4 Days, 3 Nights, 2 national forests, 2 wrecks, and a Ruin

Hitting the Continental Dived in Colorado was my original plan, but then I realized it would be six days up and back to do that portion and I just didn’t have that much time. The continental divide will have to wait for a dedicated set of many days. So I devised a plan to spend a couple of days in the GIla National Forest in New Mexico.

The plan was ambitious and supported only by the knowledge I had of the Gila from travels by truck through the area, and by my trip last year on FR 150 on the Continental Divide Trail, and by hours of plotting routes using my National Geographic TOPO! software. By the time I was done with planning almost a thousand miles of riding was planned and I thought it would largely be dirt.

Inspired by other video reports I would record my travels largely on my Canon G9 and a new CountourHD helmet mounted camera.

I packed as light as possible, learning from last years experiences. I learned that food can be, and would be, purchased along the way- I packed too much food last year and came home with a bunch of food I didn’t eat. Using a tarp, bivy sack, sleeping mat, and sleeping bag eliminates the need for a tent even in extended foul weather, I would keep that the same. I kept clothes to a minimum on me I wore only riding shorts and an underarmour t-shirt under my riding pants and jacket, packed were a change of socks, another pair of riding shorts, and a poly pro long sleeve shirt. I brought a 1 gallon fuel can this time to make sure that I would have plenty of fuel. This year I added a cigarette plug outlet to my bike to power an air pump. This was something I didn’t have last year, and didn’t use this year but I would have been happy to have it had I had a flat. The outlet also let me recharge the video camera while riding.

Enjoy.


Day 1

Starting from Gallup at 5 pm I rode into the Zuni Reservation and took a dirt road to start heading south to Fence Lake and past that to Salt Lake. Both of these are in Carton County whose population is around 3.400, but is the largest county by area. Not much to shoot on this day because the roads were pretty simple, but I was happy to be riding. The day ended in the Apache National Forest at a primo campsite with no bugs and clear views of the milky way.

First Video:
>


Day 2 will have a lot more video- and even some photos!

Start of Day 2, still in the Apache NF
....and heading to Alpine, AZ for my first refuel.

See video below.

See video below.



DAY 3


It started with great weather and making miles on easy and well maintained forest roads. By the end of the video below, I had made it to Silver City, gotten some supplies and was off on what was to make this a true dual sport trip- lots of paved roads.

This panoramic was taken before descending into silver.

video here (same as below but in HD)


Here is the middle of day three from Silver City to Hillsboro was all hardball but if you have to travel hardball this was pretty pleasing- lots of twists and turns. I really dig Radiohead, and when traveling by truck on these same roads years past I am sure I was listening to some radiohead.

I was going to go back into the forest from Hillsboro but that turned out to be a bad idea- locked gates, and I ended up taking 90 to 25 and then north to T or C. From there I got back on track by traveling more hardball to Winston. Video on that to follow.


First Wreck

More like a tip over but I was tired and tired of pavement so I went on fun dirt and go too slow. Conclusion of this video I end up doing more pavement to Winslow.

Shot well before Winslow.

After riding into the night and making it to Winston, I had to make it camp which I did adventure style by traveling several miles down a "primitive road" that crossed a stream bed multiple times until I came upon a camp site. I was happy to get there. I set up camp without too much thought about skipping dinner- it was nearly 10:30 pm. For the first time I deployed a tarp over my bike for cover from any rain and by 2 am I was happy to have had it there. It rained for about an hour and my bivy sac and the tarp again performed wonderfully.


The next morning I got up had a light breakfast and got moving down what would be some of the best riding of the trip.
The last Camp site:

Sunrise:

More Great riding:


The Last bit of Riding on dirt in the Gila- and a close call...


After getting to Apache Creek I chose to ride north on the pavement becasue of impending storms and a need to make sure I had gas before 5 pm. I got a bit of rain and stopped to let it pass making this commentary:


The sun came out before getting to Quemado and after getting some help with directions I was off to see my last destination a set of Ancient Indian Ruins near Quemado. That is the last part of this video. Batteries ran out, and I stuck to shooting stills of this ancient home site. Certainly the nearby mountin tops played a significant part in the lives of the people who lived here and you can see that they had beautiful things all around them as evidenced by the pottery shards (never take a shard with you as they are considered to carry some serious bad juju if taken from where they were found- it is also illegal.)

These shots are from various parts of the trip:

That concluded all of the non paved journey. Thanks for following along.