Sand sucks, if your front tire “washes out” you lose steering and (unless you’re paying very close attention) fall over.
I kept hopping from the low rut to the high one. Sometimes threading the needle by riding the narrow strip between them. Even when I wrestled the bike into the upper (rocky) rut, the front tire would sooner or later follow gravity across a gap in the center ridge and I’d be back in the sandy rut. None of this tipped me over; for which I’m thankful. The bike handled the mess like a boss, it had zero fucks to give.
Any truck out there would need very high clearance and ideally tall narrow pizza cutter tires. A stock vehicle would would tear itself to bits in a few miles and inevitably wind up high centered. Of course, nobody would be there who doesn’t know such things. I saw no bits of damaged truck / jeep so I’m guessing common sense kept the fools away.
No matter where the trail went, one tire rut was taller than the other; often with a huge differential. A truck, even with a lift and tall tires, would be tilting at unnerving angles. My bike just wallowed along on one rut or the other.
I wondered about UTVs and ATVs. Up until now, I’d harbored thoughts that a bone stock UTV would do just fine on virtually any part of the BDR. A plush ride that could carry more gear than my little bike. But if the two axles of an ATV/UTV were wide enough to match truck axles, the thing might plunge in and high center? And if they weren’t? Who knows? How long can you straddle a mini-Grand canyon? Everywhere I go I see dozens of UTVs, but here, in the Wyoming rangeland, there wasn’t an ATV/UTV to be seen. It was clearly truck/jeep terrain.
Except for my little mule of a bike and the grunting bearded dude operating it. We belonged there!
The Yamaha TW200 might have seemed like a goofy choice for the overall trail. If fact it might be overly cautious and slow. But right then and there it shined!
The little spud of a bike lived up to its reputation as unstoppable. Unlike a “normal” dirtbike it doesn’t rely on speed. The modest engine and the hugely fat rear tire was perfect for where I found myself.
I geared down and rolled along more like a tractor than a motorcycle. It was a no-drama challenge. No great rooster tails of flinging dirt. No roaring high RPM maneuvers to hop the front tire out of a rut. Nothing but slow and steady. You’ll get there. Don’t fret or hurry. Ride like a rational adult and you can go to the moon.
I never had the slightest doubt. The bike wasn’t even breaking a sweat. A couple ruts got stupendously deep and my feet brushed the dirt sides but I was going slow and just lifted my feet off the pegs and out of danger. My soft saddlebags brushed against occasional sagebrush but only lightly and the thick material was never stressed. The bike chugged along, turtle like and completely unimpressed as Wyoming tried to kill it.
We climbed steeper and steeper up onto the ridge. Gradually, at some unknown elevation the sagebrush thinned out and I could traverse the land itself. I popped out of the ruts and motored along just a few feet from the disturbed rutted mess. I wasn’t the only one, you could see where other motorcycles had done the same (and occasionally entire trucks).
It was a lot easier! I kept riding in the style that matched the squat fat tired bike. I did that for miles, picking a path of least resistance in the exposed dirt between bunchgrasses and sagebrush. Winding between vegetation, I scarcely left a tire track. I couldn’t help grinning ear to ear. Navigation became easy, there was nowhere else to be. Just the tire tracks and myself, passing without a trace a foot or two to either side.
This is what I wanted. The perfect experience! A hard trail, but not a “dirt park”. A lot of folks like to blast around gravel pits and sand dunes. They use words like “technical”. Not me, I wanted to be here… rolling across the planet itself.
Higher and higher I went and the ridge grew and grew. I was on the top of the ridge (of course!) and the view went from nice, to gorgeous, to indescribable.
I stopped and took snapshots from time to time but the immensity, the grandeur, it wasn’t something meant for a cell phone “selfie”. The phone, any phone, seemed an insult to the timeless view spread before me. I wished I’d brought my old 35 mm camera; an elegant weapon, for a more civilized age.
Often when I stopped I killed the engine. Conserving mission critical fuel but also basking in the endless silence. At one spot I heard very faintly, as if from another planet, the whinny of a horse. I didn’t have binoculars but I saw something far and away down on the plain below the ridge. A horse. Don’t horses stay in groups? Herd animals, like most humans? I waited. The tiny dot trotted about like a horse ought to. It dropped out of view near a little stream. It emerged with a partner. Ah ha! I knew they wouldn’t be just one. The two, completely unaware of me, cantered about. Then they charged into a cluster of juniper and pushed a third horse into my view. They seemed to be having a jolly good time. Why wouldn’t they? They’d found ample food and a thin trickle of a stream… and endless freedom. I envied them.
Wild horses are illogical. North America lost the horse the same time it lost the Mastodon and the Camel and the Giant Sloth. When Spanish invaders bridged the gulf and unleashed horses they introduced an invasive species no more “correct” for the environment than a carrot, or Dutch Elm Disease. Yet there they are. We humans get starry eyed over them in a way don’t for invasive earthworms or tumbleweed. I don’t know now long I watched the wild horses, I don’t carry a watch.
I rode along the ridge for hours. Every inch became grander. Eventually, I could see the curvature of the earth and great parallel waves of land; as if the high desert below was an ocean. I’m not sure what was going on. Geology had taken upon itself to demonstrate fluid dynamics to the miniscule human staring into infinity. I took more pictures, none of which were adequate. Much of North America was once an inland sea. Down there, actually standing on those parallel swells, the pattern would be invisible. How much of the world am I privileged to observe only because I scaled a tall ridge to witness it?
I stopped at a survey marker. Sometime, long before lasers and satellites, someone stood there with a transit; himself observing the planet. Mapping Wyoming from the advantageous locations that could see so much of it. I shut down my engine and dug out my orange. It was here, on hallowed ground, that I would celebrate my trip.
The orange sucked.
Oh well.
Since I was stopped I decided to move my excess gas from the RotoPax to the fuel tank. Unnervingly, the tank swallowed my whole gallon and had room for more. Yikes!
I still had plenty of water. Some in a couple battered plastic bottles from the gas station, and a gallon in the other RotoPax. I considered stopping right there. It was rocky and tilted, but ever so beautiful. While I pondered this another wild horse approached, this time from the high side of the ridge where I was parked. It had a foal with it. They assessed the new addition to the neighborhood critically but didn’t run away.
Reluctantly, I stowed all my stuff, even the orange peel, and put on my gear. I was very far from anywhere and I had a few hour’s sunlight left. It would be wise to use that time.
The wild horses watched my departure; as if to say “sucker”.
Right at the survey marker the land had peaked (as I expected). The rest of the day would be downhill (as I also expected). Icarus flew too high and annoyed the gods. Me and my humble motorcycle had climbed very high, but we did so filled with humility. It would take a long time to get back down but we rolled on confident and happy.
More to come…