March DV ride begins

[johnlt]

Or more accurately, the drive begins. Trailered up two dirt bikes from Tucson to Beatty and it rained and slushed most of the way. Temps down to 34 degrees. Eddd is suppose to be riding in from Utah on his KLR. Bet he will be a cold puppy when he arrives. Still suppose to be 75-80 tomorrow in the valley but you know how wx men lie. More later

[johnlt]

Ed just rode in. Rained and slushed all the way but he was "plugged in" so arrived in good shape. Tomorrow, DV!!

[chrisolson]

John, how long are you and Ed going to be in DV ?

[johnlt]

Hi chris. We'll be for a couple days

[FlyingFinn]

I'm expecting to see some pictures from you guys.

And if you do the "southern loop" via Goler(?) Pass, for sure snap some photos.

No pictures, it never happened.

 

Mikko

[johnlt]

Did Titus canyon today and it was magnificent! Pics will follow.

[CoarsegoldKid]

Pics, pics, pics.

 

[johnlt]

Saturday morning of the first day of dirt riding found the weather a bit cold, windy and overcast so we waited until about 10 to get going. With the right layers and gloves, it wasn’t too bad. We stopped briefly at Ryolite to grab a pic of their ghost sculptures

 

There were three of us on dual sports. Ted on a KLX250, Ed on his pretty KLR650 and me on a DRZ00. All had knobby tires and we aired down significantly for the gravel roads.

This pic is a screen shot of the second half of the canyon from Google earth. You can see the gorge.

 

The road through Titus Canyon starts about 7 miles west of Beatty and is a one-way road. The first 6 miles is boring and covered with large loose gravel. Not too bad if you don’t mind your bike “dancing” a little bit. The road travels through some foothills then climbs to the summit of about 5300ft. Here is the road up to the summmit

 

and here are the three bikes and the crest

This is a shot of the short-lived town of Leadfield at the halfway point.

After Leadfield, you enter the main part of Titus Canyon itself which is a gorge with towering walls and a very narrow gap at the bottom. Here is Ted and Ed entering the Narrows.

At times, it seems the walls were vertical for a thousand feet with a 40 foot gap at the bottom. Not good during a monsoon! We ran across a few other bikers who were parked. What you can’t see is the GS on its side being worked on

 

The last shot is of the exit on the bottom near sea level

 

Over all, the road is very GSable as long as you can handle large loose gravel and a few very tight switchbacks. We enjoyed it so much we rode it a second time the next day which was absolutely beautiful with low 70s, no wind and clear ski. Good weekend.

[barryNmarin]

John, thanks for taking us on a ride through Titus Canyon. I always wondered what it looked like up there but was never able to explore it on my RT.

[eddd]

 

John has given you most of the story so I'll just add a few pictures and some narrative.

 

This was my first trip on my newly acquired KLR650. I don't have any pictures of my 250 mile ride from Hurricane, UT to Beatty, NV. Despite John's insistance that the weather would be good, I rode about 220 miles in rain and 10 in hail with temps as low as 39F.

 

Here are the Klim brothers, John and Ted.

 

The road to Titus Canyon isn't too difficult, but it certainly is not for road bikes.

 

 

The Ubehebe Crater is much bigger than it looks in this picture.

 

We had lunch on Sunday at this cafe in Death Valley Junction. John and Ted had already left to return to Beatty while I headed to Parumph, Las Vegas, and finally home. Luckily, the ride home was dry and much warmer than the ride down.

 

[Bill_Walker]

This is a shot of the short-lived town of Leadfield at the halfway point.

 

I heard that the citizens of Leadfield all died of oxygen starvation, as a result of the lack of periods in their speech.

[longjohn]

Thanks to John and Ed for the fine pics of a place I will probably never get to. Good job fellas.