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Thanksgiving Week Sport Touring 2005 |
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Written by Daniel Hienzsch
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Wednesday, 14 May 2008 |
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Page 5 of 5
Saturday, November 26
Well, Exeter, CA isn't exactly the garden spot of Ceti Alpha 5, but it did put me 20 further miles down the road a piece. The Best Western was clean, simple and fairly boring but definitely dry and restful. I took a couple of aspirin to ward off what I suspected was going to be the little shoulder demon that tries to claw his way under my right shoulder blade if I ride too tense and got on the road to continue the trip. I had ultimately decided not to quit; I wanted to give it a shot. I would take back roads from the central valley over to Lake Isabella, then from the lake, I would take a road known as "Caliente-Bodfish" because 1) it had been recommended to me and 2) come on! It's called Caliente-Bodfish! How do you NOT ride that? Caliente-Bodfish ends just a little bit north of Tehachapi on CA58 so I would stay there for the night and head home on Sunday.
 More Misty Madness
I got to the junction of Yokohl and CA190 and decided to stick it out, turning left and heading east again towards Camp Wishon and into the Giant Sequoia National Monument.
Continued slow and technical riding; cold and wet conditions. Not the sort of stuff you put on a postcard and mail to all your friends to make them jealous. Onwards and upwards into the National Monument although with all the moisture, I never saw any big trees to speak of. Just curve after curve with grey mist covering what must have been a crazy drop off to the west.
You know what though, you never can tell when riding in these mountains. One minute you're slogging along on mist greasy blacktop and then you come around a corner into brilliant sunshine and blued steel skies that look like they've been swept clean just for you. Somewhere around Quaking Aspen, where CA190 officially becomes the Western Divide Highway, I made it through some pass and had my sunshine ticket punched because I went from 15' visibility to views that were downright stunning. Only 60 miles into the day and in an instant you could see across five mountain ranges at a time, each seeming to stack up right against the next. Pulling into a turnout for a snack break I saw huge rock formations bulging out of blankets of pine trees on the left and ridges of Sierra Nevada peaks marching off into the distance on my right; the sunlight warmed me up, drying out my armor and turned my windbreaker into a mini-sauna. You revel in it, standing on the edge of some majestic precipice in the tranquil quiet of a road that is left to you and you alone. It was a welcome respite from the previous day of shoulder grinding misery.
 The Needles
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 Horse Canyon
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 Dome Rock
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 Clouds Rolling In
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But in the midst of my reverie, I noticed that the advance of the clouds where being slowed by the mountains behind me, but were not being halted in their march dutifully eastwards. Curls of mist where pushing over the peaks above me, swirling like spindrift before evaporating in the direct sunlight. Each minute, the mist advanced a little further and a little further until it ceased being mist and became true cloud. The time had come to end my break and move on before I became enveloped in precipitation again.
At a "T" intersection I headed east again (the roads all seem to head east and then bend south) towards Johnsondale and then further to Lake Isabella. The landscape along the Kern River Highway reminded me a bit of the Alabama Hills outside Lone Pine farther up CA395. The same brown rounded rocks strewn all over creation. This time though, it came with a beautiful river, the sort you always inner tube down in your childhood, the Kern River to be exact, wending it's way down the middle of the valley towards the lake.  Banks of the Kern River
Beautiful riding, clean roads and no wetness. I opened it up a little and laced together some apexes along the river road as I pursued the water to its conclusion. This place must be packed with campers and fly fisherman in the summer.
I pulled over at a gas station in the city of Wofford Heights at the northern tip of the lake. As I was tanking up, a guy pulled in on a Kawasaki Concourse and we swapped notes on where to go from here. He had just come across from Death Valley on CA178 and said that we were essentially sitting in the only patch of sunshine to be had in Southern California, everywhere else was socked in. He had originally intended to do the reverse of what I had just done but I told him that it was looking dangerous the farther back up the river you went and we both decided that we'd had enough. He was going back to Fresno and I was going back home.
In the end, the decision wasn't hard. Riding through miserable conditions just for the sake of riding in miserable conditions doesn't seem like my style. I left Caliente-Bodfish for another day and took CA178 to Bakersfield. I swear this road should be blocked off on weekends and dedicated entirely to the use of motorcycles. When you're not accosted by RV's and pickup trucks, this road is beautifully squirrely. Sinuous curves, although some blind and obviously all at risk for sand and gravel, gyrate through an intensely narrow canyon carved out by the other end of the Kern River. The canyon walls are steep, probably at about a 70 degree angle to the valley floor and are covered in boulders just waiting to crash down into the river with their brethren. It's an absolute hoot to ride, when done correctly. It wasn't raining yet, although it was threatening everywhere I looked. So I got out of the canyon as soon as my three little cylinders would carry me and finally got back to official civilization in the form of Bakersfield. I stopped at a little pizza shop and had a couple of slices and a coke and talked to the waitresses for a while.
I washed up a bit, went outside and mounted up and rode over to CA99 to head over the Grapevine and into Los Angeles. Mission … well… not really aborted... let's just call it Mission Abbreviated.
I got to see all the parks that I wanted, albeit for the last few "seeing" was defined as 15 to 20 foot visibility through a mist streaked piece of shatter resistant plastic. I got to those places though, successfully.
I rode my 1,000 + miles; I rode through hell frozen over. I was helped out by someone that had no reason to help me other than basic goodness. I nearly froze my ass off. I asked for something a little adventurous for my birthday, and got what I asked for, whether I was ready for it, or not. Turned out I was.
 Goodbye!
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 03 February 2009 )
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