Travel Log Archive

July 11 - 14, 2008 Rye Patch, Gerlach and Jungo Road - Pt 2

Similar to my preparation for riding the Haul Road, in Alaska in ’06, I had read everything I could get my hands on about motorcycling on Jungo Road prior to this trip. Of course, most any trip interesting enough to have been written about is likely so because it includes adversity so most of what I read was not happy news. Stories of crashes, injuries, Life Flight helicopter rides, etc. had not given me a warm fuzzy. Now we were here and the dust was starting to fly for real. I was pumped. Mark where the pavement ends Among the most helpful pieces that I read was Jim Owen’s excellent write up about his Jungo ride in ’06 - (read page 2) According to Jim, the first half out of Winnemucca is rather good gravel road, hard packed and reasonably easy to navigate. We found this to be true and really enjoyed this stretch. With relatively little scenery competing for my attention, I could focus on all of the little obstacles in my path and trying to keep Mark within sight. We had agreed we’d stop more often for photos and such on this first section. My thought was if I was struggling in the second, more difficult section I wasn’t likely to be in the mood for picture taking. Much like Jim’s ride, in about an hour we were approaching the sulfur mine which signified the end of the “easy” portion. I felt good about this as we had stopped several times for pics and a water break. I didn’t feel quite as smug once I remembered that Jim had accomplished this same time on a BMW R1150RT touring bike, fully loaded for a week long rally whereas I was on a much lighter bike, modified especially for this type of road conditions. This led to the realization that, without me slowing him down, Mark could likely have reached this same point in about half an hour. Fortunately, we weren’t in any hurry and had lots of time to accomplish this ride. After a quick photo stop at the mine, we were off and truly riding into the unknown. The conditions definitely changed for the worse from here. Because the section from the mine to Winnemucca was used by the mining company trucks and employees, it was at least watered down a bit to help control dust and seemed to have been graded at some point recently. West of the mine was a different story as the road deteriorated rapidly. To make it even harder on me, this was where the scenery improved immensely. We could really see the desert now with only a railroad track and a couple of power line poles to spoil the prehistoric look and feel of the place. With the surrounding beauty now vying for my attentions, the worsening road conditions and trying to stay clear of Mark’s dust cloud, this ride had suddenly become the adventure that I had expected. At times, we were riding through silt that might be hard packed or it might be a couple inches deep, with no real visual clues to tell the difference. Where there was gravel, it was generally pretty soft where it had piled up in between the tire tracks. The aim was to stay in a hard packed tire track which was sometimes difficult. There were lots of medium sized rocks in our path that looked big enough to do some wheel damage if struck just right. The alternative was to change to the other track which, of course meant riding through the soft, deep stuff crossing over. This really wasn’t too difficult with our tire pressures lowered as they were. I just had to remind myself to sit back, loosen my grip a bit and give it a little throttle going in. The really good news was that we never encountered the sections of deep, soft sand that I had read about. I was led to believe by other ride reports that there would be areas in which we would have to plow/paddle/walk through and that there may not be much warning. Thankfully, this was not our experience. That’s not to say that it was easy but we didn’t have any drama at all. To be honest, Mark could probably have ridden the whole way at 65 mph or more but he waited for me. Try as I might, I never really got comfortable above about 45. Any faster and I didn’t feel as though I could make the hundreds of tiny course corrections required to miss most of the hazards like stones, holes, etc. Before long we could see Gerlach in the distance and we knew that we were nearing paved roads again. With one more stop for photographs, we said “goodbye” to Jungo Road. Back on the pavement Though we had a small air compressor with us, we decided to just ride the 2 or 3 miles into Gerlach and use gas station air to re-inflate our tires. We weren’t sure where Rod and Jeff were but our focus was on topping off our gas tanks and securing the use of an air hose. No sooner had my gas pump shut off when I heard Mark exclaim, “Well, look who’s here!” I looked up in time to see two familiar bikes rounding the bend into town. We hadn’t been there 10 minutes when those guys showed up. As our Pastor is fond of saying, God is good all the time. After our little reunion was over, our next task was to find Bruno’s. This proved to be no problem as it’s right on the highway through town. I had seen photos of Bruno’s Country Club, Motel, Café, Casino and Saloon lots of times before so I almost felt as if I’d already been there. Although it was 12:30 on a Sunday afternoon, the four of us doubled the crowd in Bruno’s when we entered. In spite of the fact that none of us had ever set foot in the place, no menus were necessary as we sat down. I had been convinced, and had since convinced the others, that there was only one thing to order here – ravioli. At $13.50 a plate, (I