Bike Week West 1993

By Lee Rogers, April 1993 (yes, really from 1993)
with Dan Watson, Steve Handyside, Paul Rini, Jim Vukovich, and Lee Rogers

We left Highland Michigan about 12:15 p.m. and ran into a snowstorm north of Indianapolis, just before dark. "Black ice" conditions existed all the way across Illinois. With too much weight near the rear of the trailer, the "tail wanted to wag the dog". Without the manual override on the electric brakes, we would have wound up in the ditch along with many of the other cars and trucks we saw. Our top speed across Illinois was between 30 and 40 m.p.h.. Missouri had salted the roads but the heavy snow continued until the Oklahoma state line. We arrived in Laughlin, Nevada shortly after 3:00 o'clock E.S.T. (midnight local time) 39 hours after leaving Steve's house in Highland.

Day One-Saturday 2-27-93 10:00 a.m.- 47 degrees and rain -

The locals said, "Most rain this year than in over 200 years, coldest winter ever, more rain in February this year than the previous three years combined".
We went to a Kmart and hardware store in Bullhead Az. looking for some rain gear. We stopped at Bullhead Cycle and talked to Gordon, the owner. He showed us a letter from Jerry that indicated he was in Florida and would be heading back any time now.
We saddled up shortly before noon and rode to the lookout over Davis Dam. Lee's bike quit on the way. No major problem (the choke was left on).
We then rode up Christmas Tree Pass (alt link) to CalNevAri. The road was closed near the top due to much of the roadway being washed out. After gassing up we rode back Christmas Tree Pass Road to the base of the mountain. A truck stopped us and said the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) was giving tickets for going past the closed signs on the Pass. We took a telephone line road to the right, then a road to the left that took us to the microwave station. The last mile or so was in 6" of snow.
After leaving the microwave station we took a trail to the east of the telephone line road to the highway, then Camel Corps. Road and turned left after a high speed run through a wash. Lee got out of shape over some whoops and almost went down. Dan hit Lee's rear wheel and straightened him up, but Dan went over the handlebars hard (about 45 m.p.h.), then the bike landed on him. Dan ended up on the ground 150' from the start of the crash. He was banged and bruised but had no major injuries. We went down Lizard Gulch to the highway, then back to the Colorado Belle.
After dinner Dan was pretty sore. Steve and Lee stayed with Dan in the hotel room while Jim and Paul went casino hopping. They came in about 12:30 a.m. and announced that Paul hit a nickel slot machine for 480…….. nickels ($24.00) with one pull.

Day Two-Sunday

It rained early and we didn't get out until about noon. We rode the power line to the west, heading to Goffs, a small whistle stop in California. About 10 miles along the trail, Lee had a flat rear tire. Jim was running about 10 lbs. in his rear tire vs. Lee at 18 lbs. (Go figure!!). We didn't have any tire tools or a patch kit with us on the trail. Lee rode Jim's bike back to the trailer with Paul. They returned with tire tools and new tubes. After mounting a tube and tire it was inflated with two CO2 cartridges. These achieved less than 5 psi. Lee and Steve rode back to the parking lot very slowly (rough terrain and sharp rocks) to complete inflation with Paul's 12 volt compressor. Dan, Jim and Paul rode ahead another 5 miles, then back to the parking lot. It started raining hard before these three riders got back to camp and then rained for another hour ( total 1.46" of rain for the day). Wet and hungry we went in and had lunch at the casino. On the way back to the trailer Lee put his last three quarters in a slot and hit for 90 quarters ($22.50).
It was getting late, but we still wanted to get in a little more riding before the sun went down. We rode up a canyon to the north of the power line trail. The wash was not dry! We kept crossing the water as we progressed up the canyon. At times the water was 18" deep. Dan found a small, but deep, hole that required three of us to lift his rear wheel out of. It was starting to get dark so we returned to the hotel. We all went casino hopping after dinner.

