The Most Difficult Road I've Ever Ridden
It was the last day of riding and we were headed back to do more exploring in The Ranch.
Today's crew consisted of Chuck, Iz, Norbert, and me. All experienced, skilled riders. I was probably the least skilled of the group.
Chuck in "prep mode"
Chuck and his XR650R. The bike was being persnickety today and didn't want to start. Chuck kicked the bike so much today that I told him his right leg muscles were going to end up being twice the size of his left leg muscles.
Norbert...
...and the KLR. He flat-tracks that bike like Kenny Roberts.
Iz is a wild man. He rides that Trans Alp places you wouldn't think it could get through. Like on today's ride.
Today's plan was to explore the far northeast corner of The Ranch. We wanted to ride the newly opened, unmaintained, high clearance 4 wheel drive roads in that part of the park. Specifically we wanted to explore the Los Alamos Loop and McGuirk's Loop.
We were going to ride the main road in to the Jackson Pens, turn north and ride to the Los Alamos residence. From there we would loop east and then south down to Paso al Solitario. Continuing on from there towards Tres Papalotes but taking the cutoff south, then west, to McGuirk's Tanks. That would end the unknown stuff for the day and we would ride the main road back out of the park and Hwy 170 back to Terlingua.
It was an ambitious plan and I knew it wouldn't be easy to get it all done in daylight hours. We got an early start.
One of the challenges I had was that most of the roads aren't shown on my GPS. I run a Zumo with City Navigator and these old-but-newly-opened roads are not on the mapset. So, of course, I got us off course pretty quickly.
I turned on what I though was the Jackson Pens road. It was a great road. Definitely unmaintained. 4 wheel drive. High clearance. There was even a metal sign with "Jackson Pens" on it. But I misread the map and this wasn't the right road. It was the hiking trail west of Jackson Pens road. It was clearly an old road, but not open for riding. Hiking only. My bad.
We stopped on a hill for a map check, water break, and water tank photo op.
This road was superb. I feel bad about riding it now that I know it's not open and will not ride it again, but it was fun at the time.
Later on in the day, I spotted the correct Jackson Pens road and it is a great road too, so ride it when you are in the area and avoid the hiking trail road.
Finding the loop east from the Los Alamos residence proved a bit more challenging than I expected. A group had ridden here the day before and had told me they had not been able to find the loop road to the east. I discussed it with the Ranger on duty at park HQ and she gave me some tips for finding the road. We rode around the property a couple of times till we finally figured out the right way to go.
Looking north at the Los Alamos residence from the actual Jackson Pens Road.
A short distance before you reach the Los Alamos residence on the Jackson Pens road you make a right turn, go through 2 gates, and you will then be on the loop road.
The first of the 2 gates.
This turned out to be the most difficult road I've ever ridden. It definitely hasn't been maintained in the past 100 years. I joked that the last vehicle that came through here was the wagon that made this road 100 years ago. It was very rough and overgrown. And tough to follow. In many places you just couldn't tell exactly where the road went and on more than one occasion we ended up off-route and had to backtrack to find the road.
One of the easier sections of the Los Alamos Loop Road. Easier to ride and easier to follow.
One of the less easier sections. Very rugged and not completely obvious to navigate.
Where the heck is the road? Early on the road went into this gully but we missed where it came out of the gully. The gully got narrower, rockier, and less rideable from this point.
We backtracked the gully and finally figured out where the road was and continued on our way. The difficulty was that at the point where the road existed the gully that the gully looked more like the road than the road itself looked. The road appeared to be a wash-out from a steep hill. Actually, now that I think about it, the road really was a wash-out on the side of a steep hill. Chuck asked me, "Do you think that's the road?" as he looked up the hill. I replied, "That can't be the road and if it is I don't think we can ride up it." "I'm going to need a trials bike to get up that" I thought to myself. But, it was the road, and up it we eventually went.
For the next two hours or so we worked our way slowly south. Unbelievably we didn't get any flats on this road. The road was overgrown with lots of plant life and there was no way to avoid running over it - and every plant in the desert seems to have thorns.
Various shots of the road
The southern end of the road, where it meets the "main" road, is marked with a sign. So, if you decide to run this road, riding it south to north makes it a little easier to find and get started.
We rode down to Tres Papalotes and took a lunch break.
After lunch we rode McGuirk's Loop. It was okay riding, not as rough as the Los Alamos loop, but not unenjoyable. I didn't get a single picture. Sorry.
Once back on the main road, Norbert got a flat, which I thought was kinda odd. We had ridden for hours on cactus infested roads and hadn't gotten a single flat, but a few minutes after getting on a maintained dirt road with no plant life at all on it, Norbert picks up a couple of thorns in his tire. What are the odds?
After a quick repair, it was time to head back to the barn. I got home just as the last rays of the sun were disappearing in the sky, tired, hungry, but pretty happy about the day's riding.
Chuck, what did you think of today's ride?
After an evening of dinner, drinks, and story telling we got up the next morning, loaded the bikes on the trailer and fought a stiff headwind all the way back to Austin.
And next Feb we will do it all again.