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Desperado Run 2001, My story

Fun is an interesting word. Dirt riders apply it to a much broader range of activities than most folk would, and these folk would never use fun to describe a typical enduro ride. Did I have fun in Baja? You bet!

In a nutshell, we started from the KOA just on the other side of the border, near Tecate. We unloaded Mike’s WR-400, Mark’s XR-400s, Greg’s XR-650, Don’s DR-650, & my old DR-350.

After suiting up for cold weather, we road up the free road to a point where we could cross the toll road & headed the 15 miles or so to Hacienda Santa Veronica. Just passed  the Hacienda, we snaked up a 5-mile single track with ruts so deep they reached depths of over two feet in some parts. It was one of those trails where you are always looking for an alternate path to avoid the ruts. Up to this point we had experienced scattered showers & occasionally the sun would rear its head & warm us up. All along we'd been climbing into the sierras & the rains just kept getting colder. We left the single track & settled in for the rest of the trip over fire roads, washes, & streambeds.

At an indicated 42 miles on my odometer, while riding briskly over a fairly rocky road, I heard a loud bang followed by the sound of my chain working its way off the sprocket. The chain jumped off the rear sprocket & bunched up between the crankcase saver & swing arm pivot, stalling the motor instantly. The bike freewheeled in eerie silence for a moment & came to a stop a good 8-hour walk from the nearest pavement. Oh yeah! I thought, welcome to Baja!

My new fanny pack, with all those wrenches I had so carefully checked & fitted over the bike's components, paid off in a big way. A rock had broken off part of my chain guide & bent its mount. The remaining pieces of chain guide had simply derailed the chain. Fortunately, the racket it made while derailing the chain was so great that I had  backed off the throttle while trying to figure out what was going on. That little bit of luck saved me, the cases & chain were not damaged & I was able to remove the offending derailleur & tighten the chain. Total time lost: about 20 minutes, & I would also have the only mechanical casualty of the trip.

An inch of snow had accumulated in my helmet while I worked on the chain guide & it kept coming down steadily. As we road toward "Saw Mill" for fuel, it became impossible to see. My glasses & goggles were fogging up & snow was accumulating on the outside. At one point I was so fed up with this problem that I just stuck my glasses in my pocket & rode on, feeling the trail by Braille.

The Saw Mill turned out to be a small compound in the forest, with a shack that serves as a storage dump for fuel. We got there about midday. A little old lady in her late sixties braved the heavy snowfall & served up gallons of gas in old milk cartons. Bottom line: if she's not there, your odds of reaching the next fuel stop are not good.

Out of Saw Mill, some spots on the trail had snow thick enough to render my knobby tires useless. Even short shifting would cause wheel spin & in one instance it spun me around & down to the ground. Another weather driven annoyance was the large number of deep puddles that spanned the trail. You'd only want ride through these puddles as a last resort, and always wondering what lay beneath those murky waters. My boots slowly soaked up all this surplus moisture & soon my feet were sloshing in their own body-warmed pools of water.

Through another two hours of snow & sleet we arrived at Highway 3 in "Valle de Trinidad". At that point our trip began to feel less like the Doner Expedition, a good thing since they might pick the fat guy first… that'd be me!

Around 2 PM we found a small restaurant off the highway whose cool 60-degree interior filled us with warmth. After some "Carne Asada" smothered in a hot salsa, I regained feeling in my fingers. We refueled & headed east down the highway to the "Laguna Diablo" dry lake. After a short photo session on the lake, we rode on on relatively smooth washes & wide graded roads. Arriving in San Felipe just as the sunset. Total one way mileage: 204 miles.

In San Felipe we didn’t bother changing right away, instead we piled into the El Cortez’s bar & had a few beers to celebrate making it in one piece. Wives, girlfriends, friends, & kids had driven ahead & met us in town.

Saturday we enjoyed fish tacos & San Felipe’s version of Mardi Gras.

Sunday, with my clutch acting like an automatic, Don’s foot mildly smashed on an earlier encounter between his bike’s frame & an earth bank, and an apparently much larger storm headed our way, we elected to go get my truck from Tecate & haul the bikes home. Mark, Mike, & Greg braved the weather & headed back roughly the way we came & made it back to Tecate before sunset.

In all, it was a great deal of fun. Maybe in a couple of months we can do a two-day trip to Mike’s Sky Ranch?