A GREAT Divide Pandemic Adventure

[GreenHornet]

that pic is basically what I imagined my hand would look like after I tried to shoot that handgun! "owch ..."

I think I was just holding it wrong

Somthing like this available at any hardware store should fix that one
And prevent the other one from braking later..

Thanks. The thought about finding an angle bracket did cross my mind when I got home. I already bought a replacement bracket, and should look into fortifying it. I mentioned to AltRider that they might want to look into making the bracket out of something stronger or fortifying it but not sure one person's input would make a huge difference.

 

[GreenHornet]

Day 10 Steamboat Springs to Rawlins to Pinedale

After the refreshing evening soaking in the hot springs and a great night's rest at the KOA, it was with great exuberance and anticipation that I prepared to tackle the last leg of Colorado. I made great time through Colorado, was able to run street pressures both front and rear, and didn't drop my bike at all. Things were looking up.

But first, I wanted to grab some sustenance on the way out. Turns out that Sunday morning is a bad time to try and get a table in Steamboat.

The Creek Side Cafe was mighty popular, and the wait for an outside table was around 1.5 hours, much longer than I felt like waiting. So I braved the risk of a covid infection at the bar.

Legal Speedball

Corned beef hash Yum

They had an impressive selection of bloody marys on the menu, not to mention a very long skinny bartender. I figured I could handle 2 bloodys plus I wanted to try one with more garnish.

Came across this McMansion in the middle of nowhere.

Saw these gents taking a break on the side of the road, so I turned around to have a little chat. They were very friendly, and had just purchased these new Pathfinders explicitly for their CDT trip. They were also going South to North and using GPSKevin's tracks. Well, I think they were loosely sticking to his tracks because they were talking about not taking some of the narrower routes. I was supposed to hit them up on Instagram but for reasons that will soon become apparent, I never got around to it.

 

[GreenHornet]

My first impression of Wyoming was wow how desolate. A whole lotta nada.

Way off on the horizon, I could see what I thought was smog, which seemed weird since there wasn't any traffic to speak of. I would soon realize it was smoke. The west was afire.

 

[GreenHornet]

I made it to Rawlins with at least 6 hours of daylight to spare. What I should have done was spend the night here. Of course, I didn't. The last leg of Colorado was so easy, and there was so daylight left, I decided to keep on trucking. This was a mistake for a number of reasons.
This would be the longest stretch of riding with no filling stations. I should have realized that no filling stations also meant no lodging, no people, no civilization to speak of. But that didn't really dawn on me.
I had my 2 gallon gasbag, brought for just this stretch. At least 230 miles with whatever gas you brung.

All gassed up and ready for adventure

Not too long after leaving the highway, traveling at a decent clip I almost didn't see this fence and gate in time. Came skidding to a stop in the nick of time.
Not seeing any signs warning me of being shot, or some other such thing, I assumed I should just open the gate, go through and close it back behind me.

I had to stop to snap some pics of this ghost towny place.

 

[GreenHornet]

Then came the sand. Not bad at first, but it just kept getting deeper. The tracks I was following weren't super wide and I had a few close calls but was able to get through what felt like several miles of sand, before catastrophe.
This is wear I made another critical error. I had been running street pressures throughout Colorado. In New Mexico I was running high 20's front and rear and I never aired down after leaving the highway outside Rawlins. The bike felt pretty good above about 30mph but seeing that the track wasn't that wide, and I didn't always have visibility very far ahead, I was worried that I might be going too fast if I came across something unexpected.
The short of it is, eventually I went down.

Then I really messed up and sank the Titanic.

 

[SFMCjohn]

wow, that's an epic sand trap!

 

[berth]

I always like to say: "Adventure is a bad trip remembered fondly."

Interesting.

While this is the stuff you saw, and certainly part and parcel to the experience...

I had to stop to snap some pics of this ghost towny place.

This is the stuff you talk about afterword.

Then came the sand.
...
Then I really messed up and sank the Titanic.

Went to Death Valley once with a friend. Did some 4 wheeling, different trails. It was Death Valley, very nice.

Then we got stuck in the mud. As you can imagine, that was an endeavor to get out of. 3 days, $2000, 2 tow trucks and an old army jeep car later, we got it out. We couldn't do more than 35MPH driving back in to town because the wheels were so completely out of balance due to mud. We were at the car wash for an hour trying to get it all cleaned out.

