ADVENTURE ARIZONA
“All I saw was his taillights about twelve feet up and rolling to the left!”

FEATURED IN CARTWHEELING' MAGAZINE

WORDS BY SEAN MCGARVIE
PHOTOGRAPHY BY DAVE DAHM

It was a typical Tuesday morning when driving into the office thinking of overdue bills the coming weekends chores and how in world the morning radio DJ's could be in such a great mood, when my cell phone rang. On the other end was my close friend that had recently moved to Lake Havasu Arizona. A fellow adventurer at heart, he had come up with another wild idea to get me to come out. "Why don't you grab your Rhino, come out to Havasu, and we'll go to the Grand Canyon!” I don't think I spoke for a full minute thinking back to the last “adventure” he came up with, witch ended with a phone call to my wife explaining that we were stuck in a blizzard in Big Bear, and that we needed her to hook up the trailer to the back of my truck and come get us… I still hear about that…

Just before he hung up the phone thinking we'd lost signal, I said, “That sounds like a great idea!”

Winter was coming on fast, so it was imperative that we did the ride as soon as possible. So with the holiday weekends filling up fast we decided on the weekend before Christmas. With short days, and brutally cold nights, it was definitely worthy of the title of “Adventure”.

That Monday before the trip my buddy called to make sure I was still coming out, and to let me know that two of his fellow Rhino buddies would be joining the ride, so that Friday night after work I headed straight to Havasu.

The next morning came early, as the four of us headed out around six o'clock, but first we had to stop by one of the guy's office to grab a forgotten item. As it turned out, his office was located on the waterfront in the English Village, right next to the famous London Bridge. Photo Opp.! Being off-season and so early in the morning the place was deserted. So we snuck the Rhinos down to the lower level courtyard and took some great and rare photos.

Once on the trail heading out of town it started to sink in just how long this day was going to be. The first hour or so was some great high-speed Baja-style jeep roads that paralleled the highway heading northwest towards Kingman. Along the way, now paralleling the railroad tracks, we came across The Doll House. A truck stop / gentlemen's club that must have been built very early in the last century since it sported his and hers outhouses built right into the front next to the entrance.

After discussing the shady history of this place, we buckled up and headed for the hills. But first, while heading north trying to find a place to cross the railroad tracks, we stumbled into an old drag strip. Cruzing what would have been backwards up the old abandoned drag strip and rounding the barely standing announcer's booth, we ran smack dab into a beautiful haven on earth. A perfectly groomed, unfenced BMX track! Rhino Supercross was born! (If you ever get the chance to run a Rhino on a BMX track, do it!)

Not wanting to draw too much attention to ourselves, and burn too much precious warm daylight, we headed for the hills, climbing our first real hill climbing of the trip. After taking turns hanging from the side of each other's rides to keep them rubber side down, we headed off down the trail and back towards our main rout. Not wanting to back-track, we made a loop out of it returning to our rout a few miles further down, and past one serious jump!


Past the Jump of Death we came into what we thought to be an old abandoned factory, so we thought. Spreading out across the vast back lot of this mammoth facility to get out of each other's dust, I happened to catch a glimpse of something out of the corner of my eye. An over eager rent-a-cop in a older Ford pickup with a single yellow flashing light on it's roof was hot on our tail. We must have looked like scattering roaches as we headed in every direction trying to find a way out of there! Finally we found a hole in the barbwire topped fence, and escaped to the safety on the opposite side of the fence, and railroad tracks. That made for a great laugh a mile or so up the
road.

Driving four Rhino's down Main Street, Kingman was kind of cool. The looks from the passing cars and pedestrians on the street corners were a mix of surprise and wonder. Once refueled and back off the pavement we found a wide open dirt road that paralleled Rout 66 north towards the town (if that's what you'd call the single signcovered gift shop complete with a beautiful all original 57' corvette parked out front as “decoration”) of Hackberry. Venturing on we found an old mining road that wound its way through the ever-changing landscape of red rock and sagebrush. Passing old Victorian style ranches nestled in the willow's set along small seasonal streams, I really started to slow down mentally and take it all in. This was a great idea indeed.

Pulling into the Indian Nation town of Peach Springs, located along the historic Rout 66, it occurred to me that this trip was actually going to be a double feature. Not only were we headed for one of nature's most wonderful marvels, but we were also being submerged in the romance and wonder of the nations first interstate, the great 66. Once the greatest highway in the states, these towns that were once thriving metropolises are now merely empty shells of their former selves. When the newer, straighter, and faster interstate 40 was completed, these towns that it bypassed turned to dust overnight. (The annimated move Cars is real. In fact Radiator Springs was actually named after Peach Springs.)