Day Three-Monday- Arizona side - 108 miles

We rode up Silver Creek Road for a couple of miles then up Silver Creek Wash, until we ran into "Wilderness - No Entry" signs by the BLM. We followed a trail south, with all the washes and trails to the east closed by the BLM. The trail diminished to a burro trail, then disappeared altogether. We kept going south in hopes of crossing Silver Creek Road. The terrain was very rough with lots of sharp rocks and cactus. The bottom of the ravines had many large boulders. Jim scouted ahead several times. A ride to the top of one ridge let us know that, that was not the way out. We did not want to retrace our steps, as we had gone through some pretty rough sections, but we kept getting farther and farther into virgin territory. Another scouting venture by Jim turned out to be successful and we found Silver Creek road.
We had lunch in Oatman, Arizona, an old gold mining town along old Route 66. Now it's a tourist trap complete with gift shops and a staged gunfight on Main Street. We left town and raced on the pavement to Sitzgrave Pass. Dan and Lee raced ahead and pulled off at the pass. Steve never saw them and kept on going down the other side. After the rest of us gathered up and took a few pictures, we took off after Steve. Lee and Dan raced ahead again going down the other side of the mountain. When backing the throttle off going into corners, the engines would backfire due to the thin air at 3,500 feet. We met Steve about half way to the valley. We rode down into Golden Valley then took a road to the north looking for Coal Slurry Pass.
We stopped and asked a young man at a "Ranch", where Coal Slurry Pass was. I use the term Ranch loosely as it was just a shack with no power and some fencing around it. It was just north of a power line that ran over the mountain range. We ran Coal Slurry Pass toward the Colorado River into Bullhead City, then crossed over into Nevada.
After gassing up in Laughlin we headed north up a trail several miles west of Lake Mohave. We ran down several trails toward the lake. One stopped at a drop off, that was a water fall this year. The next one took us around to the other side of the same drop off. We finally made it to the lake, only to find the water so high it flooded much of the camping area. We found Duane, a cook from the Golden Nugget, who had almost burned up the clutch in his small pickup, trying to get out of the soft sand near the water's edge where he had gone to fish. We all helped push him out. He offered a couple of beers and complimentary meal tickets at the Golden Nugget. We took him up on a couple of beers, but never saw him again.

Day Four-Tuesday - 110 miles

We rode the power line to Goffs. Lee went over the handle bars after dropping the front wheel (slow) into a three foot deepwashout that was only inches deep a few days ago. After we got over the mountain range, we followed the power line, straight as an arrow, for many miles. Lee used a call box where the trail crossed a highway, to verify we were on the right trail. When we got to Goffs, we found the restaurant/gas station was closed on Tuesdays. Besides, the gas pumps were broken. It's a good thing we had our extra gasoline.
Leaving Goffs, we rode the pavement for several miles, then followed a fence row on the right until it ended and the wash opened up. We rode the wash for about 25 miles, past highway 95, to Needles road. We rode north for a ways then onto a Mohave Indian reservation. (Note 2005: Current site of Avi Casino) We were trying to find the "Dunes" area but were unsuccessful. Scout Jim, checked out an area that looked like a wet swamp. He found the road on the other side and we all followed. It sure looked nasty, but there was lots of tall grass laid down and plenty of traction. We followed this road along the river back to Needles Road, then back to Laughlin.
Between the three half-gallon enduro jugs with gas and Jim's 5 gallon gas tank, we arrived at the gas station in Laughlin with only about 1 1/2 gallons total between the five of us. We never would have made it back without the extra gasoline.
After washing our bikes at a quarter car wash in Bullhead City, we rode along the power line, north to highway 68, then back to the hotel.