Thats the adventure we talk about. The adversity we survived. Since everyone came out healthy, we can just laugh about it all now.

 

[1962siia]

Oh man that thing is sunk alright!

 

[Cabrito]

wow, that's an epic sand trap!

Indeed!

I'm on the edge of my seat over here!

edit: my back hurts looking at that...

 

[MTERK]

How in the world did you get the beast out of that by yourself???

You animal!

 

[MTERK]

How in the world did you get the beast out of that by yourself???

You animal!

 

[GreenHornet]

Went to Death Valley once with a friend. Did some 4 wheeling, different trails. It was Death Valley, very nice.

Then we got stuck in the mud. As you can imagine, that was an endeavor to get out of. 3 days, $2000, 2 tow trucks and an old army jeep car later, we got it out. We couldn't do more than 35MPH driving back in to town because the wheels were so completely out of balance due to mud. We were at the car wash for an hour trying to get it all cleaned out.

Thats the adventure we talk about. The adversity we survived. Since everyone came out healthy, we can just laugh about it all now.

That sounds like quite an adventure, at least in retrospect.

 

[ripter]

Holy WOW. Did you at least find some gold in that pit you dug?

 

[GreenHornet]

Figured I'd let the suspense build for a minute.

Ok so here I am in quite the pickle. I hadn't seen another soul since leaving Rawlins. I had my recovery system thing but I wasn't close enough to the power line poles to tie up to one. The rest was sand. I wasn't really panicking because I had some 3G phone reception, plus I had my inReach mini. I had lots of water, food, and shelter. I figured if I was going to get out of this any time soon I'd have to figure out how to do it on my own.
This sort of thing, having no one else to rely on even if I wanted it, was the single best thing I experienced on this trip. I thought of all those riders who did solo round the world moto adventures, and figured if I put my mind to it I could probably get myself out of a lot of things without any help.

The first idea I had was to cut some sage brush with my SOG tool and shove it under the back wheel. I figured maybe I could get enough traction to get out.

That failed miserably. I thought about just camping where I was but I had this image of someone careening down the trail in the dark and running my bike over. I had this little trowel with me for doing the business so to speak. So I basically dug my bike out with the trowel, while making a gradual incline up. Kind of like a sand ramp. I also dropped my rear tire pressure to about 7 psi.
After about 2 hours I got free.

I tried to backfill the trench a bit so it wasn't a hazard to the next person. This would have been a good spot to pull over and spend the night but I was a bit irritated and figured I'd ride until I found a better spot. But then things just got pretty rocky and there was nothing but Kamikaze jack rabbits and rocks. I just decided to push on to Pinedale. I was just being extremely stubborn. I rode through the night and it got cold. This was the coldest night of my trip. Even colder than Montana. It got down to 27 degrees indicated on my dash and the heated grips did nothing. I was too stubborn to even pull over and put on my warm gloves.

I made it to Pinedale some time just before daybreak and thought about getting a hotel room because I was exhausted and frozen, but I didn't think it would be worth it because check out would be in about 5 or 6 hours max.
I decided to try my luck at the Fremont Lake campground. There was an attendant but they were fast asleep in their travel trailer so I just grabbed a spot to set up my tent and take a nap.

 

[GreenHornet]

Holy WOW. Did you at least find some gold in that pit you dug?

Only fool's gold

 

[berth]

After about 2 hours I got free.

\o/

 

[budman]

Four letters for this thread.

E
P
I
C

 

[HeatXfer]

↑↑↑↑Fantastic!↑↑↑ - I bet you could see that from space

Great report - trial by fire!

 

[1962siia]

Wow! That trench is epic! Just for future reference, or for anyone else reading this thread who finds themselves in a similar circumstance, I think the easiest way to extract the bike from a self dug hole is to knock the bike over on its side and drag the rear end over out of the hole and then stand it back up. Might be tougher on the flat twin behemoth!

 

[GreenHornet]

↑↑↑↑Fantastic!↑↑↑ - I bet you could see that from space

Great report - trial by fire!

Thanks, it's a new landmark in Wyoming

Four letters for this thread.

E
P
I
C

artyartyartyarty