We knew that from this town we could find a rout that would take us to our destination, the Grand Canyon. We went into the local market with the sign on the front that said “One child in the store at a time please” and asked the Indian lady with the three kids running amuck how we could get to the rim from there. She politely told us of Dear And Doe Rd. just outside of town, and explained that we needed to buy a pass from the local wildlife office before venturing onto their sacred land. Then staring at my buddies $5000 professional camera slung over his shoulder, she reluctantly asked, “are you going to be taking pictures?”… We said no.

It was now late in the afternoon and the sun was sinking low in the western winter sky, the temperature was dropping fast and if we were going to make it to the edge for sunset photos we'd have to get moving. Heading out the 60-mile dirt road towards the rim we could see the top edges of the great canyon in the distance straight ahead, and off to our right to the distant north. We passed small non-descript dirt roads heading off to the north every mile or so, but we continued down the main road as the anticipation of the canyon grew.

After 45 minutes on this wide dirt road that seemed to be running parallel to the rim, with the sun quickly setting, we made the fateful decision to take one of these inviting roads to the north sure we'd run into the rim in only a mile or two.

With the anticipation of the great rim and unimaginable views reaching a fever pitch, we raced each other as if in the lead to win the world famous Baja 1000. After several miles of winding around through cattle grounds, chasing elk the size of fat horses with antlers spanning at least six feet, while racing blindly through a field of grass six feet high, we finally stopped along the old cattle trail and watched as the last of the sun sank into the western sky… We failed… But more importantly, where were we?!

As night quickly fell around us and the wind began to pick up, we knew we had a long and cold night ahead of us. Starting the campfire became priority number one as the temperature dropped into the 30's as if someone switched on the great AC in the sky. It was only seven o'clock. Happy hour!

After three hours of great laughs of the day and a few bottles of the devil, we thought we'd better get the tents up, and the bedding down. It was now 22 degrees, and blowing a constant 10 knots from the north, according to my trusty hand held wind and temp meter from Big Five. The skies were still clear, but we were all too aware of the oncoming storm that was due to arrive either late that night or early the next morning. At 5500 ft. that meant snow, and at least six to eight inches worth.

As the sun rose in the east, we all seem to come to life at the same moment, and with the same thoughts… “Oh my head!”... & “Dam its cold!” We quickly dressed and refueled the still smoldering ashes to get some warmth back into our blood. The impending storm had not arrived, but the wall of clouds on the horizon was a sure sign that she was still coming.

After breakfast we pulled out the GPS to try to determine first how close we were to the canyon, and second, where we were at all! According to the little black computer we were still six miles from the river as a crow flies, and forty eight miles from Rout 66. Knowing of the long day ahead, the approaching storm, and the relatively short distance to the river, we decided to pack up camp and continue to our destination. We weren't giving up yet!

Once the camp was packed, we buckled in to head out, only to find that one of the Rhinos refused to start. Apparently running that massive overhead lights the night before with the engine off while trying to set up the tents in the bitterly cold wind wasn't the greatest idea; although I do wish we had a video of that segment! After the brief “friendly” discussion over who was suppose to bring the jumper cables, we had to get creative. Removing one battery and holding it upside down onto the top of the other sounded like a good idea at the time. However in practice it didn't work out so well. Fortunately the Rhino in question happened to have a winch on the front with huge leads that were easy to get to.

Not before we moved one foot in the direction of the great canyon did the adrenaline spike in all of us as we pinned the throttle and the race continued from the evening before as if it had never stopped. Thankfully my reaction time and location allowed me to gain the lead and stay out of the blinding dust that would quickly stop or progress in its tracks.

“All I saw was his taillights about twelve feet up and rolling to the left!”

Yeah, I'm glad I got the lead. It seamed my buddy / photographer decided he could take the lead if he could only get around the outside in the next corner… He failed to see the rock the size of the desk that I'm sitting to type this, and went for the ride of his life! Not only did he destroy his rim & tire, crack his a-arm, and badly bruise his ego, but he managed to actually oblong his steering wheel!

Battered, but not broken we put on the spare, laughing about the huge rock that he somehow split in two and then realized that his Rhino wasn't running… Remember the lights from the night before?Same Rhino. Again pulling the battery from another Rhino we were able to get it running only to notice that the impending storm was right on top of us. It was getting late in the morning, the storm was on us, and we had no idea where we were or how far we were from the rim. With no remaining spare, fuel running low, a storm clamping down, and the real world calling us to come back to reality, it was time to admit defeat and turn for home.

Making our way out of the bush and back to the main dirt road was thankfully easier then anticipated. Only two hours had passed before making it back to Buck And Doe Rd. to continue our journey roughly thirty miles up the main dirt road heading back to Peach Springs.