hadn’t even looked at the price before ordering), it’s not exactly Chef-Boyardee but once it arrives, you really don’t think about the price. On a large plate are 6 huge, homemade raviolis, cooked to perfection, which are stuffed with meat filling and drenched in very tasty marinara sauce. There are two slices of toasted bread that, to be honest, were a bit hard for my taste. The bread did not dampen my enthusiasm, though and I can say without hesitation that this is the best ravioli I have ever had the pleasure of devouring. Here it is! Forgive the low rez cell phone photo. I was reluctant to go out to the bike for my real camera and leave my plate with the other three. After lunch the four of us, stuffed full of meat and pasta, headed out of town to visit the IBA memorial site. I wasn’t sure exactly where it was but our waitress had been kind enough to direct us and soon we were turning off the highway onto a dirt road that took us up towards the site. This is another place that I’ve seen so many pictures of that I recognized it right away. Here are hand painted stones with the names of legendary riders in the long distance community that have passed away, monuments to past winners of the Iron Butt Rally, commemorations of various feats of endurance riding and some whimsical messages left by other visitors to the site. If you have no interest in long distance motorcycling then you probably have no interest in this site, and that’s okay. It’s not holy or sacred to me, it’s just something I’ve long wanted to see for myself. With plenty more pictures taken, it was time to head back to the highway and on toward California. NV-447 turns northwest out of Gerlach toward Cedarville and Alturas, California. It goes up and over Cedar Pass before intersecting with US-395. Most of the highway on the Nevada side is in poor shape with patches, potholes, crumbling surfaces and tar snakes everywhere. Still, it takes you through the desert and the surroundings are worth seeing. The difference is striking, however, in the road conditions upon crossing into California. Cedar Pass is a very nice ride in the daylight. It peaks at 6300 feet and has all of the twistiness of most mountain pass roads. At US-395 we turned south for 6 miles to our night’s stop, Alturas, CA. Here, we stumbled onto a very good, old fashioned hamburger stand, Harold’s Frosty Drive-In. They were 3 minutes from closing when Jeff and I walked in but the guy there stayed and made 4 burgers, 4 milkshakes and 2 orders of tasty french fries for us to take back to our motel rooms to be consumed by the four of us. Everything was excellent and we really appreciated them working overtime for us. We had a bit of a long day ahead of us as Monday began. It was around 650 miles to home the way we were routing it and we had one more dam to photograph. We left Alturas at 6 AM, heading north to Lakeview, Oregon. We saw several deer along the way including one huge buck. At Lakeview we gassed up and asked the attendant about a good place to eat. He directed us back through town to a place called the Dinner Bell. This guy knew what he was talking about as the Dinner Bell had awesome homemade bread which made for equally awesome French toast. It is definitely worth a return trip. From Lakeview, we stayed on US-395 to Valley Falls, OR where we veered left onto OR-31 and headed northwest toward La Pine, OR. I had been on this stretch of road before and remembered it as being pretty entertaining. It wasn’t as twisty as I had remembered but it was still enjoyable. The road passes by Summer Lake, a mostly dry lakebed that is rather picturesque. While riding along we were treated to a small cattle drive. Apparently, a local rancher had to move several dozen head of cattle up the road and, even though most of them lumbered submissively along the shoulder, a few were feeling belligerent and wandered out onto the highway. I wanted to stop and take some photos but I wasn’t sure that I wanted to give the rebel cows that clean of a shot at me so I sped on by. All too soon, OR-31 terminates at US-97 just south of La Pine. Once on 97, we rode north toward Bend and another gas stop. From Bend, we were looking for the turn off to Round Butte Dam through Culver. Round Butte Dam is on Lake Billy Chinook, just west of Madras, OR. It’s really quite a beautiful setting. We stayed there quite a while, taking pictures and getting information from the park attendant. Eventually, hunger drove us out of the park and onward to Madras. Lake Billy Chinook Madras is home to the Original Burger Works, a local hamburger drive in that makes great burgers and even better milkshakes. Their marionberry and strawberry shakes are made only with fresh fruit and they are a real treat. The sign on the sidewalk out front reads, “Next real burgers, Texas.” They aren’t too far wrong on that. From Madras, the trip was really just about getting home. It had already been a full day and we had another 4 or 5 hours to go. We rode up US-97, fighting the usual stiff cross winds, into Washington and gassed up at Goldendale. We continued over Satus Pass and got on I-82 at Toppenish. Once in Yakima, we turned to go onto US-12 and WA-410 to return to Enumclaw over Chinook Pass. We stopped one last time for gas in Enumclaw and to say our farewells. The final mileage was 1790, barely 120 of that on Interstates for the Jungo pair. It’s a beautiful thing when there are nearly as many unpaved miles as there are Interstate miles. It was a trip full of wonderful motorcycle roads, excellent food, great fellowship and long lasting memories.