Day Five-Wednesday - Arizona side - 60 miles

We road the Cross Mountain trail to the Telephone Line Pass trail. Jim and Dan did some hill climbing to the top of the pass. We saw two large mule deer (4 & 8 points.) near the top. We followed a trail on the east side of the pass to a power line trail and followed this trail west, over the pass, to some mines. We then went back to the top of the pass and followed a beautiful ridge trail, overlooking both sides of this range of mountains, past Coal Slurry Pass. We took the next trail to the west, made a right turn and ended up at the beginning of Secret Pass.
We rode past two couples just past the entrance to Secret Pass. One of the girls had been skinny dipping and was laying in the bushes covered with just a shirt. As we rode down a stream past them, Dan our last rider, heard them all laughing. He looked back to see the girl "Flash" him. He gets all the luck!
Farther down into the Secret Pass area, we stopped and hiked up to a cave with pictographs on the wall. Leaving this area, we made a left at a "Y" in the trail and worked our way down to the upper end of the Narrows Canyon. We came to a 5'-6' drop off (water falls this year). Lee thought this was the dead end that can be walked up, but not ridden up, when coming from the other end of the canyon. He scouted ahead about 100 yard and assured everyone that, this was indeed the case. We placed some large rocks into a depression at the bottom of the water fall and smaller rocks into the narrow slit in the back of the water fall, so we could maneuver the bikes down the drop off. After “Bulldogging” all five bikes down the water fall we rode ahead about a half mile until we came to a 20' drop off. Narrows Canyon was just beyond. Next time we send Jim to scout ahead. If only we had enough rope......
Now we had to retrace our steps and man-handle the bikes up the drop off we just come down. Going back and following a trail south of this one we crossed the back side of a Wilderness - No Entry sign as we got to a cross mountain trail. We met a man from British Columbia hiking in this area. Note: Secret Pass is just north of Pyramid Rock. We followed the cross mountain trail to Silver Creek Road, then back to the hotel. We only rode 60 miles today but sure got lots of exercise

Day Six-Thursday - Nevada side- 98 miles

We started out following the power line trail north of the one to Goffs. We missed the trail and started up the canyon we had ridden up just after the rain on Day Two. Where the water had previously cut 6" banks into the sand, today there were 2'-3' banks and the water was still pouring out of the mountain. We retraced our steps, picked up the power line trail over the range, rode past the highway, had lunch and gassed up in CalNevAri. The waitress told us she knew Jerry. She said many of the waitresses won't wait on him. She said, "The EMT's that carried him out of the desert when he crashed in 1989 said, He is the most thankless person they have ever met & they wished they had left him there to die”. Wow!!!
A policeman gave us directions on how to pick up the power line trail that took us to Fort Piautte. We started to forge ahead from the fort but the trail quickly died out. We followed the trail back, crossed the power line (This is now Mohave Trail) and followed it back to the Needles Road. Somewhere along this trail is an area with more Indian writings, but we were unable to find it. As we neared the river the trail became a smooth wash. At times our speed picked up to 70+ m.p.h.. While Dan was leading, he flew down the trail and a car flashed by. He was unable to stop in time and blew across the highway. The highway came on us so suddenly, it was just sheer luck there was no traffic when he crossed.
We followed this trail until we came to the gravel road along the Colorado River (in the Indian Reservation). Heading south we found the "Dunes" area. We rode past an Indian who was giving us the "Thumbs Up" sign, or something. We played around the Dunes area while the Indian watched us from his truck. After a while, we decided we probably ought to get the heck out of there. We rode back to the parking lot and loaded up the bikes for the trip home.
For the trip back we took the front wheel off of Jim's bike and put it up in the front of the trailer. The truck drove like a charm and the weather was perfect on the return trip. Dan's alter ego kept asking the truckers on the CB, where he could find some "White Chick". They told him many things, but not what he was asking. We left Laughlin about 9:15 a.m. E.S.T. (6:15 local time) and Lee arrived home, after unloading at both Dan's (Highland) and Jim's (Utica) at 10:25 E.S.T., 37 hours and 10 minutes later.