Once in Peach Springs we headed north for a few miles to the Grand Canyon Caverns. Arriving at the caverns around lunch time, we were delighted to find that they boasted about their world famous cheese burgers. They weren't lying! Never before had I not been able to finish the biggest of burgers. Twice this weekend we were all defeated, as none of use could muster the strength to finish them, even though we desperately wanted to.

While enjoying our burgers and beer we kept hearing the loudspeaker in the background announcing tour starting times for the caverns. This peaked our interests, so twelve dollars and twenty one stories down; we were smack dab in the center of a cavern that could hold four regulation football fields. Making our way along the path looking at all of natures subterranean beauties we passed a giant prehistoric sloth. It looked like a giant grizzly bear with a tail. Apparently it, along with a few others found down there, wandered in and could find their way out. Above the sloth's head on the wall you could plainly see her claw marks where she tried to climb out.

Once back on the surface it was time to say goodbye to the cook, waitress, and others who made us feel like family in only an hour, and prepared for our long journey home. But once again before we could leave, the spare tire on the one Rhino was flat. It was a quarter after one in the afternoon with 6 hours of drive time, 170 miles to cover, and a flat spare. After a few minutes of looking the tire over to see the cause, we determined that it was merrily a loose valve stem. An easy fix. Except we could find a valve core remover to save our lives, so we pumped up the tire as hard as possible, chewed a piece of Bubble-Luscious, stole a metal valve stem cover from another Rhino, stuck the gum in and screwed it on.

The ride home was uneventful, staying within eyeshot of ol' Rout 66 incase we needed to break out the gum and find some air. Along the way we passed two story Victorian houses built in a time gone by, with barns and cattle fences that have stood the test of time and looked set to do so for some time to come.

We finally rolled in to Lake Havasu around eight o'clock that evening, cold, hungry, and exhausted. Thank god I only still had a four hour drive back to So Cal!

Departing my friend's house for the long warm quiet drive home, I simply looked at him and said “thanks… When are we going to finish this one?”

There is a place in So Cal that is small, compared to the great mountains of Idaho or Colorado, but a place nonetheless, that has the same feel, sights and views as its bigger cousins.

-Back-roads-

August 1st was a typically hot day in Southern California, so when my friends pulled up my drive on their Adventure bikes, saying things like “hurry up”, and “lets go”, I have to admit I had some apprehension. For most in the lower reaches of California, summer is a time to sit by the pool, drinking purple concoctions out of ridiculously tall glasses, while tanning some portion of their plastic enhanced body parts.

That’s not the case for all of us though. For a vastly small, arguably insane percentage of Californians, summertime merely means that the temperature is higher, and the bikes are bigger. Dirt bike riding doesn’t stop; it only grows 200 pounds and gains a license plate. Presto! Adventure Riding is born!

OK, I’ll admit it sounds a little crazy, but sitting on the couch staring mindlessly at a Days Of Our Lives marathon for hours on end is as crazy as attacking gnarly mountain single-track, or even blitzing across the desert at 80 miles an hour in the middle of the summer! Trust me! We’ve tried it all!

Now picture yourself sitting on that worn out old couch, watching nothing, while staring at the TV, wishing that you could throw your leg over your bike and go get dirty. Now you can!
The advent of the “Adventure Bike” created the perfect atmosphere for exploring the backcountry. These bikes, somewhat beastly compared to our normal motocrossers, let you know right away that gnarly mountain single-track is out of the question, leaving you content and downright happy to be on the old logging, mining, and fire roads that take you to places only dreamed of in So Cal. Places that actually exist but are seldom seen because of our smaller, non-street-legal steeds!

After some discussion over where it was they wanted to go, and some sweet-talking to my better half—pushing back the honey-do list one more day—we were off on our adventure. Leaving the house around 9:00 AM, we headed northeast into the local mountains in search of the perfect jeep road, to take us up to cooler temperatures and fantastic views.

Along the way, we discovered that there really are a lot of backcountry dirt roads that most people never see. We also discovered natural springs with the coldest, purest water I’ve ever tasted, beautiful creeks alive with crickets, frogs, and minnows, and even a few old-time cabins, complete with homemade deck furniture, used by miners and ranchers from the turn of the last century!

Lunchtime found us staring up at a rock the size of Half Dome! Well not really, but it was close. Just ask the guy that was hanging two thousand feet up on the face of it… on purpose! This rock towers over the quaint mountain town of Idyllwild, and stands like a guardian angel for the locals.

The town of Idyllwild is great! Shops and boutiques line the streets, while local bands play in the grass in the center of town. Finding the perfect lunchtime restaurant is a snap: Just look for the one with the outside tables and the sign that simply says, “Beers & BBQ.” Perfect!

After taking in the local sounds and eating the perfect BBQ, we headed down the mountain on the road (which I do have to admit is a little fun) and off to our next destination. Heading southeast for a while, through a valley lined with multi-million-dolor homes complete with private lakes and tennis courts, we came to a dirt road that headed in the right general direction, so we took it.

We spent the next four hours exploring old mining camps, stopping by cool mountain springs and taking in the beauty, all the while climbing our way up to 9,000 ft. where we finally found cooler temperatures…

Executive Decision

Most of us at one time or another have been talked into camping in some overcrowded place during some over hyped holiday weekend by the same old lines: "It's not that bad," or "You just have to ride out a bit further." I admit, not only have I fallen for this trick a few times, but I have even said those exact lines to others in the hopes of getting friends and family to come along.

Over one million people now recreate with off-road vehicles in the state of California alone. Most of them choose to do so in Southern California locations such as Glamis, Ocotillo Wells, Gordon's Wells, Buttercup and Superstition Mountains. These five places, known as the "Big Five," are spectacular riding areas, with undeniable beauty and variety of terrain. Unfortunately these areas are being stretched past practical capacity, and camping there is more like camping in a Wal-Mart parking lot, only not as friendly. However, some SoCal residents understand the math involving so many dirt bike riders in only five riding areas and choose to look to the north.

This year, Halloween weekend brought record numbers to all the usual riding areas, and we were there to witness it. With this in mind, and Thanksgiving rapidly approaching, it was time to make an executive camp decision: We would not be visiting any of the Big Five this Thanksgiving!

I spent the next two weeks staring at countless maps and websites, while asking as many people as possible about good places to go. I didn't get anywhere. The general lie fron everyone I later figured out was "I don't know." It was time to take a drive. Time to put my truck in four-wheel drive and hit the desert. I'd find a place come hell or high water. Little did I know how relevant the latter would be!

After an extensive search that took my girlfriend and I through some great places, and some not-so-great places, while trying to stay as close to So Cal as possible, we found it! We found the perfect place! Well... almost.

Our newfound campsite would be nestled on the edge of a medium-sized dry lake bed some ten miles off the main state route. The access road was unmarked and perfectly disguised for keeping out the masses. After a bit of discussion with my better half, we decided that this would be the place to spend our four-day Thanksgiving holiday, and a detailed map with directions would be necessary to ensure the rest of the group could find it.

Thanksgiving morning, our group started to trickle in. Without exception, everyone was red in the face, and looking for rope! "What the hell is up with the eight miles of washboard?" and, "I just lost three years of life off my motor home" were the repeated themes all morning long. All I could do was shrug...

At three o'clock, it was time for the best meal of the year, and as usual, it was unbelievable! With three turkeys and dozens of side dishes, over-eating wasn't an option but rather a fact of life! It was during this time of gorge that I first started to hear comments being made about how nice it was out there, and how unbelievably deserted it was for one of the biggest holiday camping weekends of the year. I smiled inside, while shoveling mashed potatoes into my overstuffed belly.

Night comes early in the winter, and the remaining snow on the ground was a good indication of what the temperature would be. Fortunately, the absence of wind and the abundance of firewood made for the perfect evening.

Friday morning was bright, cold and perfect for the unbelievable riding ahead. Our first ride would take us over three mountain ranges, across beautiful valleys, and subject us to sand dunes, sand washes, muddy lake beds and rocky hillclimbs with a pucker factor of ten! Four hours and only forty miles later, we were back at camp and ready for lunch.

Everyone on the first ride, including myself, was blown away by the vastness and beauty of it all. The rocky hills littered with single-track trails, the sand washes that wound through the desert floor for endless miles, and the sand dunes that reached for the sky were more then we ever imagined would be in a place like this. In a nutshell it was all of the Big Five rolled into one! Except something was missing;crowds! We passed one small group that was resting on a hilltop some twenty miles from camp, and that was it!

Later that afternoon we headed north, toward a mountain covered with rocks, snow, and radio towers. Along the way, we found sandy hillclimbs littered with rocks, single-track trails up and over mountain ridges, and a muddy lake bed that was perfect for covering an unsuspecting buddy. Once we reached the mountain of towers, we found it nearly impossible to crest, and with fuel running low, it was time to head for camp.

Later that evening as the full moon rose in the clear, still air, it was obvious to most, if not all, that the four-hour drive and eight miles of dirt washboard road really was worth the effort.
The rest of the weekend went better than imagined, and even though I still like to ride and camp in the Big Five areas, never again will I spend a holiday weekend there.

That following Tuesday morning, while surfing the web looking for anything new on Dirtrider.com, a guy at work came up to me and asked if I knew of a good place to ride that wasn't crowded. I simply shrugged and said, "I don